So, in short, I had a GRRREEEAAATTTT time @ Katsu this year! In short, it was a perfect trifecta of a great cosplay experience, great staffing experience, & a great time paneling, & to top it all off, a great time meeting old friends & making new ones XD There were a few hiccups here & there, like w/ any con, but it was still a stellar experience.
Lastly, let me just say despite being parked in the Gaylord parking garage since Thursday, I wound up paying nothing when I left. Don’t ask how but I basically saved a crapton of $$$ >.> To clarify, it’s nothing illicit or “morally reprehensible”, I just…took advantage of an opportunity provided to me, is all >.>
The Good
Cosplay wise…
Cosplayed Casual Envy! Luka (Vocaloid) Friday, Gluttony! Meiko (Vocaloid) Saturday & Cliff Fittir (Star Ocean: Till the End of Time) later in the night, & Grimmjow (Bleach) Sunday. Had a pretty good time with all my cosplays & when I have all the pics, I’ll post 1 for each here as well. Also, had a great time meeting up with a mini Start Ocean: TtEoT group & had lots of fun (& took lots of pics) w/ them. Great times!
Staffing wise…
I made such good friends, had a great time, shared some super dirty jokes, & a bunch of other awesome things (like booze) with these peeps! I truly had an awesome year staffing & can’t wait for next year. I worked with some exceedingly great, intelligent, hilarious, & talented ppl. & I’m glad I had a chance to get to know them 😀
Panel wise…
I gave these 5 panels this con:
- Sit Down, STFU, & Play This J-RPG (Awesome Edition) – Friday in Live 5 @ 11:00a
- How to Become a Quality Panelist – Friday in Live 5 @ 12:30p
- Yaoi & BaraTropes & Trends 3-Bigger, Longer, Harder MOTTO!! (18+) – Saturday in Live 3 @ 1:30a
- Let’s Go to ‘The World’: A Panel About the .Hack Games – Sunday in Live 7 @ 1:30p
- Bleach: Shunpou Edition – Sunday in Panel 5 @ 3p
They all went pretty well, especially the Yaoi/Bara & .hack panels. I had some ‘minor’ technical issues with the JRPG one (Oh Windows 8, you just had to update right then & there & delay me by 20+ minutes X/) but the audience was far more patient than what I could ever ask for (although they may have ultimately been disappointed for the wait ~.~). Also, here’s a vid the peeps at The Fan’s POV recorded. Now I can dissect the heck out of it & make ALL THE IMPROVEMENTS (~.~). With Bleach, lost about 15 minutes b/c the panelists before me took their sweet time to leave (also, benefits of being both staff & a panelist; can legit kick ppl. out & sit yo’ a$$ right down XD) but I was still able to finish the panel with a little time to spare.
All in all, good times but, like usual, time to go back & make a bunch of changes across the board, which is a constant for the JRPG panel in my efforts to get its pacing flawless. I’m getting there but still so much to do. Also, in my effort to rush through due to running short on time, which you can see in the video, wound up accidentally skipping 2-3 sections X/…well, I’ll get another shot at it come ACen this year…hopefully I don’t f it up this time ^.^;
Overall…
Great times, great place, great ppl., great everything…now for some less than stellar things ~.~
The “Bad”
Besides my all-time favorite of realizing that I forgot to pack my undergarments at 2/3 in the morning (X/), to which a 24-hour Walmart quite literally saved my @$$, there were a few problems, but mostly with individuals/ideologies & not necessarily the con itself. Let me s’plain…
Picky Panelists (see what I did there w/ that on point alliteration?)…
Due to me staffing in LP this year, O, how some panelists can be picky b*tches ~.~ “I need water!”, “Start letting them in NOW!”,”Kick the other panelists out!” (like, seriously, if you see me already removing ppl., cool yo’ s**t), “I need more chairs!”, “I need more tables”, like, seriously ppl., it ain’t that big of a deal. It’s called humility, try it for once, will ya’? This is what happens when you have ppl. that aren’t s**t in their regular lives go somewhere where they feel like they’re somebodies now & then immediately start acting like total d*uches; i.e., geek culture at large when it comes to geek cons.
Granted, it was nice talking to some fellow LP staffers about this & hearing what they had to say on the matter XD
Hotel/Con Staff F’ing Up…
So, I believe it was Friday night where there was a huge mix-up with the Workshops, since 2 panels were scheduled at the same time in the different Workshop rooms…but the Gaylord hotel/convention staff still hadn’t erected the barrier…despite being told multiple times that day & prior to the con, which of course caused major issues. There was an 18+ panel happening in both rooms, in which one of the groups took the wrong room, stole chairs from the other side, & then promptly started to let ppl. into the panel w/o giving a staffer a chance to check 18+ bracelets, that person being me, never mind they kinda screwed over the other group of panelists.
Listen, panelists, I know some of you think you’re hot s**t, please don’t throw staff members under the bus b/c “My panels are the most important thing in the world & they need to happen NOW!”, f’ing work w/ them. Fortunately, my superiors understood what happened & I didn’t get blasted but I swear to God if I did, I would have put that group on blast meself X/ I’m not going to name the group b/c it’s unnecessary &, quite frankly, they know who they are but try a tad bit more humility, you could use a little. & for God’s sake if you know your crowd is rowdy as f**k or a bunch of socially awkward fat neckbeards/”that guy” types, police them & make sure they don’t get in the way/impede the progress of actual staff -_-
So, to summarize, if you attended either of those panels, it wasn’t Katsu staff f’ing up but Gaylord staff. They were really off their game this year. Incidentally, the importance of knowing who does what when you have an issue. Was it con staff? Was it the hotel staff? Which department? What was the name of the individual in question? Saying “staff sucked!” isn’t saying jack s**t. Which department was it? Live Programming handles the panels but Tech handles all the technical equipment. If you had an issue w/ tech it is in fact on them, not the LP dept. (just to give an example). Sometimes it’s an individual. An entire department could be running relatively well with the exception of the one weak link, that doesn’t mean the entire department is incompetent ~.~ Just things to keep in mind.
“Great experience, bad Con”..? WTF?!…
There were several FB statuses that basically said this, which makes no f’ing sense to me. Either you liked it, you didn’t, or you liked it overall but didn’t like a few particulars, you can’t both simultaneously hate the con but had a great experience; which one is it?! Even with me & my feelz on MAGfest 2015, overall I liked it but it just wasn’t my cup of tea (which is another thing you can say) not to mention the con attendees overall were immature. Even then, particulars but not the entire convention.
I just hate this mentality b/c it reminds me of the dumb@$$ hatebase for Otakon. You know, the ppl. that go every single freakin’ year but are the loudest to complain about EVERYTHING ~,~ Anything that reminds me of these retards (I mean that word the way it’s meant to be used) annoys the crap outta me. Just state the particulars you don’t like, don’t be a f’ing drama queen or, worse yet, hipster d*uche about it X/ Like, this technically isn’t “ruining my con experience” it’s just that this type of mentality is why I hate geek culture at large; it’s dumb, petty, & filled to the brim w/ s**t. Basically, what happens when the MAGfest crowd try to attend any other con, especially if it’s an anime con ’cause, you know, those genre cons are the worst X/ *gag*smh* I mention MAGfest attendees b/c anyone I’ve seen do the whole ‘It sucked but it didn’t’ b.s. usually are one of the many that LoVeD MAGfest & hate all anime cons…’cause that makes sense >.>
So, to conclude, had a more than awesome time. Definitely washed the meh taste of MAGfest out of my mouth (as well as the attendees being a heckuva lot more tolerable & accepting @ Katsu) & was everything I could want it to be & more…now to prepare for 3 cons simultaneously (AB, ACen, &AMA) ((@.@))
dj Date Masamune's Panel Escapades 