Should have warned you -
Jul. 6th, 2003 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgI'm a nice person. I'm not an exciting person. So sorry.
If that's a problem, you know where the door is. If not, you know where the sake is. Get some, sit down, shut up and watch some anime. It's not going to bother me either way.
I'm glad I tried to do that meetup on Saturday afternoon - it was the one "fan" thing I did all weekend. The rest of the time was schmooze city and no, it wasn't intentional.
But when your friends are Toshi from Viz and Robert (and Robert's whole family) from Animeigo, this no longer is a convention - it's a trade show.
Complete with swag. Duplicates will be sent to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
studiokz.
Dinner Thursday night was the highlight of the weekend. I maintain also that you only meet people once - past that, if you like them, you need to make some effort to stay in touch. I was totally floored so many AMV creators were local. Do I remember many names? Could I hear anything well enough? Was I sparkling dinner conversation?
The answer to all of the above? Not on your life. Between trying to keep my lower lip from imploding, my ears open (still dealing with the afteraffects of flying totally congested from Fanime) and catching names, I likely was a total dork. Oh, well.
No, there were no AMV tickets. I didn't spend multiple hundreds on housing so I didn't rate one. I'll drop a note. Unfair as the policy was to locals, it was better than anything else they have come up with so far - maybe one little tweak here or there, and it'll be a model.
But no, I saw no videos outside of what I saw Thursday night. Yes, this bites. Again - oh, well.
Got to attend the Farewell Ranma party put on by Viz - House of Blues is never boring. Add fireworks, fanboys and lame-ass martial artists and you have the party.unclejimbo brought home a panda alarm clock and everyone was thus pleased. Did I say we scored a lot of swag? We certainly didn't buy a lot - I think he picked up two DVDs and I picked up a couple of books. Ta da. Oh, and I found some videodiscs for cheap - the first two volumes of Turn A Gundam and two KOR OAVs -
The dealers room had more to offer than media, come to think of it. A whole lot more clothing this year - both t-shirts and kimono. Two travel agencies with Japan tours - both of them very competitively priced. With swag. A fax-based pen-pal organization trying to hook up anime fans. Fanime. Who wants to hold their convention the same weekend as Baycon. They put ADV in a corner by themselves where they could create all the mayhem they wanted to without impacting anyone else. Smart move. As I have said in the past, I have trouble with the "pinata method" of goodie distribution. Nobody else did it - but ADV builds their booth with that in mind. It's almost like they want to see what a 14 year old will do for a t-shirt or something.
Pioneer had a brain. They were handing out fans and playing cards. To everyone.
The aisles were 15' wide. Shit you not. And comfortable.
I don't know what the crowd count was this year, but back in the renovated Anaheim Convention Center, it was easily the most comfortable con these guys have hosted in years. Plenty of room. Plenty of stuff to do. Close enough together you weren't walking, walking, walking to get anywhere. I hope they stay here for next year's con.
Also, there were the things I like seeing at anime conventions - actual Japanese cultural things you would find at any festival. The pulled-candy sculptures - that guy must have made hundreds of them - he was always there, always working, always with a crowd around him and all of it free. Just - one to a group, please.
They were giving dance instruction. No, not DDR. The traditional stuff they'll put to use later this year during Nisei Week in Little Tokyo. I don't know how well those were attended, but if I were staying at the hotel, I'd likely have indulged.
This year, we've just bought a house and we're cheap bastards. We're not even going today because it would be $8 for parking and another $50 for two meals - let alone what we would be tempted into getting at the dealers room.
Maybe next year, I can find that origami-kai from 1995 for them, and a cha-no-ya - hmm.
Then again, there is the unofficial Chibi-con during Nisei Week in August to think about.
VERY different from Fanime. AX is a trade show. But then again, there's nothing really wrong with trade shows.
If that's a problem, you know where the door is. If not, you know where the sake is. Get some, sit down, shut up and watch some anime. It's not going to bother me either way.
I'm glad I tried to do that meetup on Saturday afternoon - it was the one "fan" thing I did all weekend. The rest of the time was schmooze city and no, it wasn't intentional.
But when your friends are Toshi from Viz and Robert (and Robert's whole family) from Animeigo, this no longer is a convention - it's a trade show.
Complete with swag. Duplicates will be sent to
studiokz.Dinner Thursday night was the highlight of the weekend. I maintain also that you only meet people once - past that, if you like them, you need to make some effort to stay in touch. I was totally floored so many AMV creators were local. Do I remember many names? Could I hear anything well enough? Was I sparkling dinner conversation?
The answer to all of the above? Not on your life. Between trying to keep my lower lip from imploding, my ears open (still dealing with the afteraffects of flying totally congested from Fanime) and catching names, I likely was a total dork. Oh, well.
No, there were no AMV tickets. I didn't spend multiple hundreds on housing so I didn't rate one. I'll drop a note. Unfair as the policy was to locals, it was better than anything else they have come up with so far - maybe one little tweak here or there, and it'll be a model.
But no, I saw no videos outside of what I saw Thursday night. Yes, this bites. Again - oh, well.
Got to attend the Farewell Ranma party put on by Viz - House of Blues is never boring. Add fireworks, fanboys and lame-ass martial artists and you have the party.
unclejimbo brought home a panda alarm clock and everyone was thus pleased. Did I say we scored a lot of swag? We certainly didn't buy a lot - I think he picked up two DVDs and I picked up a couple of books. Ta da. Oh, and I found some videodiscs for cheap - the first two volumes of Turn A Gundam and two KOR OAVs - The dealers room had more to offer than media, come to think of it. A whole lot more clothing this year - both t-shirts and kimono. Two travel agencies with Japan tours - both of them very competitively priced. With swag. A fax-based pen-pal organization trying to hook up anime fans. Fanime. Who wants to hold their convention the same weekend as Baycon. They put ADV in a corner by themselves where they could create all the mayhem they wanted to without impacting anyone else. Smart move. As I have said in the past, I have trouble with the "pinata method" of goodie distribution. Nobody else did it - but ADV builds their booth with that in mind. It's almost like they want to see what a 14 year old will do for a t-shirt or something.
Pioneer had a brain. They were handing out fans and playing cards. To everyone.
The aisles were 15' wide. Shit you not. And comfortable.
I don't know what the crowd count was this year, but back in the renovated Anaheim Convention Center, it was easily the most comfortable con these guys have hosted in years. Plenty of room. Plenty of stuff to do. Close enough together you weren't walking, walking, walking to get anywhere. I hope they stay here for next year's con.
Also, there were the things I like seeing at anime conventions - actual Japanese cultural things you would find at any festival. The pulled-candy sculptures - that guy must have made hundreds of them - he was always there, always working, always with a crowd around him and all of it free. Just - one to a group, please.
They were giving dance instruction. No, not DDR. The traditional stuff they'll put to use later this year during Nisei Week in Little Tokyo. I don't know how well those were attended, but if I were staying at the hotel, I'd likely have indulged.
This year, we've just bought a house and we're cheap bastards. We're not even going today because it would be $8 for parking and another $50 for two meals - let alone what we would be tempted into getting at the dealers room.
Maybe next year, I can find that origami-kai from 1995 for them, and a cha-no-ya - hmm.
Then again, there is the unofficial Chibi-con during Nisei Week in August to think about.
VERY different from Fanime. AX is a trade show. But then again, there's nothing really wrong with trade shows.
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Date: 2003-07-06 10:06 pm (UTC)But I had fun... I finally got to walk the floor today for the the first time and not worry about being somewhere at a certain time. Was kind of upset with Bandai though... it was the last day and all I asked was if they could hook me up with some free stuff for a giveaway on the site I was attending the expo for. Answer given? Nope... sorry... try emailing us later or visit our webstie...
After getting snubbed like that I didn't even bother hitting any of the other big booths... was too pissed and was ready for a drink (thank goodness for the Marriot bar)...
But I'll be back next year... and I'll post up the photos I got from Masquerade in the coming week along with everything else I got. Oh yeah... press got the shaft for closing ceremonies... 1st two rows for GoH's (fine by me) and then the next 4 rows were for industry folks (and none of them showed up)...
In fact most of the weekend press was treated like crap by the rest of the staff except for the PR staff (which I'll be thanking later on in my write-up of the Expo)... I'm hoping that next year people will get the sticks out of their arses and realize that press is there to give good press but when you treat press like crap we'll give you bad press for treating us as though we were not even worthy of being there.