Announcements and updates specifically from the 2016 convention year.
We would like to welcome and congratulate the Directors elected for the 2017 convention year:
Thank you to all candidates, and to our staff for your participation in elections!
The Annual Meeting of the Membership will be held on Saturday, December 3, at 11:30am (note earlier time) at:
Oregon Convention Center – Room D135 (Google Maps)
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Portland, OR 97232
At the Annual Meeting of the Membership, elections will be held for the following positions:
This meeting is open to public attendance. Voting is open to Altonimbus Entertainment Members (Kumoricon staff).
Members must be present in person to vote, except for proxy voting. If you are a Member of Altonimbus Entertainment but cannot attend the meeting, you may designate another Member as your proxy. This means that the Member you designate as your proxy is authorized to cast your vote in your stead for any election or matter that comes before the membership for a particular meeting. A Member may only act as a proxy for no more than two other Members for a particular vote. You may authorize a proxy in either of two ways: (1) The Member not attending the meeting may authorize another Member using the online proxy authorization system, or (2) The proxy attending the meeting may bring a printed form to the meeting signed by the absent Member. Only one or the other is required, not both. The full proxy policy is printed on the authorization form.
There is a more detailed elections process document available to staff members (staff login required) detailing the elections meeting policy and procedure. It is the “Elections Process” link in the “Meetings” section. This policy has had some minor revisions since the last election. We encourage interested staff to review it. A summary of the elections procedure is publicly available. Nominations are open on the forum until Nov 29, 11:59pm. You may ask questions to candidates in the respective candidate Q&A threads for each position. There is also an anonymous question and comment process.
Please note that the meeting starts earlier than normal, at 11:30am, to provide enough time for all the elections.
As we kick off our official Kumoricon 2017 announcements, we are pleased to announce two voice acting Guests of Honor for next year’s convention!
Todd Haberkorn
Vic Mignogna
Kumoricon’s first year at the Oregon Convention Center was a huge success! We grew by over 1000 and in total, hosted about 7030 paid unique attendees (not counting specialty badges and staff).
We are thrilled to announce that Kumoricon 2017 will be returning to the Oregon Convention Center on October 27-29, 2017. We hope to see you all there!
The mascot for 2017 is:
Mascot artist: TFOTR
The Kumoricon 2016 guide is now available in the Guidebook app!
This free app for Android and iOS contains a live-updating Kumoricon schedule, maps, photos, convention information, announcements, and more. Mark events to create a personalized schedule with reminders. The entire guide is downloaded in advance, so it works offline if you can’t get reception.
After you install the app, search the guides for “Kumoricon 2016”, or visit Guidebook to get a download link on your phone.
As a special, limited opportunity, we will be offering 10 VIP memberships at the door. Premium benefits include unlimited priority seating for Main Events, Arena, and Live Events 1 + 2, exclusive merchandise, and a VIP-only autograph session with all the Guests of Honor! These VIP memberships will be available for purchase on Friday, Oct 28 until they’re all gone!
As a thank-you to all our attendees who book with our official hotels for Kumoricon 2016, we’re excited to offer our exclusive hotel bonus package. This bonus package will be given to each person who is officially registered to the hotel room. Only bookings made with our official hotels (the hotels listed on our location page or through our staff booking system), including existing bookings, are eligible for this exclusive bonus.
To receive your bonus: Each person who is officially listed on the hotel room should visit the Programming Booth (Thursday 2pm-10pm, or starting 10am other days), located in the Oregon Convention Center near the entrance to OCC Exhibit Hall A/A1 (these are the Kumoricon Exhibits Hall and our gaming hall). You will receive three Kumori-Passes and a Friday early-entrance pass to the Exhibits Hall area.
If there are multiple people staying in your hotel room, each person must be officially listed on the hotel room to receive their hotel bonuses. Please contact the hotel to verify or change your reservation.
The contents of the bonus package:
You’ve asked for it and we’ve got it for you! The schedule for Kumoricon 2016 is officially live!
Can’t wait until Closing Ceremonies at Kumoricon 2016 to find out our mascot for next year? You can browse all the entries today at our gallery of entries and hope for your favorite. But the winner is a secret until the con!
We are currently planning to hold Saturday’s general meeting at 1:30pm at the DoubleTree as planned.
However, due to the inclement weather, attendance is not required for anyone, even if you had meetings or trainings scheduled. Please prioritize your safety first and don’t travel if you don’t feel it is safe to do so.
We will make arrangements for staff to meet at alternate times if needed for training or for particular requirements in your position. We will also, as usual, post the minutes online and make the recording available to staff.
If you have not completed your staff registration and were planning to do so at this meeting, we can do it online instead. Please contact the person you were previously talking to about your position to get the process started. If you are not sure, please email staff-registration@kumoricon.org for assistance.
Looking forward to our late-night dances?
Friday Night: Kumoricon Kawaii Rave!!
Featuring Moon Mirror, HOJO, and Pete Ellison
Saturday Night: The Ultimate Dance
Featuring DJ Gino Mari & The DiscoSnake
Find out more at our DJs page!
The next general meeting will be held on Saturday, October 15, at 1:30pm (half hour later than usual) at:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland (Google Maps)
1000 NE Multnomah St
Portland, OR 97232
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
This is the final general meeting before the convention. Attendance is highly recommended for staff!
We hope to see you there!
As a thank-you to all our attendees who book with our official hotels for Kumoricon 2016, we’re excited to offer the following bonuses:
This bonus package will be available to each person who is officially registered to the hotel room. Only bookings made with our official hotels, including existing bookings, are eligible for this exclusive bonus.
But hurry! The last hotel booking deadline is October 7.
Cosplay Chess applications are open for submissions! Come play as your favorite characters as they battle on a giant chessboard stage!
We’re proud to announce our final Guest of Honor for Kumoricon 2016, Fashion Guest and Japanese Voice Actor: Neeko!
The next general meeting will be held on Sunday, October 2, at 1:30pm (half hour later than usual) at:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland (Google Maps)
1000 NE Multnomah St
Portland, OR 97232
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
There will be three small bylaws amendments presented to the members for a vote. (Amendment text and explanations were emailed to members, or see here for details – staff forum login required; email secretary@kumoricon.org for assistance.)
We hope to see you there!
Have you booked your hotel room for Kumoricon 2016 yet? Our hotel room blocks will be closing soon, so make sure you don’t miss out on our discounted rates!
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland – Booking deadline: Sep 27 Oct 7 [extended]
Crowne Plaza Portland Downtown – Booking deadline: Sep 29
Courtyard Portland Downtown/Convention Center – Booking deadline: Oct 6
You can book your room online here.
Post updated Sep 27 (second time) with deadline extension
Pro-Bending returns for Kumoricon 2016! Sign up with your friends to see if you can beat the competition!
Kumoricon is excited to announce galaxxxy! We can’t wait to see their fashion show at Kumoricon 2016!
Calling all fan creators! Applications for the Kumoricon Fan Fiction and Fan Art Contests are now open for submissions!
We’re pleased to announce Shigeto Koyama and Hiromi Wakabayashi from Studio TRIGGER will be joining us this year for Kumoricon 2016!
We’re excited to announce our next Guest of Honor: D.C. Douglas! Please visit our guests page for full details.
Already planning your cosplay or ball attire for the KumoriBall? Be sure to check the official dress code!
The Kumoricon 2016 Karaoke Contest is now open for registration! Remember, signups are first-come, first-served so be sure to sign up for your spot early!
Thank you to our attendees for visiting our miniature con last weekend. We hosted 767 attendees, an increase from last year!
The next general meeting will be held on Saturday, September 17, at 1:30pm (half hour later than usual) at:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland (Google Maps)
1000 NE Multnomah St
Portland, OR 97232
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
Exciting news! We’re pleased to announce our next Guest of Honor: Kieran Strange will be returning this year for Kumoricon 2016!
We’re pleased to release the Kumoricon Lite schedule, and announce two featured panelists:
Conventional Improv!
Established in 2009 in Portland, CI! has been entertaining audiences of all ages and sizes at several different conventions around the Pacific Northwest. CI! also streams live its flagship gaming show, Friday Night Gaming, featuring interactive games the audience can play with the crew! CI! is excited to be presenting at its home con once again!
Conventional Improv! presents: CI! Live! – Formerly known as Whose Line, it’s the same improv show from your favorite people ever, Conventional Improv! Come join us for some of your favorite improv games and some of the best laughs you will have!
Conventional Improv! presents: Match Game – It’s a return to one of the classics! Contestants attempt to match hilarious fill-in-the-blank questions with our six celebrities. There’s a chance to win big prizes.
Jeannie “Ginx”
Jeannie “Ginx” presents: “Mini” Weapons and Armor Making – A short weapons and armor creating presentation. Two different techniques will be demonstrated for creating two different gun props, lightweight broadswords, and graphic software for creating armor patterns. Plus, see a sneak peak at this year’s full length panel in October.
Jeannie will appear as a co-moderator on Cosplay Workshop – Are you stuck on your cosplay? Looking for advice on how to tackle a construction issue? Come to this open discussion where you can seek advice from your fellow cosplayers, or share tips and techniques with each other!
Kumoricon Lite
Kumoricon Lite is our one-day summer mini-event, held on August 21. For full information, and to pre-register online, visit our Kumoricon Lite page for all that you need to know!
The next general meeting will be held on Sunday, August 14, at 1:30pm (half hour later than usual) at:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland (Google Maps)
1000 NE Multnomah St
Portland, OR 97232
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
The next general meeting will be held on Saturday, July 16, at 1:00pm at:
Beaverton City Library – Main – Meeting Room A (Google Maps)
12375 SW 5th St
Beaverton, OR 97005
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
Back by popular demand: Kumoricon Lite returns for a one-day summer event! Join us on Sunday, August 21 at the Ambridge Event Center in Portland for a day of panels, video gaming, cosplay, arts and crafts, karaoke, and more.
Entry will be $10. You can pre-register today or register at the door.
Donate three manga volumes for free admission! (Please see details and restrictions.)
We hope to see you there!
Attention cosplayers: The Kumoricon 2016 Cosplay Contest is open for applications!
We’re pleased to announce our next Guest of Honor: Sonny Strait!
Attention Artists: Due to the overwhelming response for Artist Alley, applications will be closing a month early, on June 25th, 2016. This will allow accepted artists more time to expand their inventory as well as obtain their Portland Business License number, which is due no later than September 5th, 2016.
If you miss the application deadline and would still like to showcase an art piece, we are looking for people willing to donate one, unique piece of artwork for our Art Show. This year we are trying something different and would like to have all profits from Art Show go to Kumoricon’s chosen charity that we will be hosting (TBA at a later date).
We appreciate everyone’s interest in exhibiting in our 2016 Artist Alley, hosted in the Oregon Convention Center. We are excited about the amount of talented artists and we look forward to having a fantastic year in our new venue.
-Artist Alley Staff and Management
Please note: The deadline for Exhibits Hall applications will not be affected by this change and will still be accepting submissions through July 25th.
The next general meeting will be held on Sunday, June 12, at 1:00pm at:
Pietro’s Pizza (Google Maps)
1637 Hawthorne Ave NE
Salem, OR 97301
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
We’re proud to announce our next Guest of Honor: Eric Vale!
We would like to welcome and congratulate John Krall, elected to Director of Infrastructure at the May 21 special election.
Thank you to our staff for your participation!
Psst, we have an inside scoop: Press applications are now open for Kumoricon! Apply and review our press badge policies here.
The Mascot Contest for Kumoricon 2017 is now open for submissions! Artists, here’s your chance to make your work a part of Kumoricon! The contest runs through Sunday, August 7, 11:59:59pm, PDT.
Update: The location has been confirmed.
The next general meeting will be held on Saturday, May 21, at 1:00pm at:
Crowne Plaza Portland Downtown – room Windsor BC (Google Maps)
1441 NE 2nd Ave
Portland, OR 97232
At this meeting, a special election will be held to fill a vacancy in the Director of Infrastructure position, as well as regular business and convention updates.
This meeting is open to public attendance. Voting is open to Altonimbus Entertainment Members (Kumoricon staff for the 2015 or 2016 years).
We hope to see you there!
For staff participating in elections:
Members must be present in person to vote, except for proxy voting. If you are a Member of Altonimbus Entertainment but cannot attend the meeting, you may designate another Member as your proxy. This means that the Member you designate as your proxy is authorized to cast your vote in your stead for any election or matter that comes before the membership for a particular meeting. A Member may only act as a proxy for no more than two other Members for a particular vote. You may authorize a proxy in either of two ways: (1) The Member not attending the meeting may authorize another Member using the online proxy authorization system, or (2) The proxy attending the meeting may bring a printed form to the meeting signed by the absent Member. Only one or the other is required, not both. The full proxy policy is printed on the authorization form.
There is a more detailed elections process document available to staff members (staff login required) detailing the elections meeting policy and procedure. A summary of the elections procedure is publicly available. Nominations are open on the forum until Wednesday, May 18, 11:59pm. You may ask questions to candidates in the candidate Q&A thread.
Kumoricon’s official room block is now open for booking! All reservations are made through our unified booking website rather than contacting the hotel directly. Please visit the Location page to reserve a room and to see a map of our hotels.
Have an idea for a cool panel? Ever thought about hosting a panel and sharing what you love most in fandom? Panel applications for Kumoricon 2016 are open for submissions!
Kumoricon is pleased to announce our next guest of honor for Kumoricon 2016: Caitlin Glass! Find out more at the Guests of Honor page.
Application deadline update: Due to the overwhelming response for Artist Alley, applications will be closing a month early, on June 25, 2016. This will allow accepted artists more time to expand their inventory as well as obtain their Portland Business License number, which is due no later than September 5, 2016. The deadline for Exhibits Hall applications will not be affected by this change and will still be accepting submissions through July 25.
Kumoricon is pleased to announce the opening of applications for the Artist Alley and Exhibits Hall!
Applications are open until July 25, 2016, at 11:59 PM.
Applications are not first-come, first-served. Applications received by the deadline will be chosen without regard to when they were submitted.
Please review the information, pricing, policies, and application forms at the following links:
Kumoricon is super excited to announce our first guest of honor for Kumoricon 2016: Austin Tindle! Find out more at the Guests of Honor page.
The next General Meeting will be held on Sunday, April 24, 2016, at 1:00pm, at:
Beaverton City Library – Main – Meeting Room A (Google Maps)
12375 SW 5th St
Beaverton, OR 97005
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
The AMV Contest is open! Please visit the rules and entry form to learn about our categories, prizes, and restrictions. Entries are due by September 1.
The next General Meeting will be held on Saturday, March 12, 2016, at 1:00pm, at:
Beaverton City Library – Main – Meeting Room A (Google Maps)
12375 SW 5th St
Beaverton, OR 97005
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention.
The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info.
We hope to see you there!
Dear Kumoricon artists,
As you may have heard from discussion in the nationwide convention community, there’s been a lot of attention recently to issues of copyright and trademark in Artist Alley spaces. Kumoricon, as many other anime conventions, is affected by this, and we’d like to communicate what this means to our artists.
First off, we are happy to say that in many cases we will continue to allow fan art within our Artist Alley. Fan art is a long-standing tradition within anime conventions and many other communities in which artists draw their own renditions of characters from industry-produced anime, manga, and other sources. We’re happy that many of our artists will be able to continue exhibiting their fan art nearly exactly as they have been doing for years.
However, due to some recent guidance communicated from within the industry, Kumoricon will need to tighten its enforcement of issues relating to trademarks, and this will affect some of our artists. This tightened enforcement around trademarks, in most cases, affects names and logos when they appear within, or even next to, fan art. Kumoricon will not be able to allow booths exhibiting fan art to use the names or logos of the series of the derived art in connection with those art pieces, as titles, descriptions, or in signage elsewhere in the booth. This can also sometimes affect the art itself. Some examples of this are Corps logos and badges from Attack on Titan, the “Mario” title and “M” and “L” insignias in their native font, or the Horde/Alliance symbols from World of Warcraft.
In following this path of continuing to allow fan art but tightening our enforcement around trademarks, Kumoricon will be following the guidance provided by FUNimation, a major American licensor of anime properties, as well as guidance from many other sources in the industry and the community, and we believe we will be following a very similar path as many other American anime conventions.
Why this change? Earlier this year, FUNimation released a public letter to the anime convention community clarifying its stance on fan art. This letter is publicly available in full. This letter provided some important guidance in that it praised fan art, but drew a distinction between copyright and trademark enforcement.
Kumoricon must also be mindful of the policies of companies within different industries. In some cases, some of the recent industry and community guidance we have received will impact fan art based on properties from certain companies even if it does not display trademarked names or logos, and unfortunately some artists will be affected by this. This tends to particularly be the case for properties from sources outside of Japan. If you have concerns about this, please contact us at artists@kumoricon.org and we may be able to provide more specific assistance.
Thank you,
The Kumoricon Team
The next General Meeting will be held on Sunday, February 7, 2016, at 1:00pm, at:
Beaverton City Library – Main – Meeting Room A (Google Maps)
12375 SW 5th St
Beaverton, OR 97005
Meetings are open to the public and are a great way to sign up for staff or become involved with the convention. The full general meeting schedule for the year is always available at Meetings, and will be kept up-to-date with the latest info. We hope to see you there!