So I spent a few hours yesterday at Yasumicon and here are my opinionated, uh, opinions.
Location: A downgrade for the con it's now held back at FIU. They did a much smarter job in organizing this year as opposed to the first year keeping everything within two adjacent buildings, and got lucky with the weather and hurricanes. So, it saved them some money and it worked out ok so that's good.
So, with the extra funds available, what was done with them?
Organization: Not one of the things that got increased funding. It's really annoying to go to a con for some fun only to have fuckheads everywhere in zombie-mob mentality. Event at GL-100. Cool, nice big room. Easy to get to. But... there's a "lobby" area inside the building that nobody bothers to keep clear. People just amalgamate these like a clogged artery. This mass of humanity just makes confusion. Is it a line? Is it a mob? Is the door closed? "What's going on here?" is a frustrated question when nobody else knows either.
There was very little signage pointing where things are relative to you. And while everything's physically close together the path to get there isn't so obvious. And with clogs everywhere it's not always obvious where everyone is going, either. They failed to control the area, if you'll excuse the military expression. Lining up for an event? Put a volunteer there to keep the line out of the way. Put some signs up. I might say they didn't know the volume of people that would come but, yeah, they know since it's not their first year.
Events: They had standard events less one: costume cafe. THAT is a fantastic idea and I hope it really picks up in other cons. It's pretty obvious now that I think about it, but no con's ever done it before (that I know of) so it's one of those really clever ideas. But, it gets smashed by organization. The signs scattered about don't really say much about how it works.
The viewing room was weird and the showing of Haruri, a licensed anime, was in rather poor taste, in my opinion, since it goes against the spirit of fansubs. There were other anime on it that I'd never heard of which is a good change from last year. BUT, there was only one viewing room. It ought to be a mix of known and unknown anime in each, by genre, to give people something familiar and introduce something new. It's more a style thing, actually. But, where's the schedule? You had to go to the room to find out. I guess it's the way it goes since they didn't print programs but, really, they should have.
Similar with the game room. All competition for one day was fighting games except for ONE military/team one. Everything else fell into the next day. No variety. Too cookie cutter.
Aside from those, the other events weren't too appealing to me. A lot of them felt like filler and junk (Parent's Guide to Anime?! How to start an anime club?! LAME-O). Like most conventions, the fan participation is very cosplay/costume biased. But that's just the way it is. Dealer room and artist showcase together in one room was a BAD idea. Both are big draws and the room was a mess. There is no crowd management in [what should be both] rooms, so, it's best to leave good spaces and let people figure it out. Except, the booths were really close to the walls so it was nearly impossible to navigate without shoving and pushing. And the problem with the campus is that you can't leave a lot of doors open and shitty people being shitty will usually flood a doorway with one direction and nobody will open any additional doors... and when they do people swarm to keep shoving. I knocked at least a three people to the ground unapologetically for being assholes. But that's more likely a Miami thing than anything else.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. They gotta start charging.
Now this is an unpopular opinion, I know, but it solves a lot of issues.
A) Keeps the fuckheads away. Some people are there to gawk and take up space and oxygen because they've got nothing else to do. If you gotta pay you already want to be there.
B) Gain funds for interesting events. Pay some guests like the other cons do. Then maybe you'll get bigger names than Sonny Strait, and ones perhaps that aren't trying to promote other things other than just being a cool guest.
C) Use payment due as "lure" for additional volunteers. Other cons do it. Volunteer to work and you get in for free. Then they'll have plenty of workers to keep things in line.
D) Go bigger and better with each successive year. Backtracking to FIU? Poor form. The indians weren't that great to you last year so you find another hotel. It shows confidence in the art and the con.
I'm just saying. Huh? I think I can do it better? Not by myself, obviously, I'd need a horde of minions following my every command and fund raising efforts. But I'd build my own con.
With hookers. And blackjack. In fact, forget the convention.
