hazelchaz | Zwei drei vier one two three, it's easy to see but it's not that I don't care so. 'Cause I hear it (Reply)

Anime Los Angeles 4 meeting at hotel (06-Jul-2007); LASFS Aftermeetings part 292: Coral Cafe (12-Jul-2007); Sac-Anime (13-15-Jul-2007); and Orange County Fair/Weird Al Yankovic concert (21-Jul-2007) photos now online. Pick on the picture of adrenailine at the animelosangeles table to see the pictures from Sac-Anime.

Well, I finished the book on Sunday. Took me two days. So I don't have to worry about spoilers in your LJs.

And we went and saw the 501st Legion in concert Saturday night at the Orange County Fair -- they were dancing on stage, along with Weird Al Yankovic's band. (During his "Anakin Guy" number.) That was quite a concert. I've never been to a rock concert where I heard both the Chicken Dance and the Hawaiian War Chant. In fact I can't remember ever hearing those two pieces of music on the same day before, let alone performed by the same act. (Not even at home, when picking songs on the Jukebox Server.)

He played a nice mix of new stuff and old stuff. I was mildly disappointed not to hear "School Cafeteria" or "Another One Rides the Bus" from the 1970s tapes he recorded in his family's tiled bathroom and sent sent to Dr. Demento to play on KMET... thought he might save one of them in reserve for his encore, but he did "Albuquerque..." I understand he played one or the other earlier in the week, so at least we know he was mixing it up -- if you went to every concert on the five nights he performed at the Fair (or at least the four nights the local stormtroopers joined him), you wouldn't have heard the same set every night.

It was all in support of his "Straight outta Lynwood" tour. I explained to library_lynn that "Straight Outta Compton" was an early gangster rap album. And that "All about the Pentiums" was a parody of "All about the Benjamins" ($100 bills have Benjamin Franklin on them). The bleachers we were in (thanks to obishawn for helping us get the choice seats right behind the sound booth) got a good butt-massaging workout during "Weasel-Stomping Day," a song from the new album that we hadn't heard of before -- everyone who knew the song was stomping to the beat.

I posted recently about my experience at Anime Expo with the instant-photo printing project. I've proposed the same kind of thing for the Costume College Gala; we'll see if it gets approved by them who approve these things in time. I'm optimistic that it'll work out well. If anyone graphically inclined wants to design a picture frame for the project, please contact me right away! I need a PNG with a transparent window in it -- or you can just pick a color to be "transparent" where the photo will go. The overall size should be 775 pixels wide by 1025 pixels high, with the window for the photo no larger than a 600x800 pixel rectangle. Preference would be for the photo's position to be centered, but that's not an absolute requirement. (If there's a good photographer attending, I'll cheerfully set aside my ego in favor of the costumers getting better pictures, and run their photos on my computer equipment and save my own photos just for the website.)

colleency has been helpful in getting me hooked up with the Costume College volunteers coordinator, so I can put in some useful work. Costume College people, starting with the chair ("dean" Lana) helped out at the animelosangeles Costume Repair Station. So Lynn, Christian and I are going to put in some hours at their convention.

Colleen asked me about the work I'd be doing at the convention, including the photography at the Galas. I told her that's not work: it's what I'd be doing anyway, jumping around snapping pictures. I'll just have my computer and printer with me in the ballroom and be handing out photos, which is hardly any work at all. I'll put in my hours during the day doing whatever scutwork they need me to do. You might see me as a door dragon at the Costume Exhibit, for example.

Anyhow, that's a bit of a tangent -- I was starting to talk about Anime Expo. I saw a few things, I've heard a few things about the convention, and I went to the gripe session. Whoo boy, were people unhappy. (And that's before the announcement that the con was moving to Los Angeles Convention Center next year.) I passed up a note to the panel as they were ending the session, or more correctly, moving the discussion outside, and the chair (Joyce Lim) asked me to send her an e-mail message with some of my ideas. So here's a piece of what I sent her. If there's any interest, I'll post more...

Joyce,
[[DISCLAIMER: my laptop has a keybounce problem. Please kindly ignore repeated-letter typos!]]
I'm the big guy with the teddy bear ears. I've spent most of the week working out what I want to say as a follow-up to our e-mail conversation. I'll probably send you a series of messages rather than one incredibly long single msg.
Please feel free to share this with the SPJA board, AX staffers, next year's chair if you end up not being in charge, and so forth. I may post my thoughts somewhere public as well; when you reply, please advise whether I can quote you or not.
Most of what I'm going to say actually stems from one basic observation:
1. Anime Expo has a reputation for not caring about the fans.
Notice I'm not saying "you don't care." But you've got an uphill battle to combat that perception.
I'll tender another observation, which I believe relates to point number 1:

2. Anime Expo/SPJA has difficulty attracting and keeping good people.
Thie starts at the board level -- four board members is awfully small for an organization with this much responsibility. Even though the board should mostly be setting policy and dealing with corporate issues, and delegating the operation of AX to the people running AX (some of whom may have seats on the board, of course), four is dangerously small. And your CEO search difficulties show that the difficulty extends all the way to the top.
Now, I wouldn't bother writing out a long post to you just to tell you things you already know. I have a few suggestions that can help with points #1 and #2, as well with other woes, and some comments on your recently-concluded Long Beach convention. (When I refer to "you" and to 'your" I may actuallly be referring to the convention, of course. As chair, you are the figurehead of the convention, after all.)
SIGNS.
This is something that I believe is a result of point #2, and reinforces the perception of point #1.
Your signs were horribly inadequate. Nonexistent, in some cases. And clearly not planned out, nor was there a plan to deal with at-con signage.
The "scribbled-out with a ballpoint" sign is just the tip of the iceberg. Where was the huge banner saying "ANIME EXPO -- Registration THIS WAY? Main entrance once you have your badge: that way?"
There are plenty of outfits that will do huge signs that can have anything you want -- they essentially have a large printer that prints on huge rolls of plastic.
For signs that are merely large, as opposite to gigantic, you should get some kind of "Big Bertha" printer. For example, the HP DesignJet 500 is quite a workhorse. (NESFA and SCIFI each have one.) With a 42" by 100-ft roll, you can print large banners.
One nifty feature of the printer driver is, you can have a document that's been laid out to print on letter-size or ledger-size paper, and you just tell the printer "print it ANSI C" or "A1" size or, basically, "as big as it can be printed to fit on the paper."
There are, of course, advanced programs to let you lay out signs and define your own paper sizes. But that simple "enlarge to fill the page" feature can get you a lot of mileage for ordinary large signs.
An example I talked about on Monday: Take the program schedule grids, and print out copies four feet tall. Post them on the wall, somewhere where there's room for lots of people to stand staring at them. (Post all four days on the first day; if there are schedule changes, you can print fresh copies. Or post a piece of paper on top of the grid square that changed.)
Other sign problems you had this year, symptoms of the "there is no sign department" problem: Sometimes the three escalators into the exhibit hall were two-down/one-up, and sometimes during peak traffic times they were three-down with a sign saying "NO EXIT" at the bottom. That sign was hand-printed.
The perception is that "nobody" on AX staff realized that the escalators would be one-way; or, didn't realize that people might want to turn around and leave the way they came in. Obviously, the real answer is "nobody realized they'd need a sign there" and it was whipped up on a minute's notice. But if you've got an office that's staffed with a handful of people just making signs, they could have at least printed "NO EXIT" in big block letters on a sheet of letter paper.