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hazelchazMy Animé Los Angeles report, part 6: Sunday. (See also part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 7.)
Fred Ladd had originally been one of my picks for a Guest of Honor to tie in with "Old School Day," our Sunday theme. Having been a part of bringing Astro Boy and other anime to these shores, and knowing he had a wealth of stories to tell about the old days and about Sailor Moon, I thought he'd be a great pick.
His schedule didn't allow him to accept the gig, but I promised transportation just as we would have if it had worked out. I'd promised that I would provide transportation to get Fred Ladd from Woodland Hills to the convention, and then from there to Little Tokyo. I had it all figured out, too, as the job of picking him up would be a snap for one of my minions (David Arp) to handle.
Unfortunately, David didn't make it to the convention! I didn't have a backup plan in place, so I ended up geting up at the crack of early to pick him up. I snagged Steven Holeman to ride shotgun, and we'd only made it to Westwood before we switched places and he drove the rest of the way into the Valley and back again. Thank you, Steven, for saving the day.
Fred made it to his early morning panel, and Sherri kindly took charge of geting him out to J-Town in time for his next appointment. I commandeered one of the fanzine lounge couches to take a nap, so I'd be around if I was needed for anything on the floor.
Sunday also marked the debut of our "Your Next Convention" mini program track. We set up one of the tables at Registration, and signed up other conventions to take a timeslot and talk up their con. At first, only a few cons had signed on, so we set it up with one-hour slots. We know better now! We had so many volunteer on-site that the last one to commit, FanimeCon, had to take the 9:00 am slot. Nobody's around at 9:00 am Sunday.... I should have just told them the program was full instead of asking them to get up early... (Sorry, guys!)
There are enough conventions that So. Calif. fans would be interested in, that I think we'll want to keep the idea for next year. With half-hour timeslots, we easily could fit in at least 8 conventions. I'm a firm believer in conventions as community, and reaching out to the other cons is an important part of that, just as providing fan table space is. It's a unilateral move, as well -- we don't demand quid pro quo, we just say that if you want to talk up your convention we'll provide space for you.
This year participants included Pacific Media Expo,
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loscon,
Gallifrey One, and the new "Ichiban-Con" that BSaphire is launching
next year. We weren't able to convince Rich to talk about Anime Vegas,
nobody was there to talk about AniZona or A. Dream, and a peculiar
conversation late Saturday with Anime Expo's designated representative
made it clear they didn't want to talk because they wouldn't
have anything to announce. (For those who care about these things,
there's an Open Meeting of the SPJA Board of Directors tonight at 8:00
pm at their offices.)
Rob Miles is in charge of "Stage Zero" at FanimeCon, and he's offered us
a half-hour timeslot to talk up ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
animelosangeles. What shall we
do? Will it be at 9:00 am on the last morning of the convention?
Sunday afternoon was the "Walking Free" Fashion Show. I missed it entirely. Does anyone have pictures, oh please? It was a hit, full house, SRO. Not very long as far as entrants, but they hung around for pictures I'm told. Victoria Shapero, Fashion Show head, reported before the convention that some people thought it was EGL-only, some people didn't think their work was good enough, and some people promised to participate "next year" or were waiting to see how this year played out.
On Sunday, the curtains and the stage and the runway and
the lights were all set up in LP1.
The runway had lights pointing up at the
participants --
Victoria was very impressed. We borrowed two
clothing racks from colleency, and bought a third one
that belongs to
the convention. Didn't use any of them this year.
We ordered fruit and orange juice from
the hotel, so that the models, designers and crew wouldn't collapse from
low blood sugar. Best compliment was from one of the participants who said "it's like a
real fashion show!"
There was a lot of interest in next year's Fashion Show, especially for having it earlier in the weekend. It'll be either Friday or Saturday next year, depending on what Tech and Events work out.
Our Editor Guest of Honor, Zac Bertschy, was only able to attend on
Sunday.
I missed his arrival and his departure. And Johnny Yong
Bosch, our Voice Actor Guest of Honor, lit out before Closing Ceremonies
as well. By the end of the convention, Fan Guest of Honor Kevin Lillard
and Artist Guest of Honor Scott Ramsoomair were both still around, so they
joined me at the end. We also introduced next year's Voice Actor Guest of
Honor, Kyle Hebert (pronounced "Kyle A. Bear"), but
le_moose had come down sick and left the convention early so
we weren't able to introduce her as our next Artist Guest of Honor.
I'm not saying these are all things I want our new GOHL Dept. to fix, but
it would be nice if we'd been batting better than 50% at the close of it
all!
Feedback/Gripe Session, in the timeslot before Closing Ceremonies, was relatively painless. Suggestions included positioning signs so from the foyer you can look down the hall and see where the doors to Artists' Alley, Dealers, LP1, LP2, and so forth are. It was pointed out that the hotel has removed the signs hanging from the ceiling that used to say Salon A and Suite 1 etc, so it's even harder to find things. Another suggestion was to add a map of the facility to the BADGE ZONE signs, with a YOU ARE HERE dot. Many compliments, lots of people liked the costume-eating escalator sign and the big posters we had everywhere (mostly of Kevin Lillard's photos). We should have announced at Gripe to go get your poster now -- many were torn down once Closing started. (I may owe people a few reprints.) Suggestion for next year: post photos from the past five Animé Los Angeleses (Animé Los Angeli?). As well as Jessica's art.
Next: After it's all over
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 12:58 am (UTC)Signage
Date: 2009-02-26 12:58 am (UTC)Re: Signage
Date: 2009-02-26 01:25 am (UTC)Re: Signage
Date: 2009-02-26 01:49 am (UTC)LOVE.
I HAD NO IDEA YOU LIKED DAISIES.
Hi Jessica, can I declare my undying love for you now? :D
*Umm... I really love my Daisies. :D*
Re: Signage
Date: 2009-02-26 07:04 pm (UTC)At least I still have Desperate Housewives. ~_~
P.S. LAWLSAMEICON
Re: Signage
Date: 2009-02-27 03:43 am (UTC)LOL, I HAD NO IDEA YOU HAD THIS ICON. I just put mine up to have, you know, a PD themed icon. :D.
THEPIEHOLE (would do an lj linkthingie thing if I knew how, which I don't) FTW. :D
NOW DO YOU HAVE THIS ICON... THAT IS THE QUESTION. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 01:01 am (UTC)I LOVE YOU FOR THAT SIGN, SO MUCH MAN.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 12:59 am (UTC)*Wonders about this peculiar talk with AX's rep now...*
And ahhh, THAT'S what happened on Sunday morning that Steven saved the day with! :). That's very cool, heh.
(Though it makes me wanna rant about the MINIONS, NOT SHOWING UP, thing again...)
Other conventions
Date: 2009-02-26 01:00 am (UTC)Re: Other conventions
Date: 2009-02-26 01:05 am (UTC)Re: Other conventions
Date: 2009-02-26 01:06 am (UTC)Re: Other conventions
Date: 2009-02-26 01:08 am (UTC):)
Talk, talk
Date: 2009-02-26 01:49 am (UTC)He said that Anime Expo is perceived as being a big monolithic evil empire.
And that there are a number of senior staffers on the "animecons" mailing list, but they're been instructed not to say anything of substance.
And we talked about conventions recruiting staff from other conventions. He was against the idea. This was going on in the Fanzine Lounge, while a number of senior FanimeCon staff who were working Animé Los Angeles were hanging out.
I didn't have it at my fingertips at the time, but the 2005 Anime Expo chair wrote in his LiveJournal back in October 2004 about an AX meeting where "We also discussed sending representatives to other cons..."
I saw the post a day after he put it up, and immediately offered him fan table space at Animé Los Angeles 1.
In a follow-up, he said "Plus the thing that I hope people don't get nervous about is that we might actually focus on recruiting staff at our booth, not attendees. We are always looking for new staff." but I didn't catch it at the time.
Re: Talk, talk
Date: 2009-02-26 01:52 am (UTC)Interestingggg though........
Re: Talk, talk
Date: 2009-02-26 07:14 am (UTC)Anyhow, tonight I learned that most of their recruiting happens one-on-one -- department heads networking with their friends and acquaintances, mostly at college anime clubs. There isn't a top-down effort, and they don't find recruiting staff while at other conventions to be effective.
There is, of course, a lot of overlap in staff. There are people from Kawaiicon to Otakon on Anime Expo staff...
Re: Talk, talk
Date: 2009-02-26 02:16 pm (UTC)Well, if this works better for them... *Shrugs?*
Never thought I'd say this, but I actually sort of feel a bit bad for AX. *Blinks*