I always find I must give constructive criticism to every con I go to. I'm sure the problems are already known, but it's always nice to have someone else point them out? XD And I know you guys will be open to hear what others have to say.

First off, I think the biggest problem was lack of hallway space in the artist alley. It was hard to find any space to walk, and imposible to stop and look and people's art without blocking traffic. It dissapointed me quite a bit, because there were so many awesome artists, but I could never get through to look at anything.

The wait to see the cosplay contest was pretty rediculous. While it was nice to sit/stand and talk to friend's and maybe talk to new people around us waiting, in no way should we have to wait that long when the program says it's at 6. In general, I thought the contest was run very well though. I think there should probably be a time limit on skits though, as while even some of the good one's can drag on. The average con-goers attention span isn't much longer than 3 minutes.

First I want to say, I LOVED doing the swimsuit contest, even with the problems it had, and I realy hope it's done again next year. I know you can't help who's in the hotel at the same time as us, and I noticed there were a LOT less people in the pool later in the day. I think it would be great to have it later if it's done again. That way the pool won't be nearly as busy, and people won't have to worry so much about getting in and out of costumes... and actually want to swim when the judging is all over with!

I think that's all I have to say right now. In general, I thought it was an awesome con! Especially for it being it's first time having a full weekend.

yeah I watche dyou people wait, and it was really long, glad I decided not to wait in line and walk around play games ect, and I still got a good seat

I didn't get to see the main cosplay because of the line ._.; but I'm sure it was really good ^.^ if I had seen it, it probably would have been worth the wait. I agree with the comment on Artist's Ally, because Art is one of the things I most look foreward to seeing at conventions, and the lack of space made it difficult without feeling guilty about all the traffic...but overall, great con! 8D

I thought the con was great and I had a blast, even though I was only there for Saturday. To add some constructive criticism I'll say that one thing I noticed was how crowded the artists alley was and the cramped walkways of the vendor room. I know they were trying to control the vendor room as best they could but I saw a good amount of free space inbetween the dealer tables that could have been condensed.

xD I knew the artist's ally would be a problem when John told me where they'd have them. lol

Artists Alley was the biggest problem I had

I'd love to see lots of the same programing next year, awesome stuff!

Cosplay contest line was too long, and the intermission could be planned for next year.

Other than that, great work guys!!

A lot of problems with where EXACTLY and when events were.
Everyone decided to come over to the Reg. table asking a lot of questioins. Amber and I answered to the best of our own ablility, using our own program guide. x3

So Programs next year should be a bit more accurate too.

lol, like John said something about him finding all the places to eat in, it said something about a Deli, and it was really a car dealership, or something. xD That still makes me laugh.

About the cosplay, I think there was more cosplay than Ikasucon? Is that what Amber said? ^^ Not sure tho. x0 But there was a lot.

As this year was next will be a Con for the Fans so We will plan for a better ally if that was only biggest problem i'm happy

lol, panda I think your grammar in that last post is our biggest problem!

Yeah, we'll have a different solution to the artist alley crowdedness next year, same for dealers room.

As for the program guides, as many of you know there were some major issues with their creation, and literally hours before we moved to the hotel for the weekend we had to totally re-create it, so it's amazing anything is right! Heh, it seems like everytime we thought we found the last error, we find another. Apparently when we added the key to the outdoor map we used one from an earlier version of said map, and thus it was terribly wrong! At least the restraunts on the key existed SOMEWHERE!

Again we're sorry about the program guide, and the subsiquent confusions on when things begin, what room they are supposed to be in, etc. Data will be backed up next year!

lol, its okay about the program guide, I didn't use it anyway. O_o;
I kinda went to whatever/wherever i was/dragged into. ^^; lol.

But the food guide is nice to have, even if it all wasn't correct.

Yay for next year! ^__^ If all goes well, I'll go again. <3

I think the cosplay intermission was great. I mean I dont ever remember going to a cosplay, and seeing that many people from the audiance still there afterwards. I think it was good..even the egg. ^_~

Miccy, I know we had a lot of cosplayers, for our con size.
I mean we had about 100. (give or take a few)
Who were in the main cosplay. not to mention the swim suit cosplay, or the csplayer who didnt participate in any cosplay event.

yeah it was so funny, how they kept us entertained and the descriptions of why they were taking a while, they neede to fidn the dragon balls XD

pros-

Good guests. I would love to see Crispin Freeman, Joshua Seth, and Steve Conte come again. They were some of the nicest people I have met even though Josh broke my friend's staff. XD Talking to Steve Conte about dogs and music was great and seeing him perform in concert and with the spoony boards. And talking to Crispin some was fun too. ^_^

Concert. ROCKED! Do I have to say that again.

Artist alley was great. I would have love to draw something with them but sadly, I dont know much about drawing and I need some help inking.

Rave. Love the rave. It was so fun even though I lost a lot of sleep.

Staff- Staff was really nice, especially History Follower even though I knew him from Tsubasacon.



cons-

I swear, that girl in the big dress was the rudest cosplay judge I have ever met. Some of the people told me (inlcuding my friend who dressed as Sakura and a Kaoru cosplayer) she was very rude and didn't seem to care about other costumes, the ones who won and the ones who didn't. She was also very rude to me too and seemed as though to say "I dont care about your costume" attitude toward everyone. Yea, so you might have to work that out or get a better judge.

Swimsuit contest. Space was the problem. I say we ban all soccer moms from coming. And I feel sorry for the cosplayers who had to freeze out there. I swear, if I hear "SHUT THE DOOR" or another soccer mom complain one more time... :sniper:

Masquarade- Needs more space too. Not only I didn't get to see the skit along with other people, the rooms where the cosplayers had to wait in was too small. And two hours just to see the competition probably drove the

Space for the artist alley I have to agree on as well.

By "girl in the big dress" do you mean Melissa/Hikaruchan? Because I know her and in no way she is rude. In her defence, she was wearing that costume ALL DAY, which got uncomfortalbe for her, along with no food or even a bathroom break because she was judging all day long. Melissa is very professional towards cosplaying, and I know she knows how to judge and definently knows what she's looking at in terms of craftsmanship (seriously, go to icosplay.com, she's been cosplaying for years and has a TON of costumes).

I assume you are speaking about me, since the other female cosplay judge bailed. I am sorry you thought I was rude, I would like to ask though in what way you thought I was rude? We didn't have much time to judge and were in an unfortunate location, but I tried to ask questions of everyone and get their picture. In fact, afterwards I had a couple of entrants and 1 parent thank me for asking them questions at the pre-judge session.

It also doesn't help that when some people registered for pre-judging some of them weren't given a time to show up for judging.

Next year on prejudging might I suggest having a numbered sign in sheet to allow people to choose their pre-judge time?

How it works:
Pre-judging times are broken up into time slots. Entrants sign their name by a designated time slot.
You a list that looks similar to this:

1. _______________________ Time: 1:00-1:10
2. _______________________ Time: 1:10-1:20
3. _______________________ Time: 1:20-1:30

etc etc.

You simply remember the number you signed up by. The cosplay judge calls out said number and you come up in front of them, get judged, and go about your merry way. ^_^

If you are not present when your number is called..you are disqualified. Trust me, if the cosplay event is important to you you'll remember your number and your time slot! :P

Anime Punch was a total blast -- best con I've been to so far, however was anyone else bothered by the way the two hosts acting during the cosplay contest? I know most of the crowd was made up of older teenagers/young adults, but they said themselves that skits were supposed to be kept clean since there would be children present, and yet they ran the whole "show your tits" joke throughout the entire intermission. Maybe I'm just a prude, but I found it to be irresponsible.

I'm surprised they complained about Melissa instead of me. She asked most of the questions and took most of the notes. If anything sounded rude in the tone of voice, it was due to efforts to be heard over the action around us.




Now for the constructive criticism. The cosplay prejudging schedule should have been decided earlier than the night before the event. I don't think we missed any contestants, but there was a lot of confusion and two of the contestants had to be judged in the hallway outside the room where we were deciding the results.

The references should have been a requirement instead of a suggestion. I had to Google image search a lot of the characters before I could decide how precise the costumes were. Even for characters I recognized, it helped to have the picture right there next to the cosplayer. It wasn't as much of a problem for Melissa and her photographic memory.

Like the schedule, the judging guidelines should have been given earlier. We spent quite a bit of time arguing over who should get second place in the novice category before learning that the prizes for costumes would be best craftsmanship and many categorical prizes.

None of those problems became catastrophic enough to affect the outcome of the contest, but they did lead to more stress during the day.

Based on what some of the swimsuit cosplayers said after that event, I think it would be a good idea to arrange a less intrusive way to do the event. If the contestants went into the pool room one at a time and then could leave to go dry off or change clothes right after getting out of the pool, there might not have been as much conflict with the parents. There's also some criticism for the parents, but they're not reading this.


edit: When you have to make up a long series of jokes on the spot, it's almost inevitable that you'll tell a bad one. It might be a good idea to edit out the wheelchair joke that was told between two of the skits.

Kamiokande,
I personally was impressed that you went the extra mile to boot up your laptop and do image searches for the cosplayers that didn't have referance images. A lot of people would have said "tough toenails" ^_^
It was a really nice thing of you to do!

Melissa was one of the few parts of the cosplay I didn't have any problems with. She may have seemed professional and a bit crisp in her answers, but she had forty people to go through, and was stuck in a loud environment all Saturday without anything to eat.

Melissa has won many awards and judged many times before. She knows what it takes to make a good costume and knows what questions to ask. If you think she was rude, then you haven't been to enough masquerades. -_-;;

She had more than 40. (Some were in groups even)

Melissa, thank you so much for also getting our two extra's, later in the day in the Hall.

Mellisa, Hikaruchan or whatever, I didn't know you didn't have enough time for judging and it made you feel rushed. I thought you were angry me because I showed up late for my appointment, or something my costume or hated me. I didn't know, Im sorry for criticizing you too quickly!!! Please forgive me. I have only just started cosplaying and I am not good at reading people's emotions. :(

Man, I feel like an idiot for being mean. X_X

Mishikotoko - Glad you had my cellphone number to find me so we could see those two. I am sure the pizza guy delivering to room across hall wondered what the heck was going on.

Wolf - People know I love cosplayers, and certainly don't hate them being one myself. When I am judging I am all business though. It was a bit hard to hear in the lobby, plus people were missing their times so I knew we would be getting behind once people started showing up. That is why tried to stay on a time allotment for each person, so we wouldn't get too far behind.

I'm sorry, but haven't you ever heard of a "poker face"? I'm sure she wasn't being rude, and that she has to keep a poker face when judging anyones costume. You don't wanna give away what you really think about it, that way a person could think they are gonna win and brag about it, and then not and be dissapointed.

Hikaruchan is very nice, and has always been a great help with me and to other cosplayers. She's very talented, and makes very well constructed costumes. Not to mention she stays in character! Didn't you hear the accent?! :3

She also took time out of her busy schedule to judge 2 more contestants that afternoon after pre-judging was over b/c of a mess up in con-ops. I know b/c I was there while it happened.

It was Melissa's idea :D

We can't really finalize the prejudge schedule on friday because we'd have to exclude everyone that doesn't show up till saturday morning ^^;;

The major screwup was that some of the conops staffers accidently let people register for cosplay without assigning them a prejudge time.

Sorry about that guys ^^;;

Once again, I am a n00b when it comes to communication and expressions. Darn my autismness. X_X

Once again, I apologize for being rude about my dumb forum post. I didn't realize how hard time Hikaruchan had. I have only done two costumes so far and my animepunch one was my first I actually did work on. I had a hard time hearing the accent through the music in the lobby. Man, I really need to hang out with some more cosplayers at the next con I go to (Matsuricon). *beats head on keyboards*

Only thing I hated about the con was just the artist alley especially since it was right next to the elevator which I'm sure the artists liked the extra traffic I found myself going outside walking around and going in the other door a lot just so I wouldn't have to wait 5 minutes to get through the 30 foot hallway.

Hikaruchan- Honeslty, I thought you were wonderful and professional and I really was impressed that you were so informed on my costume. I was honestly really impressed to win anything under your judging, you had an awesome attitude and yeah kudos from me, I really hope to be under your judging again.

As far as suggestions, perhaps put Crispin in a glass case and let us all oooh and ahh over him for the weekend, you know ever so often sending someone to windex the spit and lipstick off the glass? Anyone else agree?

Was Melissa in the Anthy costume? That was awesome! I liked it a lot. Yeah, the cosplay line was long, but it wouldn't have been bad if the hotel had a better place to stick a line of people. btw, what happened with the video rooms? The weren't too reliable it seems.... and collective gaming?

Oh yeah what's up with these forums? I couldn't find them for a long time and after i did I wasn't sure it was the right place. Neo Battle peasant? What? Ads are annoying too...

Nope, I was in Dante - http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=646860

Neo-Battle Peasant is one of the source projects for AP...
We actually keep meaning to do something about that...

As for the video rooms, we started playing a complicated game of musical-projectors and it was just so much fun that we didn't stop until mid-saturday!
Actually a few that we were counting on didn't show up, and in the mad dash to try and make everything work right we didn't have time to keep everything else organized! Plus one of the projectors we did have was deemed not usable since it was far too powerful and basically turned night into day! (Maybe next year we'll take it outside and project AMV's against the building, since that seems to be what it is best suited for!!)

Other than that, things went ok, Video-wise. Next year we'll know better about a few things, and will be sure to keep the trains running on time.

I am glad we got each others numbers at the convention.
And thanks for being so kind to both of the cosplayers, who you two judges judged in the Hall. Plus I am sure the Pizza guy was a bit flipped out...lol
For that, and for right before the cosplay.

Keep in touch...even though I do have you on LJ. :P

Nope, that was me. The unexperieced cosplayer.

oh that was you sweet i really liked it

Yea. That was me.

I don't have my photos from the con of me as Anthy uploaded yet though. However, I do have some pics of me as Anthy at Ohayocon in my cosplay.com account.

Mike, the main con Mike, invited my husband to attend after reading Ryan's Anime News Network Editorial about what he thought was the problem with cons today. After seeing everything that was planned for the con, Ryan agreed to come out of retirement and attend. I enjoyed parts of Anime Punch, as did my husband, but overall we found that the convention was rather disorganized and this hurt many of the events that were planned. The staff was always very nice to me, and accomodated my problems as best they could, but I think communication was poor and often mishandled, and overall there was a lack of staff in general.

Just so you know, between us, Ryan and I have attended over 80 conventions stretching back to Anime Expo '92 for him and Otakon '97 for me. We have both served on con staff as gophers, and we have been panelists at conventions ranging from Anime Central to Otakon to Ikasucon. We know conventions inside and outside, because we've seen so many.

Specific complaints and suggestions (excerpted from a message I sent Con Chair Mike):

-Putting panel schedules outside the panel rooms, this would also be a good place to put a GOOD photocopied version of the messed up program.

-Dealer's Room and Artist Alley both need more room.

-Make sure all events start on time, or at least have announcements about a new time / cancelation be available. We went to find the puppet show and saw no trace of it happening even fifteen minutes past time it was supposed to start.

-Ryan suggests a big note board featuring the latest information put in a central location. Putting notes on the wall is not enough, and a separate board draws more attention.

-Cosplay needs to be more organized. I greatly appreciate all the help your staff gave me with my problem, but most of the time we still had little to know idea what was going on.

-Judges need a separate room to judge craftsmanship in. I know you're all for the "art of cosplay" but if you're serious about that then don't bother holding a competition at all. Just hold a fashion show. If you do hold a competition next year I would recommend using International Costumer's Guild rules.

-Stick to the schedule. I told you this already, but Ryan was very upset to find that Elfen Lied had started early because it was the one show he wanted to see, and it was already two episodes to the wind by the time he arrived (which was the time it was scheduled to start.)

-The whole "show us your tits" idea at the masquerade half time while entertaining was in NO WAY APPROPRIATE. If you're going to limit your attendees / entrants to PG-13, you as hosts should do the same. I had an eight and a ten-year-old sitting next to me for part of your spiel and it was in no way appropriate for them. Plus, encouraging people to "show their tits" in an audience half full of underage teenagers is asking for the con to be kicked out of the hotel and sued by parents. Make no mistake, THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE TO BIGGER CONS, and they are now blacklisted from several hotels.

I liked the location near food, the staff people were friendly, the guests were interesting, and the events that did go off were enjoyable.

Overall I appreciate that you're trying to be ambitious and different, but I think you need to pull back some and make sure that you have the groundwork for a successful organized con and staff (with a few "out there" events) established before turning it all over to the randomness.

I thought so, I have a pic of you form ohayocon too but it was on a disposable so I can't upload it no scanner

This is from Ohayo... http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c44/Iate...06/100_0283.jpg

And from Armageddicon....
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c44/Iate...02006/Anthy.jpg

Is that you?






And as for Criticism, I have a couple points.

****You've heard this many time. Two words: Artist's Alley.

**** Nobody had a clue what was going on. I got confused and asked for help, and Regristration, Con-Ops, random staff, nobody could help me when I had a question. So I ended up getting confused for a photoshoot, and couldn't locate panels.

Yes, that was me I ate my lava lamp. I'll probably be once again forced to wear it at Matsuricon because people like it so much :lol: I REALLY want to make another cosplay outfit but I don't have the time right now. Stupid ENG 102 college essay report!