Minami Con 17

[Jupitris]

Minamicon, the longest running (I'm pretty sure) UK Convention, this thread won't be a complete review, I'm going to give a brief summary of the event on the event at the end. But the majority here will concern what worked/didn't work in relation to what EAcon can do.

I don't know quite how to best structure this so ill just dive right in, the organization here was mixed, the events themselves went off without hitches (Maybe slight technical's but bah who cares there funny to go wrong, part of the atmosphere!)
The gophers/staff didn't seem overly stressed or taxed, but they weren't exactly able to run a round taking part in whatever they pleased, (a few of the late night events had some gophers taking part) but that maybe a little simplistic of me as an outsider.

But many events (and I mean a decent portion) opened late in fact 10-15 minuets over schedule was fairly common for the events I went too, and we did start to notice, the atmosphere managed to never descend into a grumpy one (i think there may be some tribal loyalty thing going on as at other events I've seen less whined over)and the people all getting along and chatting helped but still It wasn't all it could be on that front.
Also no announcement of events, I know a lot of events don't do this, and I never get why, I was talking to a few people who mentioned in particular that they missed the Gunpla Panel at 10am because they went to the room it was closed and they figured it was still in set up (it was: see above delays) and then never noticed it opened until it was over. I also like the idea of announcements, their friendly and welcoming , inviting people in (if you know not just shouted "X starting in 5" like a train station but something more like "Come on everyone X starts in 5 know you want too, it'l be fun!) and I think you get more people in your events that way.

So it seems naturally onto events, the events were good, all the main events like the charity auction and masquerade and so forth went off well, good hosts with good natural comedy light heartedness and likeability really helped, even if the main hosts they did show in-experience, (they wouldn't hold their mikes properly!) and the other hosts that held individual panels/workshops/games also by virtue of being fun an likeable made their events work too ......even if things did always go swimmingly in them.

There were 3 events that I think should be applied into EACON,
Sake Testing - Very very popular, and surprisingly easy, it only took one largish size bottle of each thing to satisfy everyone who wanted to take part out of the 350 con-goers (Some of us more than once....much more) While there were many different variety's of sake (something like 8) they had unusual variants such as plum sake, sake in green tea that came in a can (6% and very nice).
It got a lot of people talking, and well the fact just about everyone who ran the gauntlet of taking a 25ml shot of 8 or 9 shots of sake was a little tipsy (in that good way where people loosen up and get friendly but not OVER friendly)
I think this could be expanded upon, we could add non -alcoholic drinks, like those neat soda's you pop the marble thing into the bottle and then the drink flows over it.
And possibly merge it with the snack tasting type event where people tried Japanese snacks, crisps sweets and the ever popular pocky , we could make it sort of a mini social party with drink and food!.. Japanese Style!

General Games- There were so many games (There's a great GIF out there of me killing the (I think it was a pikachu) pinyata.. you could tell from the audiences noises that I was laying my best swings into that damn pokemon .. worked well too.)
There was a great general opening night party, there was free food like crisps and pizza that was strangely fun if basic, things like the piñata, limbo twister and nerf gunning anime targets (I kept my sheet where I nailed Bakura in the eye and all along his arm in a perfect line) And an interesting one on sunday where you shot a bow an arrow (rubber tip) at life sized anime cut outs.
This sort of thing keeps it all interesting a mixed up. I had a few idea's but then I forgot a few (they'll come back) but a fair few would require you know seeing the venue/planning to see if they were feasible, never mind for SOME of my idea health and safety etc
Quiz's - I've gotten so many new idea's for rounds, quiz styles, its just about changed the play-book for me, from the many Quiz's minami had, thee were 4 in all!
One thing I did think of is that the quiz's tended to overlap a little, e.g the general pub quiz was mainly anime with some J-pop and Saturday night quiz was just anime but with some J-pop and the J pop had some other assorted Japanese culture trivia.
I'm in fact having some trouble remembering which ones exactly were which, and I've forgotten large sections of some.

But my idea's were these three, split the quiz's into clearly defined ones with limited scopes, e.g A jpop/general japense culture quiz, anime and manga quiz, a video game quiz, its great having many quiz's running at different times on different days, much better than just having one big one. There also great social tools , which onto number two,

I had an absolute blast teaming up with new people I'd never met, we had many laughs at out bad answers and the crazy ones we got right we never expected. But I've only just gotten to the point where I say to people "Want to work together?" I Saw many people still way to shy to form a team
or join one and they had less fun although I saw them have fun, the team spirit and friend making , made it all so much better.

So why not before the QUIZ is run have sign up sheets somewhere where people either as individuals or in smaller groups e.g a pair can sign up to be randomly teamed up at the start of the quiz? It isn't as difficult as having to work up the courage of directly asking someone, and hey there in the same boat!

And number 3, keep the idea of awarding the winning team for each quiz with some sort of prize(it can be something as simple as pocky) but after the first quiz ends all teams that are then formed (more can be made later for individual quiz's) can put down their names to be a fixed team for all the following quiz's, and the team with the highest average over all the quiz's gets crowned the quiz masters and get another prize for it?
Its just a fun way to tie all the things together and get the benefits of having one big comprehensive quiz with the benefits of having many smaller quiz's at different times for more people and to appeal to those who find them really fun, so they can spend more time doing them.

I'll continue this in a few hours in a new post below , I'm getting tired u.u

[XenLár]

So far this is sounding really good Jupitris ^^.

I like several of the ideas used here -

--> Archery at anime characters - this sounds brilliant ^^ As they're rubber tipped it might even be fun to have some of the cosplayers be the targets ^^ lol.
--> I also like the idea of announcing events. It hadn't really occurred to me as the events I've gone to have never done it ^^. The people running the panels or events could be responsible for trying to get as many people to attend as possible.
--> We'll also work on our timing and make sure things start on time.
--> The quizzes idea sounds like a good one but it sounds like there would be a lot of quizzes over the weekend and we wouldn't want people to think that if they missed one they wouldn't be able to join in in the big one at the end. But I love the idea of signing up on a sheet so that you end up in a mixed team. And it means that you can sign up with one or two friends so that you're not totally alone like you would be were teams to be assigned randomly.
--> I like the way you keep emphasizing getting to know others. I think it would be good to have a few events were people are forced to intermingle as it would probably help the general atmosphere.

[Jupitris]

-> Archery at anime characters - this sounds brilliant ^^ As they're rubber tipped it might even be fun to have some of the cosplayers be the targets ^^ lol.

I think it'd be interesting to change it to a nerf gun shooting range, they really don't hurt people, and I know alot of particularly steam-punkers use them in cosplay so people can use their own if they prefer Plus this avoids out-right taking another cons idea (unless we find out who came up with it and ask permission) Maybe we should get cos-playing staff and gohpers up there Shoot at the organisers..... fun! BUt yea something in this general vain I think would be great.

--> I also like the idea of announcing events. It hadn't really occurred to me as the events I've gone to have never done it ^^. The people running the panels or events could be responsible for trying to get as many people to attend as possible.

It shouldn't be too invasive into the con e.g people screaming for 10 mins but a quikck run through of the main hang out area (where ever people naturally form it there's always one) and back with quick shouts might draw some people in particularity those "bar flies"

--> We'll also work on our timing and make sure things start on time.

--> The quizzes idea sounds like a good one but it sounds like there would be a lot of quizzes over the weekend and we wouldn't want people to think that if they missed one they wouldn't be able to join in in the big one at the end. But I love the idea of signing up on a sheet so that you end up in a mixed team. And it means that you can sign up with one or two friends so that you're not totally alone like you would be were teams to be assigned randomly.

That's fair, given how popular they seem to be, and the general lack of other events some other cons seem to have, combined with how simple they are makes them a good filler event, having different quiz's for different specialist subjects e.g music/anime/VG though is designed to shorten the length of them over having one "big one" and enabling more people to go to at least one of the quiz's that'd be more to their taste even if they don't feel like going to all.

Right, now to complete what I was going to say sorry its been put off by me moving from term-time to out of term time address and kitacon! BUT HERE WE GO!

- Bar
Expensive but its a hotel, there were some deals (apparently) but none of us knew about it until right at the very end and we certainly didn't get any of them applied. Some of the staff were lets say less than friendly but not cold (unlike last year where con-goers were treated as in-human)
Seriously for charitable events (As I'm sure cons count) there are non profit chariest that will service your event with drinks/equipment to dispense drinks, this will have to be agreed with the venue of course but at least make them aware of it and the fact, any money the people send not drinking will probably go on extravagant charity bids, (being even drunker for charity auctions helps this too ) so yea less drinks cost (non alcoholic too) = more money raised, make sure the venue are aware this is for charity and of this connection, its for a good cause, so no need to stiff everyone on drinks, so either non-for profit drinks from outside suppliers or they lower their prices to reasonable levels, my Student union bar in London does £1 pints/shots (Tuesday) (even if the pints get watered), I'm damn sure they can at least go to £2. (Especially as in some places for cons they still water down drinks)

- Food
There were complaints over this, it was mostly cold , not really well made, was reasonably priced but yea not "japanese enough" noddles and (something Japanese I forget what ) one day (good) chips and chicken wraps the next ?
I blame this on the chef over the con, I Know the con obviously said make Japanese food, but the chef put so little though into how to make it and essentially how stuff could be kept warm on a tray (hint didn't go well)
Maybe getting out-side catering from a Japanese food vendor to sell at the event might work better.
Just for example across the road from my flat is a Japanese food stall, they sell food all day outside in the market square, to take an example of a process of making food en mass to order and keeping it warm:
Chicken katsu curry: Breaded Katsu cutlets are pre-stored.
Lacquered boxes with a bed of rice, a very small portion of clear wheat noodles and a few side vegetables (most should be in the main dish) are pre prepared. (This template is used for most dishes, some such as noodle based dished have a different box)
The curry sauce with the vegetables is kept in large cookers (They might be pressure or slow cookers) hot at a perfectly eatable temperature that doesn't kill the flavour.
A Katsu cutlet is taken out, put in a deep fryer and lightly deep fried (As it should be!)
Some curry sauce is put over the pre-prepared lacquered box and then the cutlet then the rest of the sauce.
Box is sealed to be eaten later or left open to be eaten there (chopsticks or forks provided)
Sold for 4.50 in London.
I damn well assure you with appropriate preparation and thought most cooks can somewhat replicate it with those prices outside London easily.
My personal favs are the katsu curry, steamed sea bass, the terriaki and the yakisoba
But yea, if the cooks think ahead to a good flowing process of making food, (this stall operating between 1 and 3 people and serving quite a few people maybe in the hundreds) you can have good food at reasonable prices.

- Screenings
TO BE COMPLETED - Tired again u.u and its a big section check back in one week and it'll be here I swear!,


- Dealers
Good range, thank god there seemed to be some controls of who was present not endless streams of the same items, all stalls even when dealing in the same type of items had different stock, there was I think 2 manga dealers a dvd dealker, otaku.co.uk's artbook style range, gundamnation, neon martian for figures along with one I didn't get the name and UDP had some too,
Not too go into too much detail on the who's who and does what of uk figure dealers but in that department there was the perfect compliment between dealers with their respective stock:price ratio's (some have rarer stock with an appropriate increase in price, other have more populist items cheaply) manga and other merc dealers followed much the same pattern, along with a good showing of independent dealers, dealing in nice quirky stuff like cosplay props, amateur artwork and independent comics <- that stuff is really nice too see it exemplifies the convention spirit (the general one not the specific con spirit) and gives something nice to buy other than cheap merc, or dvd's/manga or more expensive items.

- Venue
Not relevant as this is another hotel con (Stay tuned for my more relevant ayacon review!) but nice place, the hotel at £90 a night was too expensive to me but luckily there were two hotels on the same plot so I stayed at the ibis for 60 a night. BUt cheaper room stay = better, to be honest alcon again comes up trumps at 25 night but ... yea there regular stayers and all I think ayacon's £40 benchmark might be a more reasonable aim for all parties here.

- Con information/ time table
Get this out EARLY! When I booked my hotel I had no idea the con would end 7pm sunday. I could have easily gone home, but no I paid £60 for a night I didn't really need (waste really) not to mention a day of lectures monday I missed (I don't really care but... ya know) This shows the importance of getting all your info out early, I also saw some complaints that because others years had BJD pannel's tit was expected this year would have one and so people bought them,... they didn't. For reference con info was released like 2 weeks before the con.

[XenLár]

--> Archery/Gunning

I love the idea of shooting staff members. I think that's fab.

I like the idea of nerf gunning - that would probably work better than archery.

I was shying away from it previously because of cosplays being ruined but if we're going to shoot staff members (some of whom will just be in jeans and a t-shirt that says staff on it) we could always use paintballing? I think it would be brilliant for the staff to be speckled multi-coloured for the rest of the day. Lol.


--> Announcements

Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of people running around, screaming and putting people in a headlock to drag them to their event - I like your way of doing it, where they just announce it 5 mins before ^^.


--> Food

This section sounds like good advice and we will definitely use it when dealing with those that are going to prepare food for us.

[Jupitris]

I've meant to round this thing off for so long, but life has a way of getting in the way

Screenings - First I wanna acknowledge great move on the screening suggestion thread, perfect, but a few words on it, use some adjudication; don't just use the suggestion as a cannon timetable, I've seen screening rooms set up for 30+ with three (literally) people in them, and I'm guessing it's because often the suggestion threads aren't posted in by enough people and aren't a representation of the con-goers tastes and so a show that maybe someone genuinely loves is shown and they and a small select group are happy but still needs of the many > needs of the few, obviously suggestions with multiple nominations are good, but put some thought into
a) what's broadly popular (without being bland and "seen it" material)
b) interesting
c) easy to get into , if its not easy to get into, the hustle and bustle of a con amplifies that 100x people late coming in, going and so on.
I also want to point out that when people suggest something, they may not actually see it themselves, (I did it at LACII I suggested Sky Crawlers and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, both are good (at least by my high standards ... and I know they are high (statistically 2/10 above mean averages) and The girl was then backed by 3 people) They ended up going down well, but to my point; only above 7 people ended up posting recommendations and especially when its something recommended by a few people, then the person who recommended it not going can be a whole screw up, maybe even getting the number of people watching down to 0. I had the full intent of going to both screenings but hell I met people got distracted by chatting and catching up and boom missed them. Which is what will happen for a-lot of people fully intending to watch a specific show, the "hustle and bustle" of the con will take a few, so if your relying on a narrow interest base to begin with, it might just die out altogether.
Hell at Minami, I met someone I knew in a screening of Eden of the east (ep 2) and then I went over to her, we ended up going out again obviously we couldn't talk In the screening room and had e met earlier we would have watched together, but again this is the sort of thing that can and will pull some people out.

I'm sure you know all of this, but it seems that at EVERY con I've been at screenings are a weak link so I'm just making sure

That was all just basically a message to plan shows well and not overlook it as basically all cons do, and use adjudication when picking the screenings, just because someone posted it in a recommendation thread (as I've seen first hand) doesn't mean it will be popular, and that person may not even see it (As I've experienced) I know there are a billion factors to balance (What's good/popular/ not seen a-lot/easy to watch/available) but that's why other cons are falling screenings are actually probably the least important thing all things considered but nail screenings and that's +1 EAcon.

So *sigh* after that in-comprehensible mess.

- What to put on; I've said before but new releases, that can be pretty popular in the community by *cough* Illegal *cough* means, but still a good portion of the community won't have seen them still and that's an opening, and then most people will have seen them on poor quality streaming sites (more on that later) Also old shows, introduce a few classics to newer fans it can be risky but hell rather than trying to fill gaps in between good modern shows with "meh" modern shows (We all know some of those titles at cons aren't A material) put on the classics, I'm not going to elaborate on what those are, but there are shows decades old that retain their popularity one or two wouldn't hurt.

- Take advantage of il-legal streaming, this is a double threat bonus for companies and cons now, Downloading is fine (from a technical standpoint) it will be clear as crystal with dvd recorders and even digital HD recorders, you can download crystal clear un-compressed anme at your leisure. But downloading has the stimga of people getting caught (its evidence) and its slow and bandwidth eating while streaming is newer and it doesn't have the force behind it that gets people caught... and people do't under stand it and why while really easy it does suck. Its compressed, hell even legal streaming (crunchy sucks btw) is like 360p compressed.You can get 720p HD streaming but its still compressed. So your now saying "Thanks for the basic lecture..... ass" but I see cons all the time missing the obvious connection, you can offer most anime viewers something they haven't seen before (believe me I re-watched an episode of mitsudomoe blu ray I dl'ed my god the difference) un-compressed 1080p blu ray anime, with more coming out all the time, Summer wars, Haruhi movie, Akira, High school of the dead etc blu ray is going to have a very wide range soon, I say put on as much 1080p anime as you can and advertise that fact, anime as clear and beautiful as you've never seen it.

- The Screening rooms/general set up.
Simple here but get big tv's proportional to the room size, I've seen rooms made for nig projector viewings with 20" tv's....no get as big tv's as you can if your room is huge. For smaller rooms you can get away with smaller ones but still bigger is better, but generally nt have a room as big as a theatre with a 20" tv in the middle it does't impress. Also note there are HD projectors, and they can be hooked to blu-ray players even pc's, and laptops can have blu-rays build in for reasonable prices, by the time eacon rolls around, this tech should be investigated, it could by then be easily affordable.

What show in what room?
One thing that's always bothered me. all cons (bar LAC who I've decided to devote a little sub-section too) have three screening rooms..... why? I can't see any point of why that many are needed often taking up large rooms that remain empty that could be better used for actual events. They all just show a variety of shows in no logical pattern.
Well I hate established traditions that have no real reason ROCK THE BOAT people; anyway my proposition is, themed rooms, the theme can change betwene days or even morning afternoon, but seriously if you have three rooms, have one room lets say "mecha" showing mecha anime another "Action shonen" room celebrating the best of ass-kicking super-powers (ok there's more I know) the "Moe" room , everyone loves Moe..... why not show the best of all those super-kawaii shows (again they don't have to be just moe-nothing shows), the rooms can be any combination of anything designed so any one person will statistically like one of the genre's. I also pinpoint one advantage to this system, British apathy! Seriously the current system works like this "Look up timetable see what's on, decide whether I care enough to watch it, go to room, arrive half way through because I went on a whim anyway.." (for a-lot of people its like that anyway) with this system its more a case of "Well i'm bored guess i'll go watch whatever's in the mecha room" once your there you may think "Well I wouldn't have chosen to go see this but I'm here its mecha so whatever" It's like generally watching TV nothing is on so you just watch whatever... you may not be super exited by it but you never get actually bored, more moot, this prevents the common on problem of people doing nothing in-between certain events wandering around becoming bored... sure there not super excited constantly but we're not miracle workers they'll enjoy some tv for a little while and move on and when they look back they won't ever have been bored so it'll have been a great time, in short it'll mean they won't bottom out there will always be some minimum.

Right here I think I should also totally lend my support to the no screenings on the first day idea, like it, combined with events ,particularly team events , that get people talking and break down that nervous barrier then its an awesome idea. As long as there's enough general events as well to sufficiently fill the timetable without anyone getting bored, it my very well be one of the best new idea's for a con I've heard.
If you couldn't tell by now I hate things that just are or establish routines or formulas, they bug me... "If it 'aint broke don't fix it" never settled with me, I say "Fiddle with it 'till you break it or make it awesome!"its like how everyone says "If x jumped off a cliff would you" but never live by the message, like in cons most cons are too similar for my tastes, too formulaic, I'm hoping this to be the con for originality.

Finally a brief section on LACII, while it was pretty successful I don't think there's a-lot to be learned from it, most of the errors are either to do with the venue limitations that I know won't be an EAcon problem or the fact Al above all loves sticking to the formula's and rulebook. And any good aspects were nothing spectacular, frankly it ran well and had good guests, good hosts and generally worked well at what It did.
But the one thing that did catch my eye was the bar setup.
The bar was the main hub area, the bar was near the stage and there was seating (sofa's proper chairs) all around (problems: Not enough seating and the place was basically the main through faire, but more seating less traffic and it'd be perfect) but the bar and main stage were in the same room, this meant that when I wanted a drink I didn't have to go outside the room like at other cons and take myself out of the action, so even when I was queuing or buying a drink I still felt "a part" of what was going on, rather than heading out across the hotel to the bar getting drinks and coming back and feeling like I missed out on something (especially during main acts) or like I had lost my place in the event. That is half of what I did like the other half has to do with the more relevant screenings!
The stage had multiple tv's all around, and anime was shown on them, If the volume had been louder and the place had not so much through traffic creating too much noise (or not been as cramped, venue=too small and not enough seating) it would have been the perfect chill-out place, sit chat with friends at the sofa's/tables with simple anime in the background and a bar so you can all get drinks/snacks etc. But one good aspect was that as it was basically a secondary stage occasionally things did happened there, bands played and small events happened, etc that kept it vibrant, and after an anime episode finished, often announces would come on and announce what was happening, coming up etc, which the place essentially being the main hub kept us all well informed, and overall that general idea I think worked, anime was shown in the background keeping it as a nice chill-out area , broken up by small events on the small stage then later bands played an finally the parties. But I think it does show that even with a small area how things can be kept interesting and basically how a chillout area should be, drinks-seats-anime in the background in a friendly atmosphere.

[XenLár]

--> Screenings.

Have no fear Jupitris. The list we're compiling in the Screenings Suggestions is not just going to be copied and pasted into a template timetable. We're going to be careful of what we choose and look everything up before we put it on. Also, I'm hoping as the site grows there will be more people involved in that thread so the suggestions won't just be coming from the few.

With regards to quality - I'm hoping we'll be able to find legal copies of everything on DVD or whatnot so that we can play it through thr PC-Projector system in the rooms we have for EACON. The technology we're using for screenings will be their PCs and their Projector set ups. We don't have the budget or funding to start playing up with HD stuff. However, in a few years time UEA may have updated their own Projectors to that and so we'll have it anyway. On top of that the Projectors do at least provide us with a large screen ^^.

With regards to rooms, You are right on our mind-wave Jupitris. We're planning on having three rooms to Screenings, one being Asian Drama (as we're a Culture convention as well as anime) and the other two being divided into Shounen and Shoujo. Within that we'll probably, as you say have a Mecha morning in the Shounen room or what-have you. We're also going to try and make sure that things like a Mecha panel will not be at the same time as the Mecha screenings, so those that don't like Mecha can avoid it and those that do can see everything related to it without it clashing on their timetable.


--> Bar and Stage

The room we're going to be using for the general events and presentations stage does have a bar in it. It does not sell alcohol however. Basically the bar in The Hive (which is where the stage will be) sells food and soft drinks and the alcohol is served downstairs. This is something we can't really change. There is going to be a lot of thoroughfare in this room during the day as it has a connecting door to the LCR which is where we're going to set up the dealers room. However, we're going to organize it so that the events happening in the LCR and the HIVE do not clash too badly and we'll work out a way of controlling the herds lol. If necessary there is another way into the LCR, which we can use and we can close off the entrance to The Hive.