Suggestions/Rants

[marmaladeboy]

I notice that some things I am bringing up might have been brought up before... but hopefully some of my input is new ^^;

I worked in the dealer's room for most of the con and it became a problem very early on that there were no trash cans in there.  Especially a lot of people bought pocky or ramune from one of the booth's and would just leave them underneath other dealer's tables (empty bottles, etc).  I know that there were trash cans near the water area outside of the exhibtor's hall, but it is helpful to have them inside, as well.  ^_^

Also, at least one dealer lost a bit of money at the convention which was contributed at least a little bit to the cap put on the dealer's room.  It's true that a few times there was a big crowd in there.  But most of the time a lot more people could have been let in than were.  It might be worthwhile to have someone check inside for how crowded it is as well as counting people going in and out.

Also, in the dealer's room there were empty tables.  We feel like it would have raised more business for those that were in the dealer's room if there was more there (some people are put off by a half-empty room).

Now a personal rant type-thing ^^;  Two of the events I look the most forward to are the AMV contest and the trivia contest.  However, on the schedules these were at the same time.  Only if you heard the people running around the con yelling about the music video contest being pushed up a half hour did you know about that schedule change and plenty of us showed up for the trivia contest at eleven, having no idea that it had been changed to noon (it was not until we asked at the information desk that we found out in some areas the paper had been changed).  I know that the AMV contest is a bigger deal than trivia to most people, but it might have stopped some confusion if an announcement had been made about the change as it was about the AMV's. :/

My friends did not have enough money to go to the full con so they decided to go on one day.  Sadly they chose Sunday and by that time registration had been capped.  One thing that might be nice is to have both a general cap and then a daily cap (I'm sorry if this was done, I have only heard of the general cap).  If there was a daily cap then it would make it harder to reach that general cap at the very beginning and maybe even allow for the general cap to be raised upon further viewing.


Sorry if this is excessive ^^;  Nobody seems to have commented on the dealer's room at all yet.  I hope this is somewhat helpful.

[zenix]

at least one dealer lost a bit of money at the convention which was contributed at least a little bit to the cap put on the dealer's room.

how did they lose money from there being a cap the only time there was a wait that i know of was when it first opened on saturday

Also, in the dealer's room there were empty tables. We feel like it would have raised more business for those that were in the dealer's room if there was more there (some people are put off by a half-empty room).

they cant force dealers to come if you know a dealer that goes to cons send them an email telling them about kumoricon

what do u mean by genral cap?

[marmaladeboy]

I heard that there were multiple times no new people were let in (being in the room the whole entire time what I was told is not set in stone - however even capping a room once can do some damange...)

I don't mean force people to come... that would be bad -_-  But I'm sure that there are local comic book stores that might have liked to have an area there but did not know about it.  Also, this convention is not very out there web-wise.  Hopefully next year (thanks to the attendance this year) word will get around and more vendors will know about it.  ^_^

By general cap I mean the overall cap for the whole con.  An example is the cap that the con did have - 1000.  This was not a daily cap saying that 1000 people would be let in Saturday, 1000 Sunday, etc.  This was a cap saying that 1000 people could buy registration badges no matter what day.(Thus leaving no Sunday only passes outside of the 1000 for people who were just going that day and did not do registration on Friday/Saturday)  Hm... I guess I should have chosen a different word.  Overall cap seems to work better.  ^^;

[Nyco27]

I too ran into the trash problem all over the place, and hopefully that will be fixed next year.

at least one dealer lost a bit of money at the convention which was contributed at least a little bit to the cap put on the dealer's room.

Im sorry, but we had to do that because of fire codes and such, although for the most part, there were few lines and we did have someone standing outside the door at all times counting people as they went in or out.

in the dealer's room there were empty tables.

Friday night before the con there were three tables not signed up with a dealer. One of those were taken out for the photo guys and another was used by a late arrival. The problem we really had was someone who had three tables at the start of the con was caught with bootleged items and were kicked out.

Re: the schedules

I'm very sorry you had problems with the schedules. We are looking into a way to make changes more noticible and to have more announcements next year and hopefully it smoother and people will know what exactly is going on better.

One thing that might be nice is to have both a general cap and then a daily cap

We tried to do something like that but there was much dispute over exactly how to go about it. For one thing, we never expected to need to enforce a cap, and I can promise you the two people who sat behind that desk nearly the entirity of the con (myself and pezcat) were nearly ill from having to turn people away. We didn't like it one bit, and found every way around it. Hence why we came up with the dealers room pass which added to the number of people in there  by nearly another fifty or so people.

maybe even allow for the general cap to be raised upon further viewing.

We totaly got rid of the cap at one point on monday because so many people left the hotel after noon check out.

Sorry if this is excessive ^^; Nobody seems to have commented on the dealer's room at all yet. I hope this is somewhat helpful.

Most definetly! It's always nice to get new perspectives and suggestions. That's how we make the con better next year.

I hope I was able to explain somewhat of what happened with the problems we had and if you ever have anymore suggestions of complaints, let us know.

Nyco

[kylite]

the cap was for fire safety specs.  175 is the LEGAL limit.  if we let more in and some fire marshal or other law enforment official noticed or hotel staff noticed the con would have paid in SPADES!   so we are sorry if u lost alittle due to the cp but its better then not being there at all.

[princessfrodo]

To be honest about the dealers room, it would have helped the dealers a lot more if what they were selling couldn't have been purchased locally for much cheaper. (Stickers, pins, and kunai/weapons were about the only products that coud not have been purchased for much cheaper locally.)

As cool as some of the stuff they were carrying was, if I know I can hop a bus and pay $5-10 for a plushie, I will.  Especially in the manga section.

Hopefully next year there'll be a lot cooler japanese imported stuff! ^.^ (Doujinshi please! ^.^ )

[zenix]

Friday night before the con there were three tables not signed up with a dealer. One of those were taken out for the photo guys and another was used by a late arrival. The problem we really had was someone who had three tables at the start of the con was caught with bootleged items and were kicked out.

 was that the guy selling the cd who was there saturday but not sunday? maybe its good i didnt buy that cd from him

[Fade]

I was thinking the same thing; I'd been wondering why they'd left so suddenly.  Good thing all I bought from them was a wallscroll.

[Kei-Kei]

I was thinking the same thing; I'd been wondering why they'd left so suddenly.  Good thing all I bought from them was a wallscroll.

 
The Gundam Seed cd's he was selling were really tempting, but I guess now I wonder how well they would've been. Good. I'm glad I know because I was bummed at first.

[hikaru_maxwell]

Okay, now I don't feel so bad about spending all of my money on Pocky and Ramune...

[BlackjackGabbiani]

Hopefully next year there'll be a lot cooler japanese imported stuff! ^.^ (Doujinshi please! ^.^ )

YES! The only dj stuff I saw were a notebook with a dj cover, and some light hentai ones (and even then not too many! There were only like 5!)

[sharsachan]

I worked in the dealer's room for most of the con and it became a problem very early on that there were no trash cans in there.

I totally agree. Me and the girls i was with were constantly picking up trash off our table and around it that we know we didn't put there. The first time one of them looked around and says "Trash cans!!" to which we looked around and realized there WERE no trash cans inside the room. It was very irritating to have to pick up trash every 10 minutes.

Which is partially the fault of the con goers too. It's just as easy to carry their trash outside the room when they're done shopping and drop it in a can there.

But yes, trash cans inside the dealers room would be absolutely wonderful.

[MikeJ1592]

nice trash cans though.

It sucked to have a great pic of an awsum cosplay with that oversized ugly white can overflowing with trash bag all hanging out right in the middle of the floor, they should have put it next to the water table out of the main area where most pictures were being taken.

Although Saturday there wasnt even that and it got really annoying when I needed to get rid of my starbucks cup.  I however put it in my camera/ extrabattery bag I had with me till I got upstairs and found a trashcan.  But thats how I was raised, never to leave trash lay around just assuming it was someone elses job to clean up after me.  (not to mention that I worked in a grocery store years ago and the whole trash thing has broken my brain into a controlled responce to not leave it for someone else)

I got an idea, get robotic trash cans, yeah! they could walk around take trash, shoot lazers from ahhhh wait im getting carried away cause of lack of sleep.  

Use the art of FengShui, trash cans are necessary but shouldnt be in the middle of the room, its messin with my chi.  hehe

Mike J

[Ritsuko]

My main gripe was there was literally no communication about the artist alley on the webpage-- no list about who was pre-reged for it, when the deadline for it was. I spent alot of upset time just trying to figure out if I could sell the stuff my friend and I had been making for months. Luckily, the con chair was nice enough to sort it out himself, but I can't help but wonder how frustrated other artists must have felt. Especially walking into the dealer room/artiist alley, and a good 5-10 tables were EMPTY.  8O

[psyentific]

To be honest about the dealers room, it would have helped the dealers a lot more if what they were selling couldn't have been purchased locally for much cheaper. (Stickers, pins, and kunai/weapons were about the only products that coud not have been purchased for much cheaper locally.)

As cool as some of the stuff they were carrying was, if I know I can hop a bus and pay $5-10 for a plushie, I will.  Especially in the manga section.

Hopefully next year there'll be a lot cooler japanese imported stuff! ^.^ (Doujinshi please! ^.^ )

I totally agree.  The coolest tables there were the ones toward the back selling original work.  The rest were largely selling the same stuff as each other or what you could find downtown.  So I don't think it was the cap, and the cap was kind of nice for browsing because you have a chance of getting to look at the merchandise, but since all the action was centered in the front of the room it was still difficult.  

And I was shocked at Anime Pavillion's set up... I just used to order so much awesome stuff through them Iguess I was suprised most of what they brought were DVDs. :/  Some UFO catcher impulse buys would have been totally awesome. :/

[zenix]

i always look for the more unique things in the dealers room unless its a dvd or cd i have benn really itchin for (gundam seed) i did find something that grosses out most of the people i have shown it to

if you have ever watched the end of evangelion u should rember the sence where the mass produced evas rip aparts asuka eva well they made a figure of that sence and i bough it

so what im saying the more unquie stuff the better

[Radien]

Trash has the potential to become an ongoing problem. I too noticed a general lack of trash cans, and not just in the dealer's room. At Sakura Con, trash cans fill up so quickly that they're often all overflowing by evening. They've had this problem for years, so it's obviously something that will require a lot of attention at Kumori Con.

In the future I want to look even one step beyond trash cans: recycling. I don't know about you, but I feel an obligation to attempt to recycle as much as we can during the convention. I hate to see so many people join to enjoy something they have in common, only to leave the hotel having thrown away more trash than they ever do in daily life, but worse yet, recycle none of it. If I have the time, I'm going to volunteer to look into alternatives for next year.


I also have an example from Sakura Con regarding bootlegged merchandise. Well, it was actually Hong Kong bootlegs... so they were technically legal, but many of us have principles against buying them. When I found out I'd accidentally bought several  Hong Kong soundtracks (naive as I was...the price didn't tip me off), I got upset and complained on the forums. The chairman assured me that they too were unhappy to find out about it and would definitely enforce it in the future.

That was way back in 2000. However, the same CDs have been somewhere in the dealer's room every year since then. Perhaps the convention had trouble preventing their sale, as they are legal items, and often carried by some very major dealers.

Now, I heard about one fiasco at the dealer's room: one dealer was selling these Hong Kong CDs for full Japanese import price. That means that you'd have to look quite carefully to identify that they weren't authentic. The only table I saw selling Hong Kong CDs had the standard $15/disc price. Does that mean the one with the jacked-up prices got kicked out? I wasn't there to see it when it happened, if it did.

Only if you heard the people running around the con yelling about the music video contest being pushed up a half hour did you know about that schedule change

The AMV contest did not move in time - they let people in a half hour EARLY and showed 'bonus' AMVs until the contest time, which ran at the appointed hour. No content was lost from the either the AMV contest, or the AMV shows which followed.

- G