As a fellow con-goer and student, however, I have to give some general advice: You should never come out of town from over an hour's drive away to a convention without first pre-registering. The amount of money you save by planning on going for one day instead of pre-registering usually isn't any more than the amount you would spend on gas for a round trip by car.
KumoriCon's registration prices are fairly low for a 3-day con. They are even lower if you plan ahead. Many of you didn't hear about this con until late in the year, or even the Friday of the con if you read the Oregonian, but our initial pre-reg price was $25 for all three days, if I remember correctly. (sidenote: dangit...getting press coverage is great, but sometimes it seems that they always wait until the last minute!!)
If you go to Sakura Con next year, don't expect to save any money compared to KumoriCon unless you live in Seattle. And pre-register now, preferably. I'm not trying to put down Sakura Con at all (in fact, I would really like to go next year myself), but they are a higher-budget con with attendance numbers so large that you need to plan months in advance to guarantee a good hotel room and registration.
I completly agree with these sentiments. You know what happened at Kumoricon is not a isolated incident. At the first year of Anime Boston they had to turn people away after 12 p.m.
on the first day! Alot of people were turned away (Had they not do a cut off they would of exceeded 5,000 people) many of whom drove for several hours!
While I understand the frustration of not getting in... Please keep in mind the issue of crowd control, saftey and comfort. How much fun would the con be if 1,500 people were there? Instead of some people complaining about not getting in we would have everyone comlplaing about how bad the con was, injuries occuring, H.O.B.O. encounters, hotel problems (you think the elevators were slow with 800 attendees imagine what would happen with 1,500) and just the problems that come up with a lack of space. For their second year Anime Boston laid down a strict attendance cap of 3,250 they sold out during pre-regisitration. While some howled about that it made the overall con experience outstanding for all attendees.
I know its easy to say: "Well anime is really big...You should have prepared for 3,000 people..." (Mind you there were only 450 people pre-reg'ed) Well who is going to foot the bill for that. To reserve that kinda of space requires money. Who's going to foot the bill to secure that space.(up front costs = $$$$$) So do you have $60 USD pre-reg (then people complain about cost) or 200 USD per night hotel rooms...(then people complain about cost again!) or charge the dealers more thier space (thus less dealers and people compalin about that.)
And what happens when you only have 600 show up. The con is on the line to make up the costs (which are substanial) thus you do not have a con for next year. If that were to occur would you write a check to cover the difference?
The Marriot
is a good venue. If the con is held there again they could esaily get more space and thus more people. However economic realities require that Kumoricon do what is best for all con-goers.
A few ideas:
1. Pre-Regisiter and Pre-Register Early! Yep even if you plan on going only one day its good to that since you will have the flexibilty to pick which day you want to attend. Also it gives you flexablity incase of last mintue schedule changes and the eailer you pre-register the cheaper it is.
2.Get Involved Help out with the con. Security, Planning, Events yeah putting on a con is alot of work. Having a 5 extra security people could mean a extra 100 peoople to get in. Got complaints? Go to the planning meetings and offer a solution.
Be Patient anf Follow the Rules Lets take elevators... People were overloading the elevators thus they would slowdown or malifunction. Yeah it would sometimes take me 20 minutes to get to the third floor but I simply waited... Some seemed perturbed by the 8 people per elevator car rule frankly it was a good move. I remeber one time I had to pass on 4 cars to get back down stairs yeah it wasnt the best situtation, however getting stuck in a elevator, with 10 people for a hour, is much worse.
The convention was well run as could be. I dont think anyone could of anticipated the turnout.
Kevin McKeever
That Guy In The Dark Suit
