In my opinion, one of the things that I think really helped Kumoricon from the start was there were so many long term Sakura Con attendees. We were able to really think about Sakura (get a TON of help from Isaac who was their con chair in 2001 and has held many other positions before he left for the Navy. He helped us so much I almost started to wonder how he had time to still do his Sakura duties because he still had a very important role up there!).
When we did think about Sakura, we thought about what we personally liked about it (quite a bit) but we did think of things that we would like to see done differently. That is not a dig against Sakura- HONEST- we were all brain storming from our own unique personal perspective-- what would be our own ideal? (I was not involved very much at all at this time, just to be clear. I'm not quite sure what I was waiting for other than since I was going to be involved heavily in cosplay, there wasn't much yet to do at that point and I only really knew most of the people by reputation. I spent a long time going, 'Oh, I've seen you at Sakura, you live around here?' It was in my head a lot to avoid being embarrassed. When I'm not in a costume or on stage, I'm shy until I really know people or have an 'issue' with something that has happened.) Then it was a matter of finding a place and a date, and then saying, "Let's go for it!"
I personally looked for little things I could do to make the congoers feel special. If we couldn't get them an autograph session with Clamp, what could we do?
I looked back to what cons used to be about a long time ago...watching a whole bunch of anime together with a group. That's where the Live Action Sailor Moon Slumber Party came in for the first year. It wasn't a bunch of random shows one after another, it was a series and people could either come for the whole night or wander in and out depending on interest. It was informal, so commenting on a PG level was allowed. I wore my "Star Wars Chicks" t shirt and Pink Hello Kitty Pajama Bottoms! There was a mix of people who both loved and hated things like Sailor Moon, but both groups laughed at the same things in the show and laughed at the same comments.
Since we didn't have money for even US guests from far away, I looked into who were the most entertaining, anime knowledgeable people I could think of, and invited Baka Zoku to host the Cosplay. They may only be from Seattle, but in my opinion, ANY con of ANY size in the country should be proud to invite the group as capital G Guests-- especially at the level that they have now reached. They were great for us in 2003 and in 2005 (at Sakura), it's easy to see that they are even better. Just because someone is from your neck of the woods does not mean they aren't as good or better than someone you have to fly across the country!
I also liked the idea of recognizing many Hall Cosplayers for their work and making the recognition visible. That's where the ribbons for Hall Cosplay started. Many were recognized and the other congoers could see the award ribbon hanging from the cosplayer's badge.
One idea seemed stupid and juvenile, but it was fun! I had picked up some stickers that looked like little first, second and third place ribbons and we used them for some of the things like DDR contests. It was silly and kind of like something from elementary school, but from what I heard, the DDR players liked getting a blue (or what color they won) ribbon sticker added to their badges. If your boss gave that to you as a reward at work, it would most likely seem pathetic, but something about being around a bunch of people who are so into the same things just brings out some of the best parts about what it meant to be a kid.
Though I would love to see more and more cons do Hall Cosplay the way we did in 2003 and 2004, I think the sticker thing is an example of something that was so much fun at a 400 person first year con, but would seem kind of cheesy from a 5000 person 7-year-old convention- bringing my comments back around to the topic of the smaller vs larger con. ("I'm the best DDR player out of 50 people in the contest and my prize is a STICKER!?!?").
I could be wrong on that, but I think the feeling of a bunch of crazy Otaku have rented out a hotel to have a party made it feel like it was everyone's party and everyone was important. Admission was (and still is) inexpensive, but there seems to be the feeling of -they need all of our admission dollars to pay for the party. For 2004, we did our best to keep that same "everyone is part of the show and important" feeling. I'm sure something along those lines will be going through our heads for 2005 as well. I know as long as I'm involved (and this year it's only on a very small level), one of my goals will always be to make sure I can help as many attendees as possible go away with the same feelings the people who enjoyed the con when it was only 400 people had.
No matter how big we get, I hope we are always seen as a bunch of anime fans who just keep being able to put on a bigger and bigger party each year (and even get to the point where it gets to be known as such a fun party, we can get some famous people to attend), and as much fun as it is to see and maybe even talk to the famous people, it's still mostly about the con-goers.
