I was gonna

[davemerrill]

I was gonna write an inside-nerd-con-baseball post about one thing, but this other thing is a thing that I thought I'd mention, is that Anime Expo has laid down a lot of new interesting rules for staff, exhibitors, and AA table-ers.

https://www.spja.org/youth-protection-program/

Background checks (that the exhibitors pay for), and now even press and animation industry professionals have to pay to get in. It's a big change and people are ventin'.

Turns out the people running AX these days, or at least handling the vendors and other services, is/are IDG World Expo, who also run MacWorld and E3 and Digital Entertainment World, etc. http://www.idgworldexpo.com/about/

If you didn't think this kinda thing was big business, think again.

Which segues into the thing I was going to talk about before, which is a convention selling lithographs of artwork by a guest, the artwork being of licensed characters, and the convention does not have the license to sell merchandise featuring these characters and didn't even attempt to get the license to sell merchandise featuring these characters, and I don't think it's going to cause any actual legal problems for anybody but it looks really, really, really unprofessional. It just does.

Comments

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all sure how that stuff is gonna shake out for Anime Expo. I'm in favor of the idea of being a 'safe place' for kids, I think we talked about how anime cons were just a perfect 'hunting zone' for perverts and sexual predators and eventually something really really horrible was bound to happen, so trying to get ahead of that seems like a good idea.

Not so sure having criminal background checks is the solution. Esp. if that's ONLY AA, vendors and guests and press. At least they're doing checks on the staff (which I would think is a likely risk point, given other cons and problems they've had). but I wonder who is going to get a pass on giving the info due to 'excuses' and they're still allowed to be at the con? While there's no doubt pervs in all those categories SOMEWHERE, for AX the stranger danger is most likely day pass people.

I hope those safe spaces are staffed constantly.

Funny thing, I don't recall them making this big a deal on preventing Cosplay Offense and sexual assault.

There's something that smells about this whole thing. Like skimming money from city or state government by implementing this, or some kind of 'profit center' generation by charging fees (with no transparency of actual cost) for the background check.

I wonder what happens if a big chunk of folks say "no, not gonna"?

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

I wonder what happened to make this necessary. Tacking on another charge on top of already expensive AA tables, esp. this late in the game, is pretty tacky.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Yes it is. My bet is on there's some Cali state or county or city money to be made by the con by doing this, or tax credits.

Of course it could be being enabled because of publicity.

I guess I'm a total cynical S.O.B. Something like this usually doesn't happen this late in the game unless it greases someone's palm in some way.

Well, correction, it may well be some kind of Cali State mandate that risks huge fines if it's not done. I'm sure if THAT was the case it would have been right out there "Hey, it's not our fault, the state fines us thousands if we don't comply!" so not hearing that...

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

my uneducated guess is something something ISO 9000 Certification something something. That shouldn't apply to artist alley artists, but who knows.

It's obvious that AX is a real deal corporate entity, and I wish they would drop the pretense of being a fan run volunteer let's put on a show in the barn kinda thing and just be a professional expo trade show expo. They shouldn't have people selling unlicensed art or t-shirts or merchandise of any kind, they should have actual hourly paid employees doing their work, they should be a 9-5 kinda show and then let everybody go home at nights, or something. As it stands these things, these 25,000+ conventions, they are raves + concerts + exhibit halls + craft shows + everything else, and it's becoming overwhelming, I think. Certainly overwhelming for volunteer labor.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

But you have to factor in the Hollywood effect. Hollywood LIVES on the dreams and hopes of people, that's why they never run out of suckers who fall for the "Look, do this work for free because I can't pay you, but if I manage to sell this I'll make sure you get (paid, job, credit), promise!"

Somehow, that person who just can't pay you that, say, $2000 for a script manages to make a few tens of thousands.

PAYING for actual staffing? That involves records and taxes and *gasp* the potential of Unions getting involved (n.b. the union stevedores and loading dock people don't count, that's the facility's problem) and... geeze, they can't even use the Mexicans at the Home Depot parking lot to get around THAT, so what the heck can you be thinking?! :)

No, you're right. At this stage AX should put on the big boy pants and really shake up the whole thing. Still not gonna happen. Years ago they tried really hard to be THE OFFICIAL CONVENTION of all anime, the SDCC of anime, the RILLY BIG SHEWWW back around, ohhhhummm, 2003 or so? But the Big Boys wouldn't play and then the Big Boys died off.

Remember, all those fancy booths were build NOT for AX, but for NATPE and VSDA and SDCC. AX was always sloppy seconds for that sort of thing.

Now the time is past. The fandom wants their cosplay rave.

I would be so damn scared to go to ACen nowadays.

Aside, what's the buzz on that NJ con that just happened? The few pics I've seen make me think attendance was kind of dire.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the big boys wish they'd had the capital to stay in business over the hump, because Anime Expo 2015 did more than five times the attendance of Anime Expo 2003. They did more than 90,000 people last year. That's a pretty big show in anybody's league. Considering the drop Otakon took last year, Anime Expo IS the official anime convention, at least for the present.

From what I can see Acen is raves, DJs, musical acts, five American voice actors, and Samurai Dan teaching the samurai art of self defense that samurai children were taught in the olden days. Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of anime programming.

The only official report I've seen from the AFF in Jersey was this Bleeding Cool piece that was about as subjective a con report as I've ever read. Most of the people I know who went had a good time, but most of them were guests; I don't know what it was like on the ground for the average congoer.