The morning was cold and lonely, city lights old and grey. The sun arose an' trying to smile

[hazelchaz]

More pictures up: New Year's Eve with Elaine and Dale; LASFS in January; Michael Mason's funeral and memorial service at LASFS; a bachelor party at TheoryLabs; my father's stay at Flagship, with all the pictures he took with mom's camera; Animé Los Angeles meeting in January; and Thursday's pictures from Animé Los Angeles 1. Click on the picture of authorcarmen and Sprite Monkey to see those.

animelosangeles came and went, as you probably know. We were biting our nails in November. Even 40 days out from the convention, we had fewer than twenty pre-registered members. Because we weren't sure if we'd make it to 400 (my estimates were 200 to 400 members), we told the hotel we wouldn't need more ballroom space, and they rented out the rest of the function space. Then a month before the convention (that is, after Christmas), the memberships started coming in. We had a few groups join up in December and January, and a week before the pre-reg deadline we cracked the 100 pre-reg deadline.

Now, why is it important how many people pre-register? Because generally -- for most animé and sf conventions -- the total number of people that show up is about twice the number who pre-register. To put it another way, of the total membership, half of the pre-register, half of them show up at the door. A handful of cons see a smaller percentage of pre-reg, but it's suicidal to count on more than "doubling your pre-reg."

This also has practical implications; if we get 100 pre-reg, we need food for about 200 people in the Con Suite, we need badges, we need program books... we might do better than 200, but probably not by much. (Wonder how AniZona's doing... they're next weekend, unfortunately the same weekend as my prior commitment to ConDor. At least Ani-Magic and ConJecture are on different weekends this year.)

So. Three weeks before the convention we hit 100... and by Thursday, two days before the pre-reg cutoff, we blow past 200 pre-reg. Now, there's a figure for you. On Monday, we picked up the last of the mail from the post office box, and a few concom members joined at the last minute, and by the time everything was counted and the program participants added in, we had 275 pre-reg.

By this time we're getting worried; our main program room won't hold 550 people if that many show up and they all want to see or be in the Masquerade/Cosplay. We decide to spend some additional money to rent five more guest rooms, and put all our dealers in them, so we can use all three parts of the ballroom. And we announce the possibility of having to close Registration if we get too crowded.

On Thursday, the set-up day of the convention, library_lynn went down to LAX to pick up authorcarmen (our Artist Guest of Honor), and Jerry "Sprite Monkey" Koudelik in from Chicago, while the rest of us moved into the hotel.

Mike Donahue, Chuck Shimada, and Scott Beckstead worked on the tech requirements; glittercat13 got the Con Suite set up; various other people worked on setting up their departments. And the rooms for the con suite and dealers needed to have the beds tipped out of the way. Randy Gamboa was a big help -- I think he helped with every single bed, and moved some of them single-handedly. Thanks, Randy!

Christian's roommate Allie ("Lady Phoenix") had made up some beautiful gift baskets for our guests of honor. She doesn't make it to very many conventions, she just does this behind the scenes for some of the local L.A. conventions that ask her to do it. There were all sorts of delights, including the obvious (fresh fruit, chocolate, hard candies and/or breath mints) and some other things that are handy to have (a plate or two, knife and fork, wine glasses). She puts the whole thing in a lovely basket, and really gives us good value for our guest-of-honor budget. (Especially if you compare it to cost of the hotel's room service providing an "amenity" such as, say, a bunch of chocolate-dipped strawberries.) She's taken something I did at the Loscon I chaired, and improved it threefold... my hat's off to her, and I'm grateful for the work she does for us.

When Tadao was on-site, and the Con Suite was loaded, and our AGoH and Special Guest had freshened up, we went for the traditional Pre-Convention Dinner at Beep's. (Well, it's going to be our tradition, I think...)

Comments

[ashi.livejournal.com]

Thanks again for putting it all together. It isn't often a con becomes one of my few top favorites in its first year...

Maybe next year you can make it to Anime Oasis, my other favorite anime convention, as it's usually not Easter weekend.

It ruled. Seriously.

[msgeek.livejournal.com]

I guess it must have been all your experience running old-school S-F cons, because I was impressed by what a well-oiled machine Anime Los Angeles v1.0 was. It was great volunteering, although by the second day there wasn't much for us volunteers to do because everything was running so smoothly.

I was used to the controlled chaos that was and is Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con. I suppose that if and when Anime Los Angeles scales up to the dimensions of those huge corporate cons it will resemble controlled chaos more and more.

January is "just right" as a time for this con. On the other side of the year from the two big SoCal conventions, easy to attract shivering GOHs from the Midwest and East Coast.

Oh, and did you say "Pre-Reg?" That reminds me...gotta do it. Maybe when my last Financial Aid check from LAVC comes in...