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'09 Cons: [link]This year I attended Anime Evolution in Vancouver, as I do almost every year, for the past 4 years now. Things started out really great in the beginning, when I first started to attend, but every year it seems this con get progressively worse. Less organization, venues falling through, disrespect to patrons, vendors and artists, but the most recent AE was by the far the worst that has been seen yet.
Being held at the convention center in Vacouver, the con itself was forced into one major showing hall. Vendors, artists, and shows were all scheduled at the same time in the same place. The vendors were small, few and far between, but were granted a large area with plenty of room around them. The artist alley on the other hand, which has been in the past a very large part of the con and a major selling point, was shoved into a corner WITH the shows. Meaning we were forced to sit beside and some of us even FACING metal j-rock bands, to which only a handful of con-goers actually attended. The music was so loud that many of the artists came down with severe headaches and had to abandon their tables. Not that it mattered that their tables were un-manned, because none of the patrons would come CLOSE to the outrageously loud performances. Most of them didn't even want to venture into the vendor area, which was all the way on the other side of the hall. I wasn't even in the worst of the rows, and most of my buyers could not hear a word I was saying, leaving without buying and deciding not to come back. (edit: The lights in the AA were also turned off for unknown reasons, and were not turned back on, at all.) I was in the second 'best' and I still had a hard time breaking even.
Some of the artists who were in the now notorious 'third row' have tried to speak to the admins of AE, but have been greeted with no help and not even a recognition of the problem. Everyone at the con complained, artists, vendors and con-goers. There was not one group that was excluded from the backlash of this horrible planning.
I had a lot of friends who had this happen to them, and if you're one of the artists who suffered at this years con I ask that you contact ~
bandeau, who is trying to put an effort together to get compensation of some kind.
[link]Her journal here details her experience with the con.
Needless to say, we've all been shoved aside, ignored and treated with complete disrespect. This con fell apart this year, and I don't know if I'll ever be going back with this kind of administration.
H
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