From uunet!in1.uu.net!newsfeed.wli.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!204.238.120.130!news-feeds.jump.net!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail Mon Aug 10 12:56:22 1998 Path: uunet!in1.uu.net!newsfeed.wli.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!204.238.120.130!news-feeds.jump.net!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail From: rcraven@rstcorp.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime.misc,rec.arts.anime.fandom Subject: [CON][OTAKON] My con experience... Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 13:52:21 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 108 Message-ID: <6qmtuk$5me$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.29.49.17 X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Aug 10 13:52:21 1998 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.02 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.4 sun4m) Xref: uunet rec.arts.anime.misc:172793 rec.arts.anime.fandom:25807 Hi. Just wanted to relate my con experiences to those who didn't get to go or even to those who did. :P This year, we decided to go all three days and stay at the hotel, which turned out to be a rather nice idea, since my girlfriend and I were both dead tired by the time we were finished each night. We arrived around 11:30 or so on Friday morning and discovered that parking was already gone for the hotel. Nicely enough, there was a satellite parking lot that cost a bit extra, but hey... it was parking. :P We got in the hotel and eventually found registration. I didn't notice any signs saying where registration was in the lobby, but maybe I missed it. Anyhow... registration went VERY quickly and smoothly. I was impressed. The line was rather long, even for pre-reg, but it went very quickly. The badges this year were even cooler than last year's and I was VERY pleased to see the use of the chains instead of the clips. That made it MUCH nicer for me, since I never wear shirts with pockets and it was a pain having to clip it to my pants or something. But anyhow... very nicely done. The programs were really well made and the schedule and map was really nicely done (except for the fact that it said the con suite was on the third floor :P). Overall, the whole thing was a lot more polished and professional than last year. The hotel was VERY nice and I hope they go back next year. It was nice having all of the video rooms on one floor. It was very easy to get from one video room to another. Especially nice for those times when a room was too crowded, so you decide to go do something else. The rooms were rather large and spacious. Though the elevators were often crowded, the max I EVER had to wait was 5 minutes and it was usually only 1 or 2. The staff seemed pretty courteous, despite the fact that they were being descended upon by a bunch of raving otaku. ;) It was also very nice that the hotel shuttle would actually take you to various places around town to eat. Sure, it wasn't that far a walk, but when you really needed to eat AND make it back in time to see something, it was definitely a nice touch. A really fine hotel. The ONE thing I didn't really like about the layout was that you had to go through the dealer's room to get to the art show. However, this was only a big problem early on in the first day. The dealer's room was HUGE and there was PLENTY of walking space between tables, especially along the right side. So I didn't mind so much. Let's see... there seemed to be quite a few delays and scheduling changes. Maybe it just seemed that way to me because I got stuck in a few. ;) Saturday morning, the almost-empty video room 1 showing Mahou Tsukai Tai 5 & 6 was switched with video room 2, which was showing the music video contest, after the showing of episode 5. I didn't mind so much, but I would've thought that that scheduling change would've been made earlier. The music video contest is always extremely popular, no matter how many people watch it on Friday (as I did). But, as I said, I didn't mind, and the proximity of the video rooms to each other didn't make it too much of a hassle. Also, the Kawamori Shoji panel was moved from Panel 1 to Video Room 1, which was a nice move, since the place ended up filling pretty quickly. We only had to wait a half hour as the staff set things up in the new location, which was pretty nice. And I chatted it up with a cute gal with a Miki-chan name badge and a cheap camera for a bit, so it wasn't such a bad wait. ;) The panel was excellent. I always expected him to be older for some reason. Oh well. :) It was really nice hearing what he had to say and I had a feeling his English was pretty good, since he seemed to understand the gist of some of the questions before the translator translated them. Though, of course, there was the guy who showed off by asking his question in Japanese and translating it himself. ;) But anyhow... it was very enlightening and interesting and I wish I could've stayed for the whole thing. But I'd wanted to check out the drawing workshop. Unfortunately, that was already PACKED 10 minutes before it was supposed to start, so I didn't get to go. Hrmmmm... other things... having the fansubbing workshop and the music video workshop at the same time made me cry. :P Of course, I didn't end up getting to go to either because I was too dazed after "End of Evangelion", but... it seemed to me that many people who'd be interested in fansubbing would also be interested in music videos. Oh well. There were, of course, the usual share of rude and inconsiderate folk. People who'd push by you, people who'd stand there chatting at the dealer's tables for 10 minutes or more so you couldn't get in to actually see the merchandise, stuff like that. But that's to be expected, particularly with anime becoming more and more popular. Nice surprises... well, seeing the "End of Evangelion" movie was a nice surprise. The line was long and all, but I bet everyone who wanted to see it got to see it. The 9am showing, at least, was packed but everything went smoothly and orderly. "Everyday is Sunday" was a nice surprise, too. I'd heard very little about it but went to see it anyhow and I really liked it a lot. The video game room was much better this year, I feel. Especially since I actually got to PLAY some games this time. People seemed more courteous and less prone to hogging. Just wish the link didn't keep breaking while I was trying to play Zeta Gundam. Seemed like a neat game. :) As usual, some of the dealer's room prices were out of this world. But there WERE places selling toys and other knick-knacks for decent prices. Sure, the CDs and videos were still pretty outrageous, but there were some deals to be had. Though I really wanted to strangle the people at the table selling import Playstation games for $70+. I even saw some for $80. That's insane. What was worse was they were selling the re-issue of Macross VF-X for $60 and it CLEARLY stated on a rather large sticker that it was the re-release and was only 2800 yen. 2800 yen is NOT worth $60. And selling dual shock controllers for $50 isn't nice, either. But anyhow... there were deals to be had and nice little things to be found. Not exactly reflecting the weakness of the yen, but still pretty good. All in all, quite a nice experience. I like the new location and I think everything went as smoothly as possible. The staff did a good job at adapting to the new hotel and, though there were some bumps, I think it went really well. Here's looking forward to next year. :) -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum