| OhayoCon 2009 |
[Feb. 3rd, 2009|11:34 am] |
Alright, it's finally time for my OhayoCon 09 report. And, with this, I'll be officially caught up on report, who hoo! I still need to get the pics up for this and Ikasucon, lmao...
Precon-
Oh, wow. So, let's talk about the organization and whatnot prior tot the con. First off, con websites really need to pose the information on the actual site! OhayoCon kept putting its information up on the forums only. Though the forums are indeed connected to the site, they should not constitute as a valid way to send through information. All important updates should be placed ON the physical website. So, I found out about AA being opened about 12 hours after it was actually open, only because the conchair at YoumaCon alerted me while we were discussing something entirely different. So, I got on and got my table request in within the first 24 hours of it being open. The first strike was already shot though. Not only did they not post the information for people to find easily, they had this new rule where they would "jury" the art. Basically, the description pretty much was saying "we will see if we feel you are talented enough to be in your AA." Now, I have no problem with them jurying it for the sake of keeping out repeat artists, ie, keep it down to 1-2 tables per artist, instead of ending up with like 8 tables for one artist. But, even though that's what the conchair told us they had meant, it's not what they said. Also, we kept hearing different things from everyone! Finally, at about YoumaCon time last year, we heard that a girl got her second table, whereas we hadn't even heard about our first. When we questioned them, basically we were told the AA was full. Well, duuuh, we knew that! They continued to pass us around without ever answering our questions. And, at the actual con, there were like a whole 12 people in the AA, after all of that >.> Even regular artists for that con (I'm only semi-regular) weren't able to get their tables. AA had a LOT of problems and alot of upset patrons.
So, now let's talk about panel programming. We submitted our panel information back before Thanksgiving. Though I don't know all of the details on it, Urd-chan handled it like usual, while I handled AA mainly. But, coming closer to time, I sent them a follow-up e-mail without consulting Urd-chan about our panels. I sent it out late December/early January. I never heard back from them. Finally, Urd-chan contacted them like a week and a half or two weeks later, and they responded to let us know they had never gotten our panel submissions. If they had freaking responded to me when I sent it, we would have been able to take care of this by the time the con came around! Not only that, they had a total of like 16 panel rooms, and the weirdest panels scheduled, EVER! To add to the final cinch, they were horribly rude when dealing with us, too.
But, at least some things went okay. Cosplay stuff now. Their rules on cosplay were pretty fair and I loved the variety I got to see this con.
COSPLAY:
Kurapica-Hunter x Hunter (Friday and Sunday)
Natasha- Zos Kias (Saturday)
There are tons more I could rant about, but I'll try to be nice.
Friday-
So, we arrived fairly early and got our room, and our things taken care of. We split to go to the registration lines. Thanks to the con getting back to us so late, I didn't have a chance to pre reg, so while the rest of my group was there, Urd-chan and I got stuck in the reg line. Though it was fairly long already by the time we got to it, once registration opened, it moved by pretty quickly. The registration was handled pretty well, and at least the staff members around there were trying to appease Urd-chan who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With our registration taken care of, and our room gotten, we moved to get our costumes on. I ran back up to the room, only to get a call from YoumaCon's conchair, asking if some of us could help him out. Urd-chan and I had offered earlier, and having like nothing to do, a group of us went to it. Kimmy, Zel, and I met Morgan at the Dealer's room and went to help him move stuff in from his car, gathering other people along the way. By the end, we had like 7 people helping lol, and it still took three or so trips. With everything in, we set up. The worst thing about the Dealer's room was the fact that YoumaCon's booth was up in the balcony. Ugh. That's a horrible location, though this year it DID get more traffic than last year. Still, it was rather awkward, and it was hard to get all the stuff up there. The hardest part though, was our fault. It took us plenty of time to get the table set up. In fact, the room had already opened around the time we finally managed to get everything in. Still, we only took less than an hour to set it all up, though it took quite a few of us. Then, we started handling customers. I pretty much worked there until 6:15, when I finally left to go and wander the Dealer's room myself. I left from there to meet with Urd-chan, Ranefea, and Kojiro for dinner. After that, I had an hour to kill, so Urd-chan and I just chilled on the stairs, me working on my senior project. Finally, around 9, we left early to go and try to track down the karaoke room. THanks to the lovely horribly disorganized map, it took us until 9:25 to find the dang place (and it started at 9:30). Then, it took until 10:00 ish to finally get karaoke started and the room cleared out. I stayed for a few songs, including my own, but by that time, it was after 10:30 and driving all night, I was too tired to stay behind @_@ Since I had told Morgan I would come back to the Dealer's room at 10 am the next day, I went off to get an early rest, though it ended up being like 11:30 when I finally settled in.
Saturday-
I started the day off by heading down to the Dealer's room to help out with YoumaCon. Fortuantely, the room itself was pretty much opened, and I was able to bypass the line forming outside it since I was volunteering in it. I headed up to the table and helped out there until like 12, when I finally slipped away to go and grab some lunch. Fortunately, Urd-chan and I managed to beat the lunch, and we were forcing our way out of the food court while the rush was in progress. We ended up deciding to meet with Zel on the stairs, since she couldn't get down to the food court to meet with us. I ended up spending sometime actually just relaxing, until Kimmy called to find where we were. She had gone to the Kingdom Hearts photoshoot (actually, Zel was there at first, too). It seems like it was a little crazy, but they all had fun. I caught part of the Hitman Reborn one while walking up the stairs, but that was pretty much it for my knowledge on photoshoots. Earlier in the morning, Urd-chan had gotten some pics for me from the Zelda one, lol. Anyways, after the call, it was back to the Dealer's room! I didn't go straight to work though. Instead, I wandered around with Zel a bit, while she looked for the perfect rapier, lol, and some other randomness. But, I actually got a better look around. I ended up buying the Elwyn figure (from Shining Winds) that I'd been wanting for a while, but Urd-chan actually went and picked that up for me when I was working. I went back to the YoumaCon table around 2 or 3, and I was there until closing. Someone lost a gas card near our table, so I parted with the others, agreeing to be back there in the morning again, and went to find the lost and found. Thanks to some instructions ahead of time, I found it first try. Hopefully, whoever lost that got that back. After that, there really wasn't much to do. I hung around with Urd-chan, taking some pictures, and trying to meet up with a friend, and failing. We all decided to meet for pizza back in the room, and instead we ended up ordering pasta. I ran down to get it with Urd-chan, and the rest of the night, I spent up in the room drawing, watching half a movie, and just joking with the others in there. I ended up going to sleep around 12:30, a lot earlier than usual, but once again, nothing to do.
Sunday-
Started off the day early, at around 7 am, to go and get my stuff together and down to the car so I could grab breakfast before meeting with YoumaCon again. So, Urd-chan and I got everything taken care of fairly quickly, and after breakfast, I headed off to the Dealer's room to help out again, around 10. Another day spent working, but this day, alot of others were around, too. The day itself was fairly slow at first, but as the day went on, the more and more busy we got. In fact, the whole Dealer's room was pretty busy by that time. It started to die down by the end, and not caring to stay much longer, we gathered our things and left the Dealer's room at around 1:30. By the time we got everyone changed, packed into the car, and ready to go, it was closer to 2, but we headed out and hit the road. The car ride back was fun, but nothing super important happened. And, that's my con report!
Final Thoughts
As I aforementioned, this con was pretty bad this year (despite the fun I had). It was disorganized, staffers were rude, the website was of little help, and even at the con, there wasn't much help to be gotten. Some panels were canceled, when the panelists didn't show up. Others that were canceled at first were rescheduled to awkward times. Events were slow starting, and all-in-all, the place was overly packed at times when it shouldn't have been. The final score is...2/10! And, that's it for the con report!
I'll hopefully get my pictures up tonight or tomorrow, but there's sooo many! |
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sanzaki_kojikaさんの日記を閲覧中です
