Thread to discuss the happenings of AVCon.

Day 1
-------

I arrive at 11.30am off of only 2 hours sleep to start talking with all the various people I need to speak to. Peter's moe panel is all ready to go and looks solid. Put the finishing touches on mine. However, there were already visible signs of strain this early in the day on the staff. Even though they had started on the Thursday to get the setup done - and they semed to be doing that better that last year's lot did - they were behind in other ways.

2pm - Simeon goes over things with me and things on our side are ready. Convert text slides into a printout and the panel is now mainly pictures with the minimum essential text.

5pm - Barron gets me club flyers. Various people with Crispin knowledge look potential questions over and think it will work. Trade room becaomes really annoying with how often all the doors are locked and only Convention Centre staff can open them. Sam arrives to get his pass. Final panel review and all is fine and well ahead of last year. Hopefully no issues will arise on Sunday.

7pm - Opening Ceremony is in full swing. Crispin and Cassandra do their thing. AVCon staff dress as K-ON characters (supposedly was going to be the Auction's prime bidding item but clearly not now) and doa makeshift jam to Don't Say Lazy with Cassandra MCing. Cassandra has a lot of genki-style energy, I'll give her that.

8pm - I get informed that the interview I'm doing with Crispin Freeman will now also have Cassandra Lee...With very short notice...I have to rethink my questions.

8.30pm - It happens. I meet Crispin and Cassandra. Crispin in person is quite a sight to behold. The guy speaks well and has an aura about him that is quite enchanting. This is a guy who is a genuine fan and has knowledge to back it up. Cassandra is a cutie but yikes, is she alarmingly small in size - shaking her hand when we met, I had to be incredibly gentle since she seemed so fragile. Crispin was certainly taking the lead here. Again, I sense that Crispin's knowledge and confidence in material well outweighs Cassandra's. In my mind, I'm already pruning out questions and thinking of how I can pitch to Crispin's experience and passion while allowing Cassandra to feel relevant. This wasn't going to be easy...

8.45pm - And it is done. Somehow...I found a balance. I get an amusing reaction from Crispin when he discusses his most difficult role ever (from Photon). It was quite insightful to hear how a VA learns how to manage their voice in the long term and how to handle variations in voice tonalities - covered a couple of questions I knew I didn't have time to ask. I threw out a question specifically designed for Crispin - how he felt about where anime has gone in the last decade. His answer was honest, bold and had a fair bit of truth to it. Those present recording/watching definitely felt compelled by his reply. I then try to balance things out to finish by letting them both give replies. Crispin's answer to how he approached recommending titles to other people was refreshing while Cassandra used what she was familiar with - fair enough for someone that early in their career. Crispin's approach is one I wish I saw more in the modern fandom. Despite the chaos of getting this organised with little notice, it ended up being a fulfilling experience. Makes me look forward to his Mythology panel that much more. And with that done, I head home. By now, several AVCon staff members look like they were on the verge of a meltdown worse than what the AVCon Plague instills. Somehow, I no longer envy Dazza getting Screenings Coordinator. Hopefully none of their wear and tear translates into issues at main events this weekend. So far, so good, but some people look unusually stressed, even by AVCon standards. Hours later, despite the short notice, speaking to Crispin and Cassandra was undeniably great.


And onto Day 2 things will go - Cripsin's Mythology Panel and the Quiz Night await. Hopefully the hosts won't mangle my material and myself, Sam and Greg will have marking run on time for once.

Day 2
------

Buy Bunny Drop and Kaiba

Attend Crispin Freeman's Mythology Panel. This one was Superheroes vs Giant Robots. Crispin gave a darn good presentation which definitely gives some insight into certain titles. It was also heartening to see someone talk so positively about really old titles.

Chill in the PC gaming area. Play one practice game and pull of a 29/6/7 game with Fiora and a crazy comeback win (saving our Nexus from being destroyed on the last hit THREE TIMES in one match...) About 10 people befriended me in the aftermath of that match. XD

Mark for the Quiz Night. Well...all I can say is...my content/contributions went down great, didn't cause delays. What one particular person decided to create at the last minute - and it showed - caused the problems and delays always seen at said night.

Last Exile wrote:What one particular person decided to create at the last minute - and it showed - caused the problems and delays always seen at said night.

They really should stop with this sort of sh.it. It has always dragged things down in the Quiz Night.

Day 3
-------

Guide to Anime Panel gets about 25 people. Considering it was at 10.30 in the morning and Crispin Freeman was on at the same time, it was reasonable. However, the atmosphere of the panel was rather fun. Eveyrone was laid back and we decided to go with a more full-on everyone-involved discussion of the titles we were discussing. Due to the panel after us being cancelled, we were allowed to go for 60 minutes and took exactly that to finish. Panel was recorded by AVCon tech, so I will get it for people to be able to see and we'll use it permanently on our website as promotion.

(I wasn't there but a couple that went to the Moe panel claims it was reasonable overall but that Peter was too pro-moe and stumbling in his speech. I got the impression that would happen since he didnt communicate much and most that arrived before I went to the Streetgeek LAN section were already his friends. We'll see how it actually went once a copy of the recording is obtained. Probably had about the same number of people Guide to Anime had. So, maybe Crispin wasn't as big a drawcard as I thought.)

Did get to see a little bit of Crispin Freeman talking about voice acting when I spoke to Tech. I was astounded less people went to this one than his Mythology panel. Yeah, he's a dub actor, but...he's one of the few that are genuinely good enough to be an actor in any form and has proper and passionate knowledge of the industry and the anime medium. I wish more people took the chance to utilise his knowledge.

League of Legends tournament was definitely the higlight of the weekend in the Streetgeek LAN section. Pretty certain this had the most people watching games - during the whole tourney the room was packed and had more than the sitting area for the console finals sitting area. I had to go with randoms in my game and got stuck against a team that made the grand final. I wasn't disgraced personally but yeah, I did notice the number of people that have played for 2-3 years and at least 6 months as a team, so they gave me some advice about SA's League of Legends community and some streamers/pro guides to watch and learn from, since they said at the amount of time I've played (6 months), they were pretty much like where I am and that experience is the only way to get better. Most importantly Streetgeek's comps ran to time this year - big effort for that. Seeing Zane back in Adelaide was a blast. Will be hanging out with him for sure.

Didn't see the Cosplay, but the big news from it was that it actually finished on time this year. Seems like the people in AVCon responsible for it were realistic about what they could do in the timeframe, didn't let the really amateurish outfits in and focused on the better ones. Overall quality of the winners wasn't that great but the winners of the group section were damn stunning. Those guys put a lot of work into it and looked good enough to be worthy of wearing their craft.

From what I heard, the AMV contest this year was a farce. Somebody deleted nearly all the entrants' material this year and only 6 entrants could be salvaged...and the slot was filled with entries from the last 5 years to fill the time...How those in that section didn't back things up was a joke. Basically anyone who didn't lose their material got a prize. Sad...

Auction was....very underwhelming this year. When Greg puts in NO BIDS all night, that tells you something. When Garry restricts himself to $400 for a 5-second kiss with Ayvee (one she took the lead in), that tells you more. When Harris can't be bothered to troll much during it, that tells you even more. When some facial hair guy was the biggest spender with $650 to hug the female MC, get her shirt and a banner - that says it all. The AVCon staff seemed surprised the K-ON outfits staff wore on Friday night only went for $100 and that Raspberry was the one that got them. Did they really think that would entice Greg and Garry?

Closing Ceremony dragged on and on, so I left a bit before the end as did a lot of other people. A lot of people that went to the afterparty last year simply didn't want to this year. Tired, weay, gelatin legs and not wanting to get an illness and the likelihood I'd have a pricey taxi fare coming home from the afterparty meant I spoke with Brian and White for an hour after the con then got home and 11 and slept more overnight than I have for the last 3 nights combined.


AVCon in a nuthsell:

+: Crispin Freeman, League of Legends tournament, Screenings Titles, Cosplay and Streetgeek running on time, Leon and Siren Visual, the fun atmosphere at the Guide to Anime panel, Garry being somewhat smart in his bidding, Transreality looking likely to be able to go whole hog on January 1 2013, amount of space allotted for the Main Events Hall, Traders and Gaming meant there was plenty of space and a better comfort factor, new attendance record
-: Staff were already losing it on Friday, the Quiz Night finishing way too late and cutting rounds they shouldn't have for less appropriate rounds, Cassandra Lee is WAY too loud on the mic, the AMV lost material farce, the whole computer tech system crashing early on Saturday, the number of people said 'Madman have more titles, they MUST be better!' as they passed the Siren stall..., the thought Hanabee will one day be at AVCon..., people not turning up as much for Crispin Freeman as I would have hoped, console qualifying was very haphazard and behind time, Auction was underwhelming

Overall rating - 8/10. More events running on time, more space, more attendance, Crispin Freeman being a great guest, more people around that actually know their anime - big improvements. However, the Quiz Night didnt join other events with the improvements. This has to be remedied and addressed at the AGM and concurrent QGMs. An AMV contest being near wiped out is farcical. Cassandra Lee was okay for what seemed to be her first convention or close to it - she will get better over time. But someone needs to tell her to not yell on the mic all the time to compensate for her sometimes timid nature. Tech clearly had issues early on in AVCon this year due to lack of planning/leaving things to the last minute. And while I did see a lot of people who did know their anime, the amount of people that seem to think Madman is the ONLY anime licenser worth investigating locally or internationally is a joke. This myth needs to be dispelled. The Auction lacked anything worthy of a bomb bid. Garry and Greg are all the proof you need. Console qualifying really needs to get better - if Streetgeek were able to run on time this year, console should aspire to as well.

One sentence summation - The new committee made some big steps from the previous one but there are some things to still fix and hindsight will probably help them do other things better in 2013.