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so yeah.. it seems that the prices of cons everywhere in general are going up but for some reason the time duration is going down....

3pm for end of con? what's with that? I can easily see 5pm... but 3pm was really really early for a con to end..

any reason why?

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It's the same time we've always ended programming on Sunday, as far as I know. It's so our staff can break down and pack up the con, eat dinner, and go to sleep before traveling home on Monday to get back to their real jobs. :D

Most 3-day anime conventions do have a lighter programming schedule on Sunday for that reason. Also, a lot of attendees check out of their hotels around noon on Sunday and go home.

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so yeah.. it seems that the prices of cons everywhere in general are going up but for some reason the time duration is going down....

3pm for end of con? what's with that? I can easily see 5pm... but 3pm was really really early for a con to end..

any reason why?

Hi!

It's because we have jobs to go to, for one thing. Some of us take an extra day of vacation already to take care of the last little things on Monday that can't be done by the regular staff. Some start on Wednesday or earlier. I start on Thursday morning.

Many of our staff leave after tear down to go home so they can go back to work on Monday. We come from many states, some of our staff have to get on a plane to go home, some drive for hours.

And having been at the BCC at 10:30 p.m. closing it down (that was 20020, and that was when we closed at 3 p.m. (our closing time for as long as I can remember), I really don't want to stay any later.

Then, too, if we keep the building open later, and don't get it closed before midnight, we have overrun our contract. We pay a lot of money for each day we're in the BCC. It's best if we don't increase that cost, which would have to be passed on to the membership.

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so yeah.. it seems that the prices of cons everywhere in general are going up but for some reason the time duration is going down....

3pm for end of con? what's with that? I can easily see 5pm... but 3pm was really really early for a con to end..

any reason why?

Hi!

It's because we have jobs to go to, for one thing. Some of us take an extra day of vacation already to take care of the last little things on Monday that can't be done by the regular staff. Some start on Wednesday or earlier. I start on Thursday morning.

Many of our staff leave after tear down to go home so they can go back to work on Monday. We come from many states, some of our staff have to get on a plane to go home, some drive for hours.

And having been at the BCC at 10:30 p.m. closing it down (that was 20020, and that was when we closed at 3 p.m. (our closing time for as long as I can remember), I really don't want to stay any later.

Then, too, if we keep the building open later, and don't get it closed before midnight, we have overrun our contract. We pay a lot of money for each day we're in the BCC. It's best if we don't increase that cost, which would have to be passed on to the membership.

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so yeah.. it seems that the prices of cons everywhere in general are going up but for some reason the time duration is going down....

3pm for end of con? what's with that? I can easily see 5pm... but 3pm was really really early for a con to end..

any reason why?

Hi!

It's because we have jobs to go to, for one thing. Some of us take an extra day of vacation already to take care of the last little things on Monday that can't be done by the regular staff. Some start on Wednesday or earlier. I start on Thursday morning.

Many of our staff leave after tear down to go home so they can go back to work on Monday. We come from many states, some of our staff have to get on a plane to go home, some drive for hours.

And having been at the BCC at 10:30 p.m. closing it down (that was 20020, and that was when we closed at 3 p.m. (our closing time for as long as I can remember), I really don't want to stay any later.

Then, too, if we keep the building open later, and don't get it closed before midnight, we have overrun our contract. We pay a lot of money for each day we're in the BCC. It's best if we don't increase that cost, which would have to be passed on to the membership.

yeah... i can see where you guys are coming from.. but my fiancee and i paid for 3 day tickets for each of us and she only got to attend two days of the convention due to her work schedule.. .we'd be less frustrated if there was a two day pass option. she only went friday and sunday... and where sunday was only really a couple of hours... i'm wondering if in the future that would be an option for the con to consider.

We used to do daily memberships. They did work out to more than the cost of the weekend membership. The cost of a weekend membership comes out to less than if you bought two one day memberships.

We also did one single four day con in 1995. It was over Labor Day, and has gone down in staff legend as an anathema.

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Convention centres are very expensive. Otakon has to book BCC for longer then the Thur-Sun, I think Monday or Tuesday? in order to set up. The moment they stay past the booked time on Sunday night, Otakon has to pay extra usage fees to BCC to keep the building open, the docks working, the power/water on, the BCC staff there etc.

To give you an idea about the sort of prices a convention/exhibition centre is...

Melbourne Exhibition Centre requires an event to hire at least 2 bays (10% of the building). Just those 2 bays cost $40,000AUD per day. And that

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I thought 3PM was pretty much standard, most people don't really stay that late anyway. I know my hotel checkout was at noon, so we left around 1. Not much to do IMO.

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I went this year and did my homework on past otakons, the main course seems to be all day Saturday with an appetizer being up Friday morning thru the afternoon with all the non-prereg people in miles of line outside the building. And what with the raves being Friday and Saturday night as well as all the 18+ material and most demanded OAVs showing Saturday afternoon and evening... 1500 on Sunday seems a good time to have the closing ceremony and con feedback done with and preparing for real life again.

Just me tho.

Again, kick ass this year. Kudos.

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If you look at the schedule from otakon's side, as to how many programming and event rooms they are running each day, 6 hours (9-3) on Sunday equates to hundreds of hours of scheduled programming and open time. I believe your key to Otakon shouldn't be how much time you spend, but how well you spend your time. Especially if you are missing the longest day of Saturday.

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I went this year and did my homework on past otakons, the main course seems to be all day Saturday with an appetizer being up Friday morning thru the afternoon with all the non-prereg people in miles of line outside the building. And what with the raves being Friday and Saturday night as well as all the 18+ material and most demanded OAVs showing Saturday afternoon and evening... 1500 on Sunday seems a good time to have the closing ceremony and con feedback done with and preparing for real life again.

Just me tho.

Again, kick ass this year. Kudos.

Thanks!

Actually, we've worked to do what we could to get the con started right at 9 a.m. on Friday morning.

If people pre-reg, and check in on Thursday (we cleared the line completely by 9:40 p.m. by the way, twenty minutes before closing... 8,951 people) they can walk right in on Friday morning and get started.

A lot of the staff wakes up early(8am) and doesn't leave the con till late(1am) on con days. Not to mention fly/driving in from various states(Like Michigan for me), come sunday we are zombies.

Heh. We're in the building by 8. Even if reg doesn't open until 9.

And reg staff aren't the first staff people *in* the building.

Closing at 2 means that we have to clear the building. Back when I was doing closing I'd leave the building at 4 a.m. to walk back to my hotel. Usually we did it in a group, as any city after dark can be a scary place.

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I was working directly with the DSL-A&V guys, and even with the con closing at 3pm, all of their packing and stuff wasn't going to be done until at least 3am. Not only that, but after we closed the room down, kicked everyone out, packed up the equipment, packed up all of our stuff, packed up the hotel room, packed up my car, drove out of Baltimore, and got home, it was 8:00pm. I sleepily stumbled into the shower then went straight to bed. I had less than 10 hours of sleep during the entire con, so I'm kind of glad that everything shut down at 3.

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I was working directly with the DSL-A&V guys, and even with the con closing at 3pm, all of their packing and stuff wasn't going to be done until at least 3am. Not only that, but after we closed the room down, kicked everyone out, packed up the equipment, packed up all of our stuff, packed up the hotel room, packed up my car, drove out of Baltimore, and got home, it was 8:00pm. I sleepily stumbled into the shower then went straight to bed. I had less than 10 hours of sleep during the entire con, so I'm kind of glad that everything shut down at 3.

Yeah, when we left the DSL guys were still packing their truck.

The Staff, however, were all out by midnight. And some were back again in the morning. We do rent two areas of the BCC the next day so that the Monday stuff can be taken care of.

And then the Rite Aid convention moves in.

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I thought 3PM was pretty much standard, most people don't really stay that late anyway. I know my hotel checkout was at noon, so we left around 1. Not much to do IMO.

Between noon and 3, we had 5 rooms running live programming, all of our video theatres running, major autograph sessions, all the exhibit halls (dealers and artists) open and running at capacity, our closing ceremonies and con feedback sessions, and three musical acts performing. That's more than many conventions have all weekend...

But as we say, you make your own con experience.

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I thought 3PM was pretty much standard, most people don't really stay that late anyway. I know my hotel checkout was at noon, so we left around 1. Not much to do IMO.

Between noon and 3, we had 5 rooms running live programming, all of our video theatres running, major autograph sessions, all the exhibit halls (dealers and artists) open and running at capacity, our closing ceremonies and con feedback sessions, and three musical acts performing. That's more than many conventions have all weekend...

But as we say, you make your own con experience.

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