alabaster
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Posts posted by alabaster
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Last year at Tokyo Anime Festival, we met an Otakon member who lived in North Dakota (or possibly some similarly midwestern locale).
Finding a con member in Tokyo to begin with is odd enough, but to have them be from 2500 miles away.....
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panels are 90 minutes long?
Last year we had a mix -- most panels fit into a one-hour slot (so a 50 minute panel); a few panels and industry events went longer. I think Mer's comment was just giving an example.
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I'll let Panels Czar answer the more detailed questions, but there are a few general amenities that are standard in all rooms, and a few rules of thumb that may be helpful until he gets here -- since I have to provide this same info to industry and guests.
* Typically, all our panel rooms have microphones, screen, table, 4 or more chairs. Easels and big paper pads are usually available on request.
* The mics generally are FIXED and can't be moved, though sometimes the bigger rooms have wireless mics. Typically you won't see a wireless microphone in a room that doesn't have a sound tech in it, because otherwise the wireless mics walk.
* Each room's mixing board typically has standard RCA (red and white) audio cable input and SVGA and RCA (yellow) video input, but NOT necessarily VGA or any of the HD-level stuff. If you have special hookup or tech needs, let the panels people know WELL in advance.
* There are usually standard cables on hand, but I STRONGLY suggest you BRING YOUR OWN AS WELL. If you bring the standard cables (suggest 6-foot length rather than 3-foot, however) you'd use at home to hook up, you should be okay.
* I have a traveling cable/connector kit in a heavy-duty plastic freezer bag that contains all the video/audio out cables and adapters I typically might need. Make sure you have tags on your own cables, however -- they tend to walk. (Mine have tags with my name on them, but something as simple as a bit of colored tape can suffice.)
* Most big hotels have exclusive catering contracts, and if not with Aramark, then with their own catering department. I would not plan on the Hilton being handled any differently from the BCC when it comes to food and drink (doubtful they'll check bags or forbid you walking in with a soft drink -- just clean up after yourself!). And of course, the tidier and more discreet people are, the less likely they are to be strict. (If food and drink become a problem for them, it'll become a problem for everyone.) We should have more official answers on that stuff soon but my hope is that things will be pretty standard across the board.
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I'm actually in a pretty good place, financially speaking. My job is stable, I bought a house I can afford, and I don't carry any large amounts of credit card debt. I have, however, already invested a lot of time and money into my AA table, so I'll be there come hell or high water.
(I did, however, hear a rumor of a rumor that Aramark is going out of business - granted, absolutely no news stories have been posted on the interwebs, but I wonder what that would mean for the con? Source: co-worker's aunt-in-law is an accountant for Aramark; so any information I know is from the Smalltimore grapevine)
I don't see it happening, honestly.
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The Sheraton City Center block has opened and it is $140 a night. This is according to the Hotel Reservations site. It is also the only one with rooms available on more than Saturday night. People started booking the day after Otakon rooms for last year.
Now Keep in mind that this hotel is 3-4 blocks up the hill... not a bad hotel just a bit of tiring to get too
;It's the former Wyndham, if that helps anyone.
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Yes you can have more than two panelists; however, only two will be eligible for panelist benefits.
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It's about whether we can get appropriate permission from whoever holds the rights. In some cases, we can go direct to the source if the property doesn't have a US distributor. For example, one of our prior guests, Mr Suwa of YTV, is a producer for the Yatterman series, and he may be able to direct us to the correct person to get permission to show the movie.
It's fair to say that our policy has evolved regarding unlicensed properties -- as the legal situation has evolved, so has our relationship with various industry players, and so has the amount of attention paid by Japan.
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I've *never* understood the mad rush for the dealers room, nor the willingness to wait in a line for 3 hours and miss out on actual programming for no earthly reason.
When I go to cons, I like to pick my badge up as early as I can -- so I can understand the pre-reg line, or rather I could if *every* year it hadn't been pretty much emptied after the first few hours. It is undeniable that you could simply show up at 7pm and not have to wait long, if at all, to pick up your badge. Why waste so much of your day?
Then there's the folks who will sit up all night watching anime or playing games in their rooms, then wander around exhausted at the show they PAID for, claiming to be bored. Well DUH.
Spend a little of your downtime reading the materials we give you so you don't wander around clueless and lost. Take the time to SLEEP and EAT and DRINK WATER.
You make your own convention experience.
Come to the con for the stuff you CAN'T do anywhere else or at any other time.
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If it's any consolation, gas prices are a HUGE part of my worry every year. When gas doubles in price, it affects all the airfare for guests, the cost of ground transportation, even food prices. But when you fly 20-30 people in from Japan, a 25% increase is pretty painful.
A few days ago I heard ANA was cutting their fuel surcharges in April. So if I wanted to fly from DC to Tokyo in June, it would cost me $200 less than it did in January. That's for economy class. For business and first, I imagine the discount must be huge. And that times ten means you're probably quite happy right now.
(Side note: ANA is a really awesome airline and they're one of only two airlines that fly direct DC-Tokyo. Try them sometime.)
IIRC the fuel surcharge for ANA biz class was about $350 -- so not *quite* as much as you'd think.
The surcharge kicked in last year *after* we'd budgeted, and we knew it was going away this year.
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If it's any consolation, gas prices are a HUGE part of my worry every year. When gas doubles in price, it affects all the airfare for guests, the cost of ground transportation, even food prices. But when you fly 20-30 people in from Japan, a 25% increase is pretty painful.
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Isn't it funny how we wait basically 11 months for 3 days of fun?
Funny is when you work your butt off for 11 months, then work like a madman for a solid week, to bring other people 3 days of fun, and you don't get to see it yourself.
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There's a Superfresh on Charles Street, about six blocks or so north of the convention center.
There's also a Whole Foods over by the Pier 6/Marriott area.
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Yup, sounds like the basic arguments have been laid out:
1. In most cases lines are not based on seating limits, but rather on attendee behavior that seems immune to every effort to change it. Call it herd instinct.
2. We have occasionally ticketed or stickered certain events (concerts), but we've only used that approach when we expected demand to outpace supply by a significant amount. And that didn't prevent people lining up, as the thousands of people who waited for L'Arc know full well. What is perhaps less well known is that at least 2,000 more people could have fit in the Arena for the biggest event we've ever held there (L'Arc). Again, number of available seats isn't the problem.
3. The problem with many of your suggestions is that while they'd probably work great for a smaller con, they simply don't scale very well, at least not for a con our size. There are approaches that work quite well for smaller cons that just *don't* work for us. One con I know numbers every badge, and calls people for autographs by badge number. That worked for years but doesn't these days because a huge crowd forms near where the official line starts, full of people hovering until their number comes up.
4. There are a few tricks we could try, but they'd require going to a single badge design, and would slow down registration pickup significantly -- not really a viable approach for us. Adding *anything* to registration process would be disastrous and would cause hundreds of people to wait in line before they even get in.
5. We rarely turn people away, but frequently people change plans. Tickets that don't cost anything are often valueless in the long run, because there aren't any consequences if they decide to play more HALO or go get dinner instead of showing up. And setting up a ticket distribution point eats up staffers.
As an organization, we've prioritized certain things -- and making sure everyone has a fair shot at premium events, regardless of money, is one of the things we've prioritized. Unlike some cons, we don't sell you premium seating at our concerts for a hefty sum. The only way you get a "fast pass" at Autographings or a guaranteed seat for a particular guest is to win it -- usually by proving your fandom in some way.
Pre-printed badges just aren't going to happen, period. There are way too many pitfalls in that approach -- unless we went to a single design.
Personally? I wouldn't mind us going to the single design and a printable badge. but shifting to that approach would be costly, too.
The Larc stickering was a completely different thing. It didn't give you any certain seat or group. It was only there way to make sure that they didn't overpack the room. You still had to wait in line.Specifically, it was designed so that we wouldn't have people standing in line if they had no chance of attending. (We do something similar at Autographings -- if you don't get a pass from us, there's virtually no chance you'll get an autograph. People hang around just in case anyway.)
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Well, wait for the rules before you give up!
I merely mean there's a reason why music videos in general don't tend to be 6+ minutes. Not the otaku short attention span, necessarily, just the expectations of the form.
I always thought the 6 minute rule was due to time constraint issues, so when you just said the audience would be bored, it totally blew me away. I also felt like it was kinda saying "Well you can't make a good AMV that will keep the audience entertained for 6 minutes." And yet...don't some of those AMV Hell videos go well over 6 minutes and otaku just love those. Your response was just very shocking to me. The only time I was bored during AMVs was in 2005, when every other AMV was Naruto, and they seemed to use the same scenes too. Lol. But the first AMV I submitted in 2006 was nearly 6 minutes long (5:45) and I have yet to receive any criticism about it, and I think the only reason it didn't make it into the finals was because it had live action footage with the anime (so I guess it was automatically disqualified, but I wish I could know if that was the reason for sure). So I know from personal experience that as long as you choose a great song, and have a great video to go with it, the audience won't be bored.
A rule I follow is "don't take offense if there is an alternative". It's a fact that music videos, and songs, tend to be less than five minutes as a rule -- that's been true since MTV launched. It's also a fact that exceptions to the rule exist -- THRILLER being one big one. (I'm also a big fan of the rare extended version of A-Ha's "Take on me", still one of the best music videos ever made.) Every artist of course believes that their creation is the exception -- but there's also a lot of craft and creativity that goes into meeting the guidelines, and contests need structure.
Successful media usually grabs your attention immediately and holds it -- but doesn't demand massive commitment. AMVs are snapshots of pop culture at any given time, and no matter how well crafted a video is, eventually people will get bored of NARUTO or RANMA, or sick of Coldplay and Fallout Boy and Creed. By its nature, pop culture is pretty ephemeral.
Of course, people *will* sit still for awesome stuff sometimes. But tastes vary - how many people thought RETURN OF THE KING was too short? Many thought it was too long, but I prefer the extended edition myself. But most movies are 1.5-2 hrs long because that's the most successful length for movies.
I suspect that the length thing is also a boon to the AMV review team, because even if your video is awesome at 6 minutes, there will be many more that are just crap on a screen with a song that sucks -- and who wants six minutes of that?
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Well, wait for the rules before you give up!
I merely mean there's a reason why music videos in general don't tend to be 6+ minutes. Not the otaku short attention span, necessarily, just the expectations of the form.
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Is it safe to assume that the AMV still has to be under 6 minutes? >.>
Rules will appear eventually, but I'd say that the *audience* is likely to fall asleep long before you hit six minutes.....
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Just so I'm sure: there's no attendance cap, right?
We do not forsee the need for an attendance cap this year. Last year we were able to handle 26,000 people pretty well. This year we have a bit more space. Now if 50,000 people pre-register before April... that's a different situation.
If we get even half that many in pre-reg, I want a budget increase.
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In 2007 we lost the arena to a concert (not ours for a change), which forced us to rearrange the layout of the BCC. We kept that layout because it worked better.
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Hey! I cosplayed as the L with all of the candy, chess, and the poster... I was just wondering if anyone had my pics... I know its been a while but Ive been busy lol. So if anyone got pics of me, ESPECIALLY the people who took my pic while I was asleep for some reason... please post me links <33333
I remember *seeing* you -- don't remember if I had my camera with me. Great job on that, BTW.
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At the moment, there isn't a need for an attendance cap, as we handled 26,000+ people pretty well last year, and the fire marshall didn't have any issues with us. Changes in the layout and flow of traffic within the building helped considerably, and of course now we have an entire attached hotel to absorb some of the overflow. I suspect we'll have to review things again if the Arena goes away (as that pulls about 25% of our attendees out of the building for several hours during saturday prime time), but I don't see the cap coming back.
However, things can change, so i doubt that we'll say "never" as an organization -- just that, at the moment, it doesn't look likely.
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Not me. I try to ensure that I get, at best, a minimal refund of a few hundred bucks.
But then, I am a homeowner and I also just sneaked into another tax bracket. I'm rather dreading tax time.
I'm likely missing something due to my inexperience with doing my own taxes, but why would you want a minimal refund?
Why? Because I'd rather *I* had the use of my money than the government.
When you're someone else's dependent, or barely eking out a living doing retail slave or similar entry-level jobs, and making (if you're lucky) enough to live on, it's different. I spent a long time living paycheck to paycheck myself. In those circumstances, the tax refund is often used like an automatic savings account.
When you're out on your own and you make enough money that you're no longer living paycheck-to-paycheck, and especially if you itemize deductions, that makes a LOT less sense. I'd rather invest it, or keep it as cash. Even at half a percent in a savings account, it's still working for you rather than sitting there in the government's hands. And in certain cases, a big refund can actually wind up incurring a penalty.
Not that I'm anti government, or even anti tax. I am happy to pay my fair share, and I make decent money so it's not a paltry sum.
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Not me. I try to ensure that I get, at best, a minimal refund of a few hundred bucks.
But then, I am a homeowner and I also just sneaked into another tax bracket. I'm rather dreading tax time.
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The news feed on the right side of the home page lists the newest stuff first, and older items drop off. You can see all the old news at the archive page.
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Seeing "I guess I better get a job" from folks in this forum just breaks my brain. Do kids today get THAT much help from Mummy and Daddy, that their only reason for being employed is to come to Otakon?
I've had at least a part time job since I was fourteen. From a few months after college until about 8 years ago, I typically had a full-time AND a part-time job. And while I was in college, I had a campus job AND as many as two off-campus jobs at various points.
My parents couldn't afford to give me a free ride for anything (I paid my own car insurance and gas and whatnot from the point at which I started earning money, and took out loans to supplement my college grants and scholarships). And starting my sophomore year in college, I lived off campus in an apartment -- while the folks paid most of the costs, my paycheck didn't just pay for fun stuff, it went for daily necessities. I exhausted all my savings in my freshman year.
And keep in mind, folks, that when I went to college, owning a computer was a rare luxury; I was the second person I knew to own a CD player or VCR. You had to BUY albums and videotapes, and they cost about the same in 1990 as they do now, but a CD player or VCR was at least 200 bucks. You had to pay for entertainment and didn't have as broad a selection. On the flip side, there was no Starbucks every five feet to suck away our cash.
So when I seem unsympathetic about money issues, it's because I've had to work my whole life for my little luxuries, and I don't take them for granted. Without intending any malice here, if you are in college and don't have some sort of job, you are spoiled. (And yes, I'll stand by that statement.)
Possible change in Dance - We want your opinion!
in Otakon 2009
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Yup, that's what I was saying earlier -- the one buried in the main hotel is bigger, but more likely to have issues. The one in the in-between building is almost ideal, but until you and I touched base this week, I was under the impression it had been booked by someone else.
Sound baffling is possible with sufficient pipe-and-drape.