Aftershock
Well, because I promised a few people, here's my aftercon report for Anime Mediocre Mid-Atlantic.
For those of you who remembered that I said that AMA was probably the bottom of the barrel as far as anime cons went? Well, they've moved to a new location this year, but the con has not improved. In short, when hitting the bottom of the barrel, find a brand-new barrel to hit the bottom in!
For starters, the Greater Richmond Convention Center looks (and I am not making this up) as though it had been designed by someone who liked the school backgrounds from The Breakfast Club. (as I say this, my wife is whistling Simple Minds songs). That is to say, you could be at one end of the center and the panel/workshop/event whatever could be on the other end, there's no real way to know since there were no real direction signs, and the panels were designed in such a way that they did not take that into account. Yay.
Second, the panels were scarce. And I do mean scarce. Bad enough that we took a look at the "tenative" schedule about two weeks ago, and several people told me that if I ever had the PW situation at AUSA that bad, they would personally kill me. Well, turns out that "tenative" meant "complete". There were no additions to the roster, and in fact quite a few cancellations, and all in all, a three day con that had the run of Maine North High School the convention center should have had no excuse filling panel spaces. I bust my butt to make sure that what we have at AUSA is the best that we can, and for them to have all that room and not even bother makes me sick...well, worse than I already was (more on that later).
Third, because the center is in the middle of a redevelopment district, there's nothing around. I mean nothing. Not for blocks - for miles. I had asked the information desk what was around, and the guy there told me "I dunno" (quality answer from AMA staff, folks!). Now, that wouldn't be a bad thing, save that 1. for medical stuff that I (and later my wife) needed, there was nothing around. 2. You're a captive audience when it comes to food - after making the mistake of spending nearly twenty to get something that looked more akin on a roach coach, I soon learned the best thing to do was to buy food somewhere else and bring it into the center, despite the rules - after all, that's what everyone else was doing.
During the con, I didn't see any anime. I only went to one panel the entire con (and only for half of it) because the ones I wanted to go to were cancelled; Ayne went to three (more for her to do). Most of the time, I sat at the AUSA booth, and yup, just like last year, that was the most entertaining part of the con. We didn't get much networking done (either for AUSA or Megami), and what little we did do was stuff that was moot as they were going to be talking to me anyway.
Lastly, it's rather bad when the "hero of the con", a major voice actor starts touting your convention (AUSA) as better than theirs (AMA) and that he won't be coming back again. Not naming names, and TBH, what I heard was hearsay, but that's a pretty damning statement if true. We were also told by another voice actor that our con was the most professionally run he's ever been to, and that he loves coming because he knows he'd get the support he needs (as opposed to AMA). Ouch, part II.
Now, I will caveat that I went to the con with a sinus condition, so I was feeling very under the weather (my wife was ticked about it, but she's gone to cons while ill herself, so...) and just about all the AUSA staffers agreed that I probably should have stayed home. Well, I was hopped up on enough drugs to make sure that I was somewhat stable. And truthfully, when I was sick there, it wasn't because of my illness - no, it was because AMA managed to make a worse con than the previous year. And they'll do it again, and again, and again, like some junkie or serial killer, until they are stopped, preferably by the Misato doctrine. Yes, it's that bad.
So in short, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I'm very much in shameland right now. Big time. No more AMA for me. Ever. Period. Not worth it.
I did at least get one important thing done this weekend...but that's a secret, and it'll eventually be out in the open later. ^_^
For those of you who remembered that I said that AMA was probably the bottom of the barrel as far as anime cons went? Well, they've moved to a new location this year, but the con has not improved. In short, when hitting the bottom of the barrel, find a brand-new barrel to hit the bottom in!
For starters, the Greater Richmond Convention Center looks (and I am not making this up) as though it had been designed by someone who liked the school backgrounds from The Breakfast Club. (as I say this, my wife is whistling Simple Minds songs). That is to say, you could be at one end of the center and the panel/workshop/event whatever could be on the other end, there's no real way to know since there were no real direction signs, and the panels were designed in such a way that they did not take that into account. Yay.
Second, the panels were scarce. And I do mean scarce. Bad enough that we took a look at the "tenative" schedule about two weeks ago, and several people told me that if I ever had the PW situation at AUSA that bad, they would personally kill me. Well, turns out that "tenative" meant "complete". There were no additions to the roster, and in fact quite a few cancellations, and all in all, a three day con that had the run of Maine North High School the convention center should have had no excuse filling panel spaces. I bust my butt to make sure that what we have at AUSA is the best that we can, and for them to have all that room and not even bother makes me sick...well, worse than I already was (more on that later).
Third, because the center is in the middle of a redevelopment district, there's nothing around. I mean nothing. Not for blocks - for miles. I had asked the information desk what was around, and the guy there told me "I dunno" (quality answer from AMA staff, folks!). Now, that wouldn't be a bad thing, save that 1. for medical stuff that I (and later my wife) needed, there was nothing around. 2. You're a captive audience when it comes to food - after making the mistake of spending nearly twenty to get something that looked more akin on a roach coach, I soon learned the best thing to do was to buy food somewhere else and bring it into the center, despite the rules - after all, that's what everyone else was doing.
During the con, I didn't see any anime. I only went to one panel the entire con (and only for half of it) because the ones I wanted to go to were cancelled; Ayne went to three (more for her to do). Most of the time, I sat at the AUSA booth, and yup, just like last year, that was the most entertaining part of the con. We didn't get much networking done (either for AUSA or Megami), and what little we did do was stuff that was moot as they were going to be talking to me anyway.
Lastly, it's rather bad when the "hero of the con", a major voice actor starts touting your convention (AUSA) as better than theirs (AMA) and that he won't be coming back again. Not naming names, and TBH, what I heard was hearsay, but that's a pretty damning statement if true. We were also told by another voice actor that our con was the most professionally run he's ever been to, and that he loves coming because he knows he'd get the support he needs (as opposed to AMA). Ouch, part II.
Now, I will caveat that I went to the con with a sinus condition, so I was feeling very under the weather (my wife was ticked about it, but she's gone to cons while ill herself, so...) and just about all the AUSA staffers agreed that I probably should have stayed home. Well, I was hopped up on enough drugs to make sure that I was somewhat stable. And truthfully, when I was sick there, it wasn't because of my illness - no, it was because AMA managed to make a worse con than the previous year. And they'll do it again, and again, and again, like some junkie or serial killer, until they are stopped, preferably by the Misato doctrine. Yes, it's that bad.
So in short, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I'm very much in shameland right now. Big time. No more AMA for me. Ever. Period. Not worth it.
I did at least get one important thing done this weekend...but that's a secret, and it'll eventually be out in the open later. ^_^