(no subject)
Personal Anime LA experiences, in the handy-dandy convenient list form.
Positives
Problems (excluding the biggest one down below)
Pachyderm (the elephant in the room)
Con Security. There was a lot of criticism by others of the con security being downright peevish about making sure that badges were visible, that we kept to walkways, and basically just treating everyone like children. And yes, that criticism is all fairly valid. It's going to be fun (in a trainwreck watching sort of way) to see what happens once Kevin writes about having his badge revoked. He flies in from Texas to just come one day to a convention he hasn't been to before, and by the end of the day has his badge revoked because he got sick and tired of the crap the staffers were giving.
You'd think they had goldfish for security staffers. No wait, at least goldfish are now believed to actually retain memory past that legendary 3 second mark. What was the point of having badges visible? To make sure that we're all badged. But c'mon, out in the courtyard, in a zone that is supposed to be open to all hotel guests, irregardless of the convention, we need badges? I can see the logic in restricting the tower, since that probably could've been completely event controlled. But the main hotel space needed to be room controlled, not area controlled. And the courtyard is part of that extension, rather than the tower. Worse yet, even when we demonstrate that we have badges, staff can't seem to remember that fact a few minutes later? The badge paying, peaceible members of the convention aren't the enemy. You'd think that someone who has spent more than his fair share of time at sci-fi conventions would remember this point when he's chairing his own convention.
The sad part is that we aren't speaking up because we absolutely hate the convention. We are speaking up in numbers because we as a group love (or used to love) the convention, and hate to see it ruined because staffers don't understand how to observe the spirit of the rules, rather than the letter of the rules.
There's a billion posts/threads out there now about this issue. If hazelchaz doesn't get the message by now, he definitely will when attendance falls off the chart, and his cap worries turn into survival worries.
EDIT: Chaz's response/apologies for these issues is posted here. Please look at this response and consider for yourselves whether you will accept them.
Regrets
I'll get pictures worked on this week. No clue how long they'll take. I might give a preview tonight based on those shots turned into prints during the convention. I'll try to get through shots for friends first before I hit up the general pile of shots, if I can. I also have to get my super bowl party stuff all planned out. Busy busy busy.
Positives
- Meeting friends. Because really, for many of the conventions and events I go to now, this is the primary driver of why I go. It used to be I'd go for guests of honor or events or shopping or whatever. But now, I'm driven at most cons by taking pictures and talking to friends that I don't get to see so often. I'd put a shout-out list, but for me, it's just as good to say thanks to everyone for adding to the memories.
- Oooh, pretty pictures. I think I did pretty well shooting-wise. As I usually tell myself, I still think I was less productive than I'd like to be. But then again, that's because folks like lionboogy or Al or Andy are like Energizer bunnies, who don't seem to ever stop at times, while I only am actively thinking/shooting maybe 50% of the daylight time at most. In any case, I'm pretty happy with the way a number of my pictures turned out, which is good, because I was starting to go stir-crazy about not taking pictures of people for a few months there. I'll also note that staring at a book of pictures in a style I liked before shooting actually seemed to help my mindset a bit.
- Con Suite. Yay for breakfast cereal. Yay for salad. Yay for snackage & drinkage. Yay for cocktail wieners in BBQ sauce. It definitely beats trying to keep a full stock of snack supplies in a hotel room.
Problems (excluding the biggest one down below)
- Rain. Mother Nature kinda failed us, giving us a significant amount of rain on the main day of the convention. I spent more than a bit of time just hanging around the room, staring at pictures or playing with the DS.
- Programming. This might more be a shortcoming of my interests rather than a shortcoming of the convention, but I didn't see anything on the programming schedule that blew me away as particularly interesting, to be honest. I didn't end up watching any panels. I did sit in a bit on Rusika performing, who were decent. But outside of the main events, that was pretty much it.
- Masquerade awards. It was better than last year, thankfully. Still, though, 75 minutes to deal with judging still seems heavyweight, though, for a convention where entry pace meant that the entries mostly didn't take that long. 14 presentation awards and 14 craftsmanship awards seem a bit much, when to me it seems like it could be just as well done with 8 in each (one honorable mention and one winner for each division-grouping classification) and an overall best-in-show. I mean, I'm happy for the folks who won awards, no doubt about it. But I'd like to believe that people are understanding that we'd rather take a quicker judging than having to deal with a number of lesser awards because of a desire to give everyone who made an effort something, even if it means more people are going to get left out in the cold, so to speak.
Pachyderm (the elephant in the room)
Con Security. There was a lot of criticism by others of the con security being downright peevish about making sure that badges were visible, that we kept to walkways, and basically just treating everyone like children. And yes, that criticism is all fairly valid. It's going to be fun (in a trainwreck watching sort of way) to see what happens once Kevin writes about having his badge revoked. He flies in from Texas to just come one day to a convention he hasn't been to before, and by the end of the day has his badge revoked because he got sick and tired of the crap the staffers were giving.
You'd think they had goldfish for security staffers. No wait, at least goldfish are now believed to actually retain memory past that legendary 3 second mark. What was the point of having badges visible? To make sure that we're all badged. But c'mon, out in the courtyard, in a zone that is supposed to be open to all hotel guests, irregardless of the convention, we need badges? I can see the logic in restricting the tower, since that probably could've been completely event controlled. But the main hotel space needed to be room controlled, not area controlled. And the courtyard is part of that extension, rather than the tower. Worse yet, even when we demonstrate that we have badges, staff can't seem to remember that fact a few minutes later? The badge paying, peaceible members of the convention aren't the enemy. You'd think that someone who has spent more than his fair share of time at sci-fi conventions would remember this point when he's chairing his own convention.
The sad part is that we aren't speaking up because we absolutely hate the convention. We are speaking up in numbers because we as a group love (or used to love) the convention, and hate to see it ruined because staffers don't understand how to observe the spirit of the rules, rather than the letter of the rules.
There's a billion posts/threads out there now about this issue. If hazelchaz doesn't get the message by now, he definitely will when attendance falls off the chart, and his cap worries turn into survival worries.
EDIT: Chaz's response/apologies for these issues is posted here. Please look at this response and consider for yourselves whether you will accept them.
Regrets
- Didn't get any good group shots of scruffyrebel, sana_chan, and richiied together in their Tsubasa costumes. ;_; I wish to fix that in the future at some point.
- I don't think my shot of suguishi's Natalie costume from War of Genesis came out very well. Damn. Well, ziggybecket got shots of it, so all will be well.
- Didn't get a chance to do any night shooting. I really wanted to try using the tunnel under the runway, or at least some shots at night, but I just didn't get around to it. Maybe I ought to skip more masquerades or something. The time sink required because I wait in lines really puts a kibbosh in my ability to do anything about that.
I'll get pictures worked on this week. No clue how long they'll take. I might give a preview tonight based on those shots turned into prints during the convention. I'll try to get through shots for friends first before I hit up the general pile of shots, if I can. I also have to get my super bowl party stuff all planned out. Busy busy busy.