NoBrandCon 2006!
You've heard me prattle on about No Brand Con recently, now experience it for yourself! The weekend of Funn starts this Friday, and won't abate until Sunday night. This is also the time of year I get to see a bunch of friends who have scattered to the four corners of the Earth, especially Vinnk, who by all accounts is living his Japan dream.
Amazingly, this is the fifth year of the convention. When we started planning the first No Brand Con back in 2001, we had no idea if it would succeed, and certainly had no idea of the (relatively local) phenomenon it would be come. To that end, I must feed the hungry beast -- not only because I managed to snag nine other people from south-central Wisconsin to come this year, but because there are so many reasons why this con is a cut above the others you might have attended in the past.
I'm so pumped! I love being behind the scenes of this strange and unlikely machine as it plods along to churn out its annual allotment of awesome. Last year was a big deal because it was kind of the make-or-break period that would determine if there would be a future for this con. And sure enough, there is! In fact, it had some of the most memorable moment from any No Brand ever.
There was the premiere of the MAN Auction, which I was so worried was going to be this huge debacle. It turned out even better than expected, launching an in-joke that would be repeated for the entire con. I expect chants of "More Than Neil" to come full circle this year, as the self-same staffer will probably break all "sales" records.
The second-ever Variety Show was immeasurably better than the first, thanks in no small part to a number of (to me) totally unexpected live musical performances. In fact, we enjoyed rocking out to these bands so much that an entirely new Friday Night event was spun off this year, known as Battle of the Brands. The Variety Show will continue on Sunday as usual, but I wonder if the teeth will have been removed from this mammoth beast and/or if any musical acts will be allowed there as well.
The Dance was also measures better. What really helps is that the hotel and the convention facility were in the same place last year, as it's a late-night event, and the exhausted attendees can just crawl back to their rooms, rather than drive to upper campus and limp into their hotels. It's an excellent event to cap a busy Saturday, but be warned that it will leave you quite drained for Sunday!
The Saturday Costume Contest, centerpiece of the con since 2003 and perhaps the main reason we made the switchover to the primary Anime emphasis, was a little bumpy, but we saw some of the best costumes I've ever seen at any anime con. Every year we've been able to improve the setting for this event. Heck, back in 2003, there wasn't even a ROOM for it. 2005 finally saw the addition of, gasp, an actual stage. Wonders never cease, my friends. Now, if we can only get a handle on the judging, perhaps this will really catapault the event into "best EVAR!"
But that's just main programming. There's so ver much more that flavors this con. It's primarily a medium for Wisconsin Anime fans who are too far from Minneapolis or Chicago conventions -- especially those in the high school crowd who aren't able to stray too far from home without parental supervision -- to share their interests and show how they contribute to their hobby, so No Brand encourages anyone and everyone to submit ideas for their own panels and present whatever topic they like (with planning committee approval, of course). I can't think of many (if any) convention that does this, especially an anime con. In fact, our response this year has been so enormous that we've unforunately had to turn people down. But in the past we've supported such rising stars as Genesis Mindworks, Verssen Werks (pretty much groups ending with some variation of "work" ), and the con-creator groups Dummer's Club and 1337band. What I'm most excited about this year is SPAMM's Secret of Crystania dub, which should be amazing.
No Brand also has an annual comic book anthology called, predictably, No Brand Comic. I believe this fourth issue be the largest ever. Very exciting. Every year we get amateur and semi-professional-to-professional comic creators to submit a piece, including several young, aspiring, and very talented manga artists from the land of the rising sun itself. It's a rare treat, and is also something I'm sure not many other conventions do.
But, finally, No Brand has heart. Every year there's some kind of theme, if not an outright storyline. Some years it works better than others. Those who follow the stories all year round can get a wonderful pay-off at opening ceremonies. Since the con's poised to be the biggest ever, that means there are plenty of people who have yet to be indoctrinated into this wonderful aspect of the con, so things are pretty-lowkey this year. We're celebrating our fifth con, so everything is themed like a five-year high school reunion, from the advertising to the themes of major events -- including a major kick-off during the opening ceremonies -- right down to the merchandise.
Have I mentioned this yet? Every con has t-shirts, but since we like No Brand attendees to participate in every aspect of the con as possible, we started doing Funn things like leaving printed space on the shirts for people to add things like their own catchphrases, based off of a terrible joke from our first shirt in 2003 which almost lampooned the idea of convention tshirts. Well, I've seen the shirt for this year (which we never reveal to the public until the convention itself), and let me just say that we've taken this idea and taken it to a whole new level. I know you'll love it.
Now, I'm biased towards this con. I've been there since the first planning meeting. And yet even if I wasn't 300 miles away, I still wouldn't have been attending the meetings for this last year. See, No Brand Con and I had a little tiff last year. We decided it was time to see other cons. All the while I still loved No Brand, but we needed some time apart. But that time has done us both a bit of good, and I think we're ready to reconcile.
Cheers to Five Years! Here's to Five more!
~Sean
Amazingly, this is the fifth year of the convention. When we started planning the first No Brand Con back in 2001, we had no idea if it would succeed, and certainly had no idea of the (relatively local) phenomenon it would be come. To that end, I must feed the hungry beast -- not only because I managed to snag nine other people from south-central Wisconsin to come this year, but because there are so many reasons why this con is a cut above the others you might have attended in the past.
I'm so pumped! I love being behind the scenes of this strange and unlikely machine as it plods along to churn out its annual allotment of awesome. Last year was a big deal because it was kind of the make-or-break period that would determine if there would be a future for this con. And sure enough, there is! In fact, it had some of the most memorable moment from any No Brand ever.
There was the premiere of the MAN Auction, which I was so worried was going to be this huge debacle. It turned out even better than expected, launching an in-joke that would be repeated for the entire con. I expect chants of "More Than Neil" to come full circle this year, as the self-same staffer will probably break all "sales" records.
The second-ever Variety Show was immeasurably better than the first, thanks in no small part to a number of (to me) totally unexpected live musical performances. In fact, we enjoyed rocking out to these bands so much that an entirely new Friday Night event was spun off this year, known as Battle of the Brands. The Variety Show will continue on Sunday as usual, but I wonder if the teeth will have been removed from this mammoth beast and/or if any musical acts will be allowed there as well.
The Dance was also measures better. What really helps is that the hotel and the convention facility were in the same place last year, as it's a late-night event, and the exhausted attendees can just crawl back to their rooms, rather than drive to upper campus and limp into their hotels. It's an excellent event to cap a busy Saturday, but be warned that it will leave you quite drained for Sunday!
The Saturday Costume Contest, centerpiece of the con since 2003 and perhaps the main reason we made the switchover to the primary Anime emphasis, was a little bumpy, but we saw some of the best costumes I've ever seen at any anime con. Every year we've been able to improve the setting for this event. Heck, back in 2003, there wasn't even a ROOM for it. 2005 finally saw the addition of, gasp, an actual stage. Wonders never cease, my friends. Now, if we can only get a handle on the judging, perhaps this will really catapault the event into "best EVAR!"
But that's just main programming. There's so ver much more that flavors this con. It's primarily a medium for Wisconsin Anime fans who are too far from Minneapolis or Chicago conventions -- especially those in the high school crowd who aren't able to stray too far from home without parental supervision -- to share their interests and show how they contribute to their hobby, so No Brand encourages anyone and everyone to submit ideas for their own panels and present whatever topic they like (with planning committee approval, of course). I can't think of many (if any) convention that does this, especially an anime con. In fact, our response this year has been so enormous that we've unforunately had to turn people down. But in the past we've supported such rising stars as Genesis Mindworks, Verssen Werks (pretty much groups ending with some variation of "work" ), and the con-creator groups Dummer's Club and 1337band. What I'm most excited about this year is SPAMM's Secret of Crystania dub, which should be amazing.
No Brand also has an annual comic book anthology called, predictably, No Brand Comic. I believe this fourth issue be the largest ever. Very exciting. Every year we get amateur and semi-professional-to-professional comic creators to submit a piece, including several young, aspiring, and very talented manga artists from the land of the rising sun itself. It's a rare treat, and is also something I'm sure not many other conventions do.
But, finally, No Brand has heart. Every year there's some kind of theme, if not an outright storyline. Some years it works better than others. Those who follow the stories all year round can get a wonderful pay-off at opening ceremonies. Since the con's poised to be the biggest ever, that means there are plenty of people who have yet to be indoctrinated into this wonderful aspect of the con, so things are pretty-lowkey this year. We're celebrating our fifth con, so everything is themed like a five-year high school reunion, from the advertising to the themes of major events -- including a major kick-off during the opening ceremonies -- right down to the merchandise.
Have I mentioned this yet? Every con has t-shirts, but since we like No Brand attendees to participate in every aspect of the con as possible, we started doing Funn things like leaving printed space on the shirts for people to add things like their own catchphrases, based off of a terrible joke from our first shirt in 2003 which almost lampooned the idea of convention tshirts. Well, I've seen the shirt for this year (which we never reveal to the public until the convention itself), and let me just say that we've taken this idea and taken it to a whole new level. I know you'll love it.
Now, I'm biased towards this con. I've been there since the first planning meeting. And yet even if I wasn't 300 miles away, I still wouldn't have been attending the meetings for this last year. See, No Brand Con and I had a little tiff last year. We decided it was time to see other cons. All the while I still loved No Brand, but we needed some time apart. But that time has done us both a bit of good, and I think we're ready to reconcile.
Cheers to Five Years! Here's to Five more!
~Sean