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In the few months, we’ve done this blog, I’ve pained to know there was going to be a moment that I was going to criticize my home convention, Sakura-Con. This is a convention I have been with and staffed since 2005. People know who I am there, and I feel I have made lots of positive contributions to the convention.
But again, I’ve pained to know at some point I’d have to criticize them here. I just wish it was something done AT the con, and not before it.
Now, when you are arguably one of the ‘big three’ anime cons in the country (AX and Otakon being the other two), you want to have your rules for things like the AMV Contest, Gaming tournaments, and Cosplay Contests, out of the gate well before the convention, especially when people are going to be putting time into editing, practice, and skit creation for this like the above three. A lot of people put a lot of time, effort, and love into these sorts of things.
What I saw this weekend was sadly not something that gave any sort of proper notice, and changed rules that a lot of people had a huge concern with, some good, some bad:
Walk-offs and skits have been, like The Offspring song, separated.
I fully support this idea. I think that giving people an opportunity to show off their handiwork between a couple of skits got things a little out of hand. This also increases the number of people who can enter both of these events.
Seven people to a cosplay group for skits. We go from the best idea to the most stupid. I understand the chances of a cosplay skit group having more than seven people aren’t very high, but there never was an upper limit, and I think if the Cosplay Coordinator can judge that a group of 25 people might be a tad too much, we’d be fine. I think establishing an upper limit is asking for trouble, and if you read the Sakura-Con forums, it has.
3:00 limit on skits. Also an idea I don’t like at all. Skits were limited to five minutes in previous years, this take a lot of the entertainment and fun out of skits, not to mention this is going to make people scramble to redo skits they may or may not have finished planning out. If you are separating walk-ons and skits, this is an idea with no logic attached to it, as if you are eliminating walk ons, and making them their own entity, you’ve cut that extra dead time from the skit contest. This makes it look like the people doing skits are being penalized and the walk-ons getting more of the spotlight than the people doing skits, who, most of the time, not only have to make their costume, but have to coordinate with others in making costumes associated with the skit, then taking even more time to write the skit. Walk-ons requires (usually) one costume, and not as much time and coordination. I’m more in a stupor over this than the upper limit for people to a skit.
Being given all of this 90 days prior to the convention. I’m of two minds on this one. For half the cosplay crowd I know, this is perfectly reasonable. For the other half, it’s not even close. Some groups I know are like NFL head coaches, where they take seven months of offseason to plan their playbooks. I’d like to see conventions instill a six-month advance on all things programming-related (AMVs, Gaming, Panels, Cosplay, etc.). [NOTE: Yes, I did run Programming at this convention, and I may sound wholly hypocritical in saying that, as I never even came close to that milestone, but you get a petter perspective from the outside looking in.]
I also can’t say I am thrilled at how the Cosplay Coordinator handled themselves when people asked legitimate questions, and I think he is setting his bar of expectations a little too ambitiously. He’s projecting 90 groups for the skit contest. Sakura-Con 2010 had around 30. I don’t think that number is going to triple in the span of one year. I can understand that he’s new to this sort of thing, and that there are people around to help him, up to and including last year’s cosplay contest team. But to tear into the very people who want to entertain the crowd at the convention is the worst idea you can make.
-Bressler
bangbangneko
bresslol
ConGear
Mike
