Katsucon thoughts
Katsucon was an interesting weekend in a good way. I won't talk about the week before that because it involved family and most of my friends already know about it. Katsucon provided me with a way to relax after a very stressful travel week and that is all I expected from the weekend. Getting Mike McFarland and Caitlin Glass autograph were the side benefits of the weekend. These are a strength's and weaknesses type post for my thoughts.
Strengths
-Finally, got to meet and lunch with Charles Dunbar from Study of Anime and a man who puts on many great panels. Follow his fannish thoughts on twitter at studyofanime for a good sense of convention going fandom today. I do want to get more thoughts from him on reaching out to Hardcore Otaku and make them more active members of the community.
-Getting dinner and conversation from some friends. I never get a chance to hang with friends at conventions. I need to do that more often. Thai Pavilion is also excellent Thai food in MEtro DC for around $20 with tip and drink.
-Getting some connections made that needed to be made without me getting in trouble at work. I can't say more than that.
-For the problems I have with the room rate, I think I am starting to get the way Gaylord works. The way they work is give away their meeting space by charging more for a hotel room. I am not a big fan of this, but it works for them because of the next point.
-National Harbor is finally becoming a place I would want to go to con for. Magfest should try this venue when they get to about 8,000 people and just fill the venue. It takes some of the troublemakers out of the area. The hotels are working harder at more affordable food options across the street.
Weaknesses
Note: This is known to Katsucon and I have written clearly on this front and privately in greater length than an LJ post does.
-To grow the con, Katsucon needs to work on bringing different guests. Bringing different guests include maybe bringing less guests overall, but bigger name guests. I have also put in a lengthy e-mail guest ideas for Katsucon on this front with thoughts on it.
-Fill the space more especially on the top two levels of the convention space. There needs to be a couple of bigger panel rooms for the convention. All of Charles Dunbar panels and the Bad, Anime Bad panels need 500-1,000 seat rooms for them. They are that popular and well known. Maybe even put Artist Alley up on those levels because there needs to be a draw to the whole convention.
-More diversity in programming. Programming is partly created by the department (such as original game shows) and partly recruited. I would suggest reaching out to people like Patrick Delhanty (who does excellent Game shows at Anime Boston) and Daryl Surat (Controversial, but his panels fill rooms to the maximum) for more panels that will draw people to the convention. There were few must see panels for me this year. I also am not the biggest fan of indusyt
-Put AMV showings in the Video rooms for Friday especially The AMV creators want full rooms for their showings. It seemed at least for the Friday showing (there was maybe a 150 people in the room). The Friday showing would have worked best in a Video room. It may be that the Saturday showing was full to the gills, which I missed for a break in the room.
-The Marketplace putting together the Artists and Dealers together was a mess. They are working on this and I strangely enough because of the poor layout bought no art. I hope it is in a different location and has the Art Show in it. I also think that Artist Alley would be helped by having an Artist running it like Onezumi Hartstein of onezumi.com.
-Make this more of a two to three night convention for people. This would take it a more coordinated effort with the hotel though. A way of doing this is for the first 100 three night room reservations (non-staff), they are entered in a drawing to get up to four free badges or their third night free by the hotel. Another way is to set up the contract much like Dragon Con does with the Hyatt where there is a two nights or fewer rate and a three nights or longer rate that is five or ten dollars less a night. It would make the hotel feel more lively on Night zero (night before con) and on Day one of the con.
Strengths
-Finally, got to meet and lunch with Charles Dunbar from Study of Anime and a man who puts on many great panels. Follow his fannish thoughts on twitter at studyofanime for a good sense of convention going fandom today. I do want to get more thoughts from him on reaching out to Hardcore Otaku and make them more active members of the community.
-Getting dinner and conversation from some friends. I never get a chance to hang with friends at conventions. I need to do that more often. Thai Pavilion is also excellent Thai food in MEtro DC for around $20 with tip and drink.
-Getting some connections made that needed to be made without me getting in trouble at work. I can't say more than that.
-For the problems I have with the room rate, I think I am starting to get the way Gaylord works. The way they work is give away their meeting space by charging more for a hotel room. I am not a big fan of this, but it works for them because of the next point.
-National Harbor is finally becoming a place I would want to go to con for. Magfest should try this venue when they get to about 8,000 people and just fill the venue. It takes some of the troublemakers out of the area. The hotels are working harder at more affordable food options across the street.
Weaknesses
Note: This is known to Katsucon and I have written clearly on this front and privately in greater length than an LJ post does.
-To grow the con, Katsucon needs to work on bringing different guests. Bringing different guests include maybe bringing less guests overall, but bigger name guests. I have also put in a lengthy e-mail guest ideas for Katsucon on this front with thoughts on it.
-Fill the space more especially on the top two levels of the convention space. There needs to be a couple of bigger panel rooms for the convention. All of Charles Dunbar panels and the Bad, Anime Bad panels need 500-1,000 seat rooms for them. They are that popular and well known. Maybe even put Artist Alley up on those levels because there needs to be a draw to the whole convention.
-More diversity in programming. Programming is partly created by the department (such as original game shows) and partly recruited. I would suggest reaching out to people like Patrick Delhanty (who does excellent Game shows at Anime Boston) and Daryl Surat (Controversial, but his panels fill rooms to the maximum) for more panels that will draw people to the convention. There were few must see panels for me this year. I also am not the biggest fan of indusyt
-Put AMV showings in the Video rooms for Friday especially The AMV creators want full rooms for their showings. It seemed at least for the Friday showing (there was maybe a 150 people in the room). The Friday showing would have worked best in a Video room. It may be that the Saturday showing was full to the gills, which I missed for a break in the room.
-The Marketplace putting together the Artists and Dealers together was a mess. They are working on this and I strangely enough because of the poor layout bought no art. I hope it is in a different location and has the Art Show in it. I also think that Artist Alley would be helped by having an Artist running it like Onezumi Hartstein of onezumi.com.
-Make this more of a two to three night convention for people. This would take it a more coordinated effort with the hotel though. A way of doing this is for the first 100 three night room reservations (non-staff), they are entered in a drawing to get up to four free badges or their third night free by the hotel. Another way is to set up the contract much like Dragon Con does with the Hyatt where there is a two nights or fewer rate and a three nights or longer rate that is five or ten dollars less a night. It would make the hotel feel more lively on Night zero (night before con) and on Day one of the con.