There was an anime con in Ottawa last weekend and it was kinda a failure.
http://naru2u.nstars.org/rantrantrant-f21/thoughts-on-the-convention-t169.htmHere's what not to do: don't get up during the closing ceremonies and blame your convention's poor attendance on the failure of the attendees to "bring their friends". Probably not a good idea to post your con's budget on a forum so that everyone can see you spent $22,000 to hold a convention in the basement of a Travelodge (there's this thing called "room blocks"). After a disastrous previous year that involved a drugged water supply and the intervention of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, you would think the show would regroup, examine the problems, and focus on its core mission. But nope.
People hated the wristband "badges", they hated the lack of water stations (but bottled water was only $1!) the single solitary anime room, the disappointing dealers room, small guest list (2!), one gaming room, at-door cost of $45...
Also having an enormous picture of a "vocaloid" on your forum, which features purple text on a gray background, probably not helping. Big con chair rant about how you lose money every year... antagonistic attitude towards attendees and staff.. where have I heard that before... something about a Magnum Opus convention that crashed and burned. Yeah.
And it's "their", not "there". Those drummers that cost $1000 are "taiko", not "takio" drummers. And so on.
So go and enjoy the train wreck before the convention removes the forum posts.
And if you think I am being harsh in describing the show as a failure - according to the convention itself, they lost $12,000 and had a lot of dissatisfied customers. I can't think of any other word than 'failure' to describe that. If after three years your convention isn't supporting itself, you need to either radically re-think your approach, or you need to hang it up and find something else to occupy your time.
