I suppose its time for reviews to begin, and I'd like to add my two cents to the whole shebang. I'll divide this into 2 sections, the first is the venue of choice, the Hilton Hotel, and the second is K-con itself.
Hilton: So, by far the WORST hotel I've ever spent time in, and I've spent time in a lot of hotels and motels in my life. I'm sure you (K-con staff) will get more complaints about some of the more obvious things than you know what to do with, so I'll go for some more obscure things. First off, the rooms themselves. For the price we paid, I expected something larger and more comfortable. My room at home is bigger than the room I stayed in, and I had 7 people in the room for one night (suck it Hilton), which is 6 too many folks for a room that size. The window barely opened, just a little section at the bottom that opened about 2 inches, if that. The only thing that made it livable was a decent AC fan. The TV took up too much space for the useless pile of junk it was. You couldn't hook anything up to it, and the only entertainment was a few channels of cable, expensive movies for purchase, or an N64, which has been outdated for about 10 years or more now and had to be rented for 8 bucks an hour. The doors to the closet were hanging off the hinges when we got there, and we could not get them working at all. About the only decent thing was the shower, which heated up quickly and worked just fine.
Next, onto the staff. Now, I said I wouldn't touch on some obvious things, but this one was too much. Have you morons ever heard of customer service? Have you ever heard of human decency, or compassion, or kindness, or the fact that we were paying your bills for the weekend you useless piles of feces? I mean, I could go to a farm, find a pig, and it would treat me better than you fools ever could, and I would only have to pay it in garbage and food, instead of the 500+ dollars you charged. You insult, push, shove, yell, and overall treat us like crap. You really had no clue as to what was coming when you agreed to host a convention of over 6000 people, didn't check your people for tolerance, and let them have free reign on your paying customers. I mean, by the end of the first day did you really need 3-4 security people sitting in the lobby checking to see if we needed to go to the bathroom or were trying to sneak downstairs, not that there wasn't someone from the con sitting at the top of the escalators, which by the way having them off was a HORRIBLE idea.
Now, I never suffered from these idiots trying any of that crap with me, but that might be because the only time I was in cosplay I was in a fully-functioning suit of armor, which tends to deter that sort of stupidity. When I wasn't in cosplay, I dressed in no-nonsense clothes, and carried myself as such. However, I know the kinds of folks that make up the majority of a con, and plenty of them don't know how to deal with rude asshats like that, and suffered for it. And finally, on to your house keeping team. I love them, and they were awesome, and deserved every dollar of tip they got. They had the room clean, picked up, and were courteous whenever we needed something extra. They also never turned us in, when it was obvious we had more than 4 folks in our room for one night. I'd also like to thank the really nice old man at the parking garage, who said it was a treat to see all of our fantastic costumes roaming the streets.
Now... on to the K-con staff
I want to say that I know how hard it is to run events this large, or even to participate in them, since I am part of Sakuracon at a lower level, but I listen to what the higher-ups have to go through to make a con work. However, there was a serious break-down of planning in logistics and communication all throughout the con. The first thing, was ever having the con in the Hilton at all. One walk-through of the place could have told you that. There are only FOUR elevators, for SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE, not counting normal guests on labor day weekend. Combined with the fact that only 7 people were allowed on each elevator, even though they clearly state they can handle 3000 pounds, which is stupid (go team Hilton), and that a large portion of those 6000+ people are going to be in potentially large, intricate or delicate costumes, or carrying around huge props, shows a very bad scenario, and that is with just 5 minutes of thought and a look at prior registration numbers.
The lobby was tiny, the pavillion floor just as small, and the 3rd floor were offices. That about sums up the main loitering area of the con. Since the ballroom floor was gaming and the main events, and entrance to the floor was excessively controlled (see earlier in hotel staff), you have 3 tiny areas for tons of conventioneers to spend their time talking and chatting, so you have a VERY crowded area. This also means that there is no room for lines, which means that you had to line up outside, which if it had been pouring, would have destroyed a lot of costumes and made it very miserable.
The dealer's hall was small, but functional, if you excuse the fact that it was in their parking garage, not that they had much other space available. Overall, the hotel was far too small for the cons needs, and this should have been seen long before the decision to go there was made, and I know that the folks in the decision making chairs could have seen all of these with a little observation and forethought as well. It is time to move out of the hotel venues, and into a larger space with far more loitering areas, far fewer choke-points, and better non-con staff. Your Yojimbo didn't know how to pace themselves; before the con even started, they were beginning to fray at the edges, which didn't paint a very pretty picture for the rest of the con. They definitely took second fiddle to the Hilton security team, who seemed to run the show on the lobby and above, and poorly at that. That being said, most of them were very courteous when they weren't extremely frazzled, and I have no issues with them at all, and I wish to thank them for their hard work.
There was also a huge breakdown in communication between K-con and the Hilton, long before the con started. They clearly had no fing idea of the size of the con that was coming, and this was apparent in how under-prepared they were. They also had no clue as to what type of people we were. The majority of their staff treated us like freaks, and should have been fired for the first 5 minutes of the behavior they displayed, and yet the hotel did nothing. They thought we were destructive little children, and not just folks in costume, and this mentality should have been checked out before a deal was struck.
Now, I apologize for the wall of text, but since this con was the worst experience I've ever had to pay for in my life, I thought it deserved everything that needed to be said. If you have any differing opinions, keep your answers civil, and none of my observations towards the k-con staff were intended to be insulting or demeaning, just things I thought should have been thought through. I mean, if I can walk in there and see these things, then folks with a lot more experience should have been seeing them too. BTW, I will be sending the first part (slightly modified) to the Hilton itself, via whatever customer response service they have. If they dont, I'll just post it on whatever forums that deal with hotel reviews I can find, just so they get the picture as well.
