Animeniac
03-14-2005, 06:45 PM
Hi, I'm Merle's mom (you remember little Merle, right?) and I'm new here to Cosplay.com (although I was lurking a bit just before Anime Detour). I tried to go to the forums on the Anime Detour site last night, and it says, "Sorry, but this board is currently unavailable". I waited until today (well, maybe the forum got a lot of traffic?) but it still says the same thing. What the heck's going on, huh?
I Googled and found out that this site had a forum dedicated to Anime Detour, so...here I am! Guess I'll make my post here.
I thought that this year was 1000 times better than last year. A lot of people seem to be complaining about the hotel, but I felt that the layout and room sizes were much more suited to a convention of this size, and greatly contributed to my greater enjoyment. You could walk around the dealers room without passing out from heat and BO, you could enjoy the video rooms for the same reason, and the consuite was not out in the back 40. Also, we seemed to be out of the way enough from the staff and other guests most of the time...fewer people looking at us with that "What a bunch of freaks!" look.
From a viewer's standpoint, the masquerade was a much better experience. The standing in line to get seated one hour ahead of time was a bit annoying, but I suppose it's necessary to avoid chaos. It would have been nice to have some pre-show entertainment prepared (to avoid that paper-airplane stuff :) .) The announcer was better prepared, the performers and walk-ons were also much better prepared, and it's tough to even explain how much better the half-time entertainment was! I did not agree with the judges for the most part...I can't believe that Anthy and Utena did not (IIRC) win anything, for example. Those were awesome costumes!
I was...well...annoyed by the fact that the post-convention survey didn't really have much of a place for feedback. You're only supposed to report what went majorly wrong with the convention, and your feedback is only valid if you volunteer to fix it??? Ummm...yeah. I guess I don't have any major beefs, and if they don't want my suggestions, fine. Maybe that's why the forum is down.
I'm curious as to why we were told that we could not get into the convention (a supposedly 24-hour-a-day convention to which we paid a good deal of hard-earned cash) on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. because there were no panels running yet. Well, we knew that. Only when my husband insisted ("Aren't the video rooms running? Why can't we get to them?") were we told that, oh, well, I guess if you go around to the back stairs you could get in that way. Well, OK, then. A "we're busy setting up here so please go to the back stairs and here's how you get to them" would have sufficed. Just because we didn't get a hotel room shouldn't mean we are second-class citizens.
Sorry, if I got a little ranty there. I really did enjoy myself, and the good overwhelmingly ourweighed the bad. We got so many compliments on my daughter's costume, (and even a few on the Chiyo-Dad hats) and she thinks she'd like to participate in masquerade next year (but...she'd probably change her mind if it means she has to sit there five hours, 'cause that's no fun.) We already pre-reg'ed for 2006...can't wait! :)
I Googled and found out that this site had a forum dedicated to Anime Detour, so...here I am! Guess I'll make my post here.
I thought that this year was 1000 times better than last year. A lot of people seem to be complaining about the hotel, but I felt that the layout and room sizes were much more suited to a convention of this size, and greatly contributed to my greater enjoyment. You could walk around the dealers room without passing out from heat and BO, you could enjoy the video rooms for the same reason, and the consuite was not out in the back 40. Also, we seemed to be out of the way enough from the staff and other guests most of the time...fewer people looking at us with that "What a bunch of freaks!" look.
From a viewer's standpoint, the masquerade was a much better experience. The standing in line to get seated one hour ahead of time was a bit annoying, but I suppose it's necessary to avoid chaos. It would have been nice to have some pre-show entertainment prepared (to avoid that paper-airplane stuff :) .) The announcer was better prepared, the performers and walk-ons were also much better prepared, and it's tough to even explain how much better the half-time entertainment was! I did not agree with the judges for the most part...I can't believe that Anthy and Utena did not (IIRC) win anything, for example. Those were awesome costumes!
I was...well...annoyed by the fact that the post-convention survey didn't really have much of a place for feedback. You're only supposed to report what went majorly wrong with the convention, and your feedback is only valid if you volunteer to fix it??? Ummm...yeah. I guess I don't have any major beefs, and if they don't want my suggestions, fine. Maybe that's why the forum is down.
I'm curious as to why we were told that we could not get into the convention (a supposedly 24-hour-a-day convention to which we paid a good deal of hard-earned cash) on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. because there were no panels running yet. Well, we knew that. Only when my husband insisted ("Aren't the video rooms running? Why can't we get to them?") were we told that, oh, well, I guess if you go around to the back stairs you could get in that way. Well, OK, then. A "we're busy setting up here so please go to the back stairs and here's how you get to them" would have sufficed. Just because we didn't get a hotel room shouldn't mean we are second-class citizens.
Sorry, if I got a little ranty there. I really did enjoy myself, and the good overwhelmingly ourweighed the bad. We got so many compliments on my daughter's costume, (and even a few on the Chiyo-Dad hats) and she thinks she'd like to participate in masquerade next year (but...she'd probably change her mind if it means she has to sit there five hours, 'cause that's no fun.) We already pre-reg'ed for 2006...can't wait! :)