I've doing email -

[kyburg]

I've never believed that keeping your mouth shut and walking away was the best way to rectify a situation that peeved you. You want change, you have to ask for it.

So when I read the ticket policy for Anime-Expo, I dropped an email to the convention committtee.

The person who responded was the con chair, Jennifer Pon.



Me first:

I've read with some regret the ticket policies Anime-Expo has published for
its convention this year.

I've been attending Anime-Expo as a full member since 1996. It is with some
regret that I have inform you I will not be attending this year.

There simply isn't any point.

I live close enough to the convention that a hotel stay is just not
justifiable in todays economy. Without the hotel stay, it becomes
impossible to attend any of the events I would pay $45 a day to participate
in - and with the amount of time I can spend on the convention floor, I
can't wait in line for second chance tickets. I work for a living, and yes,
I work Friday. All day.

I do not need to visit the dealer's room - anything I can find there, I can
find in many marketing channels outside the convention whenever I want. That
includes vendors selling items not related to media. I have two large
Japanese markets within walking distance of my home and Little Tokyo within
driving distance.

I do not need to pay $45 or spend three days for this.

New things? At the costs advertised, I can afford to be patient.

Meet up with friends? Plenty of coffee shops and hotel lobbies for that.

I'm pleased to see the addition of Matsuri to the convention experience -
but I'll be here for Nisei Week in August.

Panels and other gaming? Internet.

You've done nothing but discourage your local community from attending with
the "tickets for hotel rooms" policy.

It's a shame when it makes more sense to stay home. But this year, it does.

Jennifer's response:

Thank you for your email. We are sorry to hear of your decision in regards
to attending this year's convention. Perhaps there's been some
misunderstanding.

First, the $45 fee is for all 4 days of the convention. We do not charge
$45/day. Second, the availability of the vouchers should not adversely
affect your ability to find seating. The main events seating has been
expanded since last year. The voucher system is just an added convience for
those visiting from out of town. The bulk of the seating is still
distributed based upon our event seating lines.

We hope that this helps to clarify any issues. We understand that each
person attends our convention for different reasons. We have tried hard to
provide something for everyone from interactive workshops and informative
panels, to dances, giveaways, guests, and contests. We hope that you will
consider us again in the future.

Best Regards,

Jennifer Pon
Chairperson, Anime Expo 2004

Me again:

I'm sorry - I did note that it wasn't $45 a day, but that figure was for the
four days.

But I would disagree that the voucher system is a convenience for the
visitors from out of town, particularly if they can't afford a hotel in the
con block. You're in Anaheim - you can priceline a room for $25 a night -
I've done it.

I've been the chair of more than one convention, and I understand how the
hotel wants things to be paid for and negotiated. The voucher system does
not provide a convenience to the visitors - it provides more of an incentive
to the attendees to fill up the block of rooms the convention needs to meet
obligations with the facility.

It is a convenience to the convention.

If you really want to make this a convenience to the attendees - issue the
vouchers concurrently with a full membership at the time of enrollment. You
pay early, you get a better seat. Not wait in line for whatever there is.

It's too late for this year - the policies are what they are. I hope to see
some changes for next year.

Jennifer's response, received today:

Your feedback is very informative. Yes, there are many balances that need to
be maintained in running a convention. The function rooms are offset by the
hotel room nights. Frankly, we're not of a convention size large enough to
afford paying straight out for the function rooms. As I had said before, the
voucher system is a convenience for those who stay in our room blocks. The
hotels are also very close to the convention site, which is a convenience to
those attendees staying there. Those who stay in our room blocks are also
helping the convention. Why not give them something in return? The seating
in Main Events was expanded to accommodate the voucher system. Based upon
past history, more than half of the vouchers are not redeemed. Of course
those seats go back into the pool of available seats for everyone. Do you
know of a way to get hotel function rooms without having to fill room blocks
or paying straight out? Or deal with attrition clauses? We can't afford to
move completely into the ACC. That would cost even more than the hotel
function space.

What we give to those that pre-register are membership discounts and faster
processing at the convention. Last year pre-registered attendees were sent a
special invitation to a private party at the House of Blues.

The Summer Festival is open to anyone in the area. And we're working with
local groups to help them raise funds for their organizations. We think that
this would be a benefit to local attendees as well as the local community.

If you have any further suggestions, please let me know. I appreciate the
imput.

Thanks,
Jennifer



I'm going to post this with a request that everyone note something very important about this exchange - nobody is talking trash, and nobody had better start on my behalf. Got it?

I have to drop Jennifer a note back - I'm just rocked back on my heels a bit by the statement that Anime-Expo is not large enough to pay for its facilities by memberships alone. How big was it last year? *looks at site* 17,000 last year. That's seventeen followed by three zeros.

And they can't fund the convention on attendence like that.

There is something really wrong with this. And I think it has much to do with the fact that if you want to attend this convention, get seating to all the events you'd pay to see, you have to buy up their hotel space as well. One person has to spend another $125 a day to attend this convention, in addition to the convention membership, to accomplish this. (You want to share a room, okay - you go ahead. My room is $125 a night.)

Telling people it only costs $45 for the weekend is less than the truth then, isn't it?

I think their approach to providing a complete experience is unique - last year, they did a lot with roving crafts - origami, candy-pulling, calligraphy - which were gratis to whoever was there.

With the predictable manymanymany-to-one ratios.

If you haven't been to the Anaheim Convention Center since the upgrade, you don't know how really good that facility has become. It can handle that many people, remain cozy and tidy and pleasant.

It's also expensive as giddy hell.

I want to sit and bend Jennifer's ear a bit more - it's money money money here, and while I understand that, I also want to remind her of what she's asking people to pay for. Without really being fair about it.

Your input is requested.

Remember. Be nice or I bop you.

Comments

[tacohime.livejournal.com]

Jennier talked about "imput." Mommy, what's an imput?

[joggingguy.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. It's called a SCAM. It would be better if they would at least try and be honest about it :-(

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Not a clue. Not one.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Admittedly I'm out of date all to hell and on the wrong coast - but I used to help run conventions. (as in "lived with the two people who really ran and owned the whole deal, no committee stuff") I've watched a 1000-2500 person convention (it fluctuated, they do that) from the endless trekking around the area trying to find a suitable and willing hotel (this was in the Washington DC area - not incomparable in price to CA, methinks) through all the planning to shutdown.

I remember how many rooms you had to fill, and how many we had to try to guarantee to get function space. And I know damn well how hard it can be for a "freaky" convention to do that in a conservative town, where hotels have their pick of nice safe conventioneers.

How the bloody bluegreen bilious hell do they screw things up so bad that they can't fill their convention hotel and have to stoop to these measures?

Last I checked, DragonCon didn't have these problems, and I think it's as big or bigger.

COnventioneers should get perks for staying in the big fancy "convention" hotel rather than the cheapo motel down the street. At least one of them is a good convention rate on the rooms - I don't see that mentioned anywhere; is the con getting such a rate? If not, why the hell not?

Is the hotel providing any other special fancy treats, services or otherwise to the congoers to compete with the other hotels? 24-hour room service, for instance? Coupons to local restaurants? What's that $125 getting me that I can't get at the Motel 6 other than not having to walk outdoors to get to the convention?

The DragonCon hotel televises all its really, really huge panels (costume contest, big ballroom stuff) over the in-house TV/cable channell for free. I watched the costume contest while sitting on my own bed in my underwear, eating takeout, and able to see and hear a lot better than when I'd tried it previously in the ballroom. I'd like to encourage this in other big hotels with this gear available - or let them consider special programming like running anime on the hotel channell if they don't have ballroom cameras.

AnimeExpo has had, from what I understand, historic problems with panel overflow, seating, and the like. Maybe the problem isn't that they need to offer vouchers, but they need to get better about scheduling and room estimation and the like.

Also - how the heck are they handling this voucher deal? Anyone in a hotel room gets a voucher? How do they *know* you're in a room? People pack con rooms by the dozen to save money; do they all get vouchers? Only the one person on the bill? The three or four people with room keys?

I ripped large holes in BaltiCon several years ago when they without warning instituted a policy of "badge or hotel key to be in hotel main area space" overnight, even though they had shut down their registration desk at 6 pm on a Friday when half the East Coast was still driving in after work. The hotel refused to issue more than 2 keys per room - I was in a two-queen bed room with a not unreasonable 3 people. But I wasn't the real problem - it was the security goons tossing people out of the hotel lobby onto the street. Baltimore has a youth curfew, and some of those guests were underage. THey risked arrest. So I ripped holes in every con staffer I could find until they agreed to give me one temporary badge (yes, I was pre-registered besides) - by which time my people had rounded up all the kids we could rescue, and had 'em waiting there for their own badges for overnight. (Speaking of being a twelve-foot-tall helldemon when kids are threatened. ;)

Okay, that's only vaguely relevant, but it does illustrate the hotel key problem. Sigh.

[stronae.livejournal.com]

At least she's willing to write in a friendly, professional tone, expecially with the con creeping closer, one would expect her to be a bit more rushed. (To be fair, you *did* mention

Without the hotel stay, it becomes
impossible to attend any of the events I would pay $45 a day to participate
in - and with the amount of time I can spend on the convention floor,

in your first e-mail, so I can see the initial confusion there.)

I don't claim to understand the dynamics of cons and hotels, but I'm a bit sketchy when there's preferential seating of various events for hotel-room buyers. (At least, that's what I understand to be what's going on.)

Minor point:
She first says
The voucher system is just an added convience for
those visiting from out of town.
and then says
As I had said before, the
voucher system is a convenience for those who stay in our room blocks.

These two entities are clearly not the same thing.

She also didn't seem to process your input regarding preregistration... you want prereged people to get better seats, and she wants hotel buyers to get better seats, but her point seemed like a non-sequitur until I had to insert the appropriate lead-in text in my own head.

::Shrug::

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Can't afford function space, and yet can afford to hold a private party at the House of Blues?

This sounds to me less like a lack of funds, and more like a severe inability to delegate and prioritize funds effectively.

No wonder they've been in such trouble with the IRS the last few years ...

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

In my admittedly limited ConFunctionary experience, you do have to fill a specified number of rooms to be able to get the function rooms. If you're taking over an entire hotel or convention center's worth of exhibit and panel space, you'd better be able to put bodies in the beds, or you'll pay through the nose.

I can bring to mind at least one WorldCon that lost megabucks because they held it in a convention center, with pricy hotels nearby and much cheaper off-site hotels a short public transit distance away, and they couldn't comp *anybody* *anything*.

[ceolyn.livejournal.com]

I can bring to mind at least one WorldCon that lost megabucks because they held it in a convention center, with pricy hotels nearby and much cheaper off-site hotels a short public transit distance away, and they couldn't comp *anybody* *anything*.

Yeah, that would have been the nightmare/cluster fsck that was ConJose. Not that I'm bitter or anything...

[mandrakegeek.livejournal.com]

ok... a couple of things in regards to AX2004...

1) thankfully I live a block south of ACC so I don't have to deal with the crap that folks have to deal with in order to get rooms in the ACC area...

2) I'm currently going through my own ordeal with the AX staff in regards to media registration... it seems every other group (pre-reg... volunteers... industry folks) goet application foms to fill out. But as for media? We have to have things done up on letterhead from our editor/producer... each staff member has to be written up separately...
Yeah... less than thrilled... and my editor is really pissed about that too... >_<

3) The AX staff is really taking it up the ass this year from past attendees... if you read the "Official AX Forums" and the "Un-Official AX Forums" you will read about a lot of people having issues over various new policies that were implemented this year. The main one had to deal with Masquerade... and it was pretty much looking like it was going to be a huge boycott of Masquerade... which in itself would have proved to be an interesting story for me to write up...
So the staff is definitely taking the brunt of a lot of complaints and gripes this year... one of which is coming from me...


Sadly, I won't get the opportunity to meet up with you again this year... -_-
But I'll raise a pint of Guinness in rememberance of you at least once a day... ^_^

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

Got it in one. What the heck happened there, anyway? I didn't work on that one, thank goodness. I understand it was, as you put it, a nightmare.

[exedore.livejournal.com]

I have to drop Jennifer a note back - I'm just rocked back on my heels a bit by the statement that Anime-Expo is not large enough to pay for its facilities by memberships alone. How big was it last year? *looks at site* 17,000 last year. That's seventeen followed by three zeros.

And they can't fund the convention on attendence like that.

Don't forget that AX also gets buttloads of cash directly from the industry (up to $25,000 from a single company). I have to agree with the above poster: wtf are they doing with all that money? Admittedly, it costs a lot of extra cash to put on that fourth day (especially when it's inevitably a holiday and unionized workers in the Convention Centre get mucho overtime), but even so...

Also, the fact that an event the size of AX is still putting panels and such in hotels...doesn't that make things rather annoying to to get to, especially in a hurry? While most convention centres aren't particularly small, it's got to be easier than running a couple blocks away (guessing about that, never been to Anaheim).

Not to stir up a turf war, but it looks like Otakon doesn't have these problems...all events since 1998 have been entirely within the Baltimore Convention Centre with two exceptions (that I know of): 35mm film programming was at a proper cinema a couple blocks away because projector rental fell through, and this year's concert will be held at the Baltimore Arena because it was decided that Main Events won't really be accoustically capable of supporting the band. And it's all done on member badges (I don't think that area hotels give kickback on BCC event space usage...)

[johno.livejournal.com]

Actually ConJose made money.

It was cluster fuck in many ways, but not $$ wise.

When they thought they were screwed by low pre-reg numbers, they clamped down on the budget (I was fairly high up in one of the divisions and was shocked at how little we supposed to operate on), but when the at-the-doors poured in they back filled $$ everywhere they could.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*facepalms*

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

How many attendees did Otakon have last year?

You have to put those bodies someplace -

Turf war? Nah. I couldn't travel that far for an anime convention for it to matter - it's more a compare and contrast.

Believe me, I can get the figures for how much it costs - and I plan to, and do a rough audit. Something stinks.

[vampireanneke.livejournal.com]

You should have read the forums back two years ago. Someone who was formerly staff came out with alot of information about where the money has been going.

(Such as paying off an officer's college loans...etc...) The money is funneled into a 'consultant' company that then pays the officers large sums of money as in 12,000+. Which is why the IRS has been watching them.

Oh AX has alot of dirty laundry. I'm glad I gave up on the convention when I did. Only reason I'll go, is to see the AMV contest, and only if I made the finals. Which hasn't happened, so I don't go, and save money and head ache.

[ceolyn.livejournal.com]

I admit I only saw one small slice of the pie as it were. I helped a good friend run the gaming room, a 24 hour room with 4 people (there was a fifth but he didn't do jack). Two people on shift at all times, I couldn't be on site till Saturday mid-afternoon, one person had to leave Sunday evening so she could get sleep and go to work the next day, and the other actually had a few panels he wanted to attend. Do the math. Yeah, not very happy. On the few occassions I wasn't in the room or grabbing a 3 hour nap, I had more fun at the street fair a block over from the convention center.

Because our friend had been tapped to run the gaming room so late in the game we weren't able to pre-reg, which meant if we wanted badges, we had to pay full con price, I don't remember exactly how much they were but I do know they were above $100. And we had to pay for our room, even with four of us splitting a room that ran about $50 a night per person, more some nights because there were only 3 of us in the room.

I didn't bother getting a badge, I was there as a favor to a friend to sit in the gaming room and make sure people didn't get too unruly, so that's what I did. When I did go somewhere that needed a badge I borrowed a friends for all of the 15 minutes I went in to the dealers hall.

That weekend ranks highly on my list of weekends I wasted in the name of friendship. Blech. No thanks. I think I'll stick to Baycon.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

Baycon's usually an excellent convention, I agree. I miss it! I haven't been to Baycon since I moved up here to the Seattle area. However, we've got Norwescon, which, while a bit smaller than Baycon, is still very cool, and *very* well-run.

[exedore.livejournal.com]

Otakon had a little over 17,300 last year not including staff, pre-regged gofers (who didn't buy a badge and got in free by default), panelists, industry, and other various comps. Officially, Otakon has surpassed AX as the largest anime con in the US. It's also the most expensive now, IIRC, with at-door for 3 days costing US$55 (which will include a ticket to the aforementioned concert in proper concert space).

The con itself is recognized as a City-Wide event and has discounts for blocks arranged with 10 hotels, ranging from a Days Inn to some nice suite-only places, again ranging from next door to the convention centre to about 10 blocks away.

As far as events go, there are no ticketed or vouchered events onsite. You line up and sit yer ass down where the staff people tell you to sit.

[exedore.livejournal.com]

Is AX registered as an official Non-Profit? If so, all their filings are on public record (I believe that Otakon's are...look up Otakorp, Inc.)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And with that, I have to come clean and admit I have a history with Jennifer - and that she's taken the job since that two year meltdown.

I'm going to ask her how much debt they're trying to recover with the additional efforts they're making to keep the convention solvent using the hotel space the way they are.

It's the dishonesty with regards to the why of the ticket thing that is keeping me peeved - and I really don't have a problem with being a gadfly until people come clean and be honest about the whole mess. Which I intend to do.

I don't have a lot of details - and I strongly discourage gossip and speculation because nobody outside of the people involved and their legal representation will ever know anything - but Mike Nakamura's name gets bandied about far too freely when those years are discussed.

He's gone. Matsuri and better facilities are here, stable and everyone looks pretty happy and well-supported, staff-wise. Just - if you're going to require you buy hotel space as part of your convention attendance, come clean about it. That's all.