...I climb through the window and down to the street. I'm shining like a new dime...

[hazelchaz]

My Animé Los Angeles report, part 2: Day Zero Setup. (See also part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7.)

Registration on Thursday was in the Staff Lounge room. Line was routed in from the pool deck, around the couch and back outdoors. We closed down for dinner, then set up again downstairs in the ballroom area. By the end of the night we'd registered 504 people, about 75% of them were pre-registered pickups.

We could have used a sign that said <<-- Pre-Reg | New -->> on the front and <<-- New | Pre-Reg -->> on the back, something comparable to what Gallifrey One put up between their two Registration windows. (right)

This year, we set up the Registration area at the base of the escalators. This had been tried at loscon so we expected it would work at animelosangeles -- we'd just need to scale up how many stations we had.

From when we opened, I understand the wait to get registered was never longer than 15 or 20 minutes. A great improvement from last year. I'd like it to be shorter still -- you shouldn't have to wait at all, just go to an open station -- but a short wait inside is much better than a long wait outside. By the end of the convention, we'd worked out how the line ought to zig-zag in front of Reg when it was at the most crowded. (We should mark that diagram down and save it to set things up that way next year.)

I'd like to take a moment to talk about "Peak Activity" which is how I've been measuring heavy Registration loads. "Peak Activity" refers to when we issue more than 100 badges per hour on average. In 2007, we had four hours on Saturday, from 8:00 am to Noon, when we issued a total of 422 badges. (Our maximum load Friday had been 89 in a single hour.)

In 2008, we were expecting comparable crowds on Saturday, and were overwhelmed on Friday with an enormous line snaking out the door. (left) That Friday, for 7 hours from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, we issued 1165 badges. We didn't want to repeat that in 2009, especially the part where people were standing in line outside in the cold for an hour or two.

Having Reg open on Thursday certainly helped. Five hundred people that didn't need to come to Reg Friday -- definitely a big plus. We still had 7 hours of peak activity on Friday, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. (We announced a 9 o'clock start time, but people were already lined up when we were setting up at 8 o'clock.) We registered 140 people before 9:00 am, and 1217 badges were issued by 3 o'clock.

The Saturday load last year: we issued 578 badges between 8:00 am and 1:00 pm (five hours). This year, on Saturday, we issued 636 badges between 8:00 am and 2:00 pm (six hours). So like last year, our Saturday load was lighter per-hour than Friday's.

Tony Benoun has agreed to take charge of Reg for next year. I'll ask him to look at this activity report. Friday after 3:00 pm, the maximum badges we issued per hour were fewer than a third of the maximum issued per hour before 3 o'clock. So (assuming we have similar traffic next year) about half his team can probably quit for the day at 3 pm Friday, and quit for the weekend by 1 pm Saturday, if they like.

Many, many thanks to library_lynn for running Reg this year, for the help we got from Tony and the rest of the team working at Reg, and to missmea for volunteering to keep one Reg station open late at night as long as things were interesting enough to stick around.

The Dealers Room was a source of drama on Thursday. As one might expect, it's my own fault. An e-mail had passed through a month or two before the convention that said load-in for dealers will be handled the same as at Loscon. I didn't realize the significance or importance of that. I also didn't make sure that all of the dealers were told this crucial bit of information, or more importantly what it actually means. Which is, we'll have parking spaces inside the garage for dealers with small vehicles to load from, larger trucks will need to go around to the loading dock.

When we first got into Marquis 3-4, we saw that the hotel had delivered all of the tables and chairs and stage risers we'd asked for. The stage risers were 90 degrees off from how we'd wanted them, but that was easily fixed. The spacing of the tables was more of an issue. Each dealer gets 10'x8' of floor space (one might almost call it a "booth" except we don't supply pipe and drape) and the corners of the spaces need to be marked on the floor. I oversaw a crew that did most of the work pretty well, and dealers were able to move in.

An hour or so into the load-in, though, things got a bit dicey because the dealers' trucks were blocking the drive-up. So things with the hotel started to get a bit tense; it got cleared up and we went on to have a good weekend. But that's one of the things I want to make sure goes more smoothly next time!

The convention got most of the space Thursday at 6:00 pm. We opened Registration back up. The room (Marquis 1-2) that would on Friday have Artists' Alley was quickly set up to hold a dance. (right)

The Dance had ice cream (Jeanne's idea) but it was set up in the back of the dance, in the dark. I think that was a mistake -- we should have put it out in front of the room, or had lighting, or something. (left)

Earlier that evening, I'd been walking across the pool deck and Catherine the Great stopped me and asked how many people were coming to the ice cream social. I pulled a number out of the air, because I knew a lot of people would be around doing some kind of set-up and would enjoy a bit of ice cream, in addition to everyone who might just stop by to pick up their badges or go to the dance. (right)

The reason I had to make up a number, though, is because my phone was dead and I couldn't check with ala_mokita, and that was because I'd left my charger home Wednesday morning. And I may have overestimated our ice cream demand, because we ended the night with about half of it left over. Next year if we do ice cream we'll order less. Or not do ice cream, and get something non-perishable that we can serve the next day.

Set-up happened all over most of the ballroom level -- the truck got unloaded, with a lot of the stuff going into a few rooms as a staging zone, the Decorating Committee trimmed and posted the posters, the beanbags were distributed far and wide (and a bunch ended up inside the dance, as a big cuddle puddle), and the art benches were assembled.

Greg Hemsath brought power tools, and worked on the benches... next year we need to make sure it's not a one-man team doing all the work! A few power screwdrivers and a small crew would make things go a lot more smoothly. (left)

Once everything was closed up for the night, I realized I really had to deal with my forgotten phone charger. Tadao, summoner_lenne9 and I went back to my house. I didn't need a minion on this trip, but I wanted someone along to keep Tadao alert on the drive as I expected to fall asleep as soon as I stopped moving and sat down.

And oh, the fog... it was scary, it was Fresno fog come down to play in Orange County that night. Tadao missed my exit, and we didn't get turned around until we'd gone all the way to Corona. Very bad night for driving. Wish we hadn't had to make the trip. But at least I had my charger for the weekend.

Sarah summed it up, in her inimitable style:

OH! Forgot to mention yesterday the 3 am Doctor Who times! Thursday night (Ok, Friday morning) Tadao, Chaz, and I drove to Chaz's house to get his cell phone charger. He didn't have it, and Chaz without a working cell phone is ALA falling apart, lol. (Mind you, reception sucked anyway, but oh well.) Tadao offered to drive (GRR AT LAUREN FOR NOT BRINGING MY HEROES SO I COULD HAVE HIM SIGN IT! :D) since Chaz was dead, and I offered to be the front-seat keep-driver-awake-person because Patty, the head-minion-pro-tempe, or whatever, who stepped in once Melissa was sick... was beyond dead. I had soaked in the hot tub for an hour and a half, which is better than caffeine I swear to god, and had tons of energy.

So off we go! And the drive there was WEIRD. FOG LIKE WOAZ. I've seen worse, of course, going to school in Bakersfield, but going 80 miles an hour on the freeway in fog is scaarrryy. And then we needed to get on the 91, and the sign came up saying it was coming up, and we went to get on it... AND THEN IT DISSAPEARED.

ME AND TADAO: o______________________0. IT WAS JUST THERE!

But we got there, albeit with lots of being lost. Lol. Damn fog! But I got to hear alot of Tadao's stories, which are, of course, amazing. And then Chaz answered alot of emails at 2 am and printed out a map for ALA with his HUGE HUMUNGO PRINTER OF DOOOOMMM. That thing is amazing. (I also learned the fashion designer person from The Incredibles is, err, a girl. ... I thought that was a little gay man. HUH? She's- I was sure it was a he man- is also Ala's mother. Her full name is Ala Mode. So we had an ice cream social. WE HAZ LOTS OF IN JOKES.) And waiting for it to finish... Chaz started up Itunes and started playing some Who tunes...

Which led to the, albeit short, 3 am dancing to Doctor Who. And yes, it was only for a few seconds and due to the lateness of the hour, BUT CHAZ AND TADAO DANCING TO DOCTOR WHO? OMMMFFGGG! Maybe the best part of the whole con. :D :D :D.

To be continued...

Comments

[summoner-lenne9.livejournal.com]

"A few power screwdrivers and a small crew would make things go a lot more smoothly. (left) "

....

Or...

SONIC SCREW DRIVERS? :D

(Wow, so, now for Day 1! :D)

Registration

[library-lynn.livejournal.com]

Thanks also to Tony for staying later than he needed to every night.