Stopping short of typing up a massive report I'll leave it as this was one of the worst conventions I've ever been to. This report is in no way linear So I've just titled it according to the appropriate sections.
AMV, the forgotten event.
The competition was cut up and dispersed throughout the entire weekend between anime screenings. So if I wanted to catch the entire competition I would have had to have been in multiple rooms at the same time. Not likely to happen. Finally when I did get to see the finalists the competition was broken down to 5 positions... no categories and from that... they had things like equal 3rd, equal 5th, equal 4th (can't remember exactly as I was too disgusted) Oh did I mention that as soon as the finalists started playing the mirrorball in the room started spinning and shooting light around the room and all over the screen. I told their tech gs about this and they agreed to stop it after a few videos. If things weren't bad enough the winning video was also shown at Animania last year (and at last years AVCon) and that that particular creator had entered some six or possibly more videos into the competition. They had asked me earlier if I wanted to judge their competition... only at the last minute to decide to do things their way. Oh well their loss.
Cosplay, commence takeover.
Mitchell (Booyah Productions, and Team AVCon) was intially a mere co-host. However when the event took off it more than clear that he was n ot only calling the shots but had no direction or information from the Animania crew. Only to be beaten, glomped, kissed and thrown around in general by the generally unruley group of cosplayers. On the second day their other host had disappeared on them and Chris (DJ Paradroid, and also Team AVCon) was up to take over and to do spectacular job, despite getting his share of harsh treatment even being handcuffed by a Faye cosplayer.
Whose Line is it Anime, even if it was barely anime related.
Animania staff seemed to be dropping like flies. They were nearly pleading for help when we gave them Neil (Freeloader, Team AVCon) Who did an excellent job hosting the event and directing Mitchell, Chris and all that msut have been left of their staff. AVCon domination continued...
Not-so-live-fan-dubbing.
Can you say "staffless"? Or perhaps "pre-recorded"? Mitchell was dumped with even more of their work and with very little time to prep anything the best way to get this event to work was to take groups out to a back room and record to a selection of pre-cut clips. We recorded quite a masterful comedy combining Transformaers, Shakespeare and general convention hilarity. Unfortuantely this didn't appeal to audience who opted for a Someday's Dreamers and Yaoi jokes. Oh and did I mention that Animania didn't even provide prizes for the competition. So we had to supply some of the shirts we were selling. Crazy.
The Great Debate. AVCon presence = 0
Subs vs Dubs. That's right...
Both teams had very dry and downright stupid pre-arranged arguments. The pre-recorded video that somehow helped the debate was just great and two of their staff seemed to be playing on the whole "yeah, we're seeing each other thing to provide humour" Well I didn't see anyone laughing.
Dance Party.
Good in theory. Terrible in practice. Well... at least in the manner that they did it. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust to a whole lot of regular club music with some real-time filter on the movies audio and the subtitles turned on!?? only to turned u and down every so often. Too many people were in the mood to sit down and just watch the movie, rather than dance. Team AVCon chose to leave and find ourselves one of those Sydney clubs we see so much of in the movies.
Videogames. AKA 2D fighters, DDR and Initial D
Gobbo (Another Team AVCon member) while being only a volunteer had pretty much the entire Video Game floor running under him. Even if all he had to work with was a few Consoles running poorly calibrated arcade sticks and a whole lot of 2D fighters.
AVCon Stall. Where the action was at.
Without doubt the most popular stall at the con. Well Madman probably had a a better setup and more people so we'll give "most popular stall" to them. Initally we were supposed to be given two TVs, well they gave us one... and it wasn't all that great. We ended up becoming something of an information desk and sold quite a few T-shirts... okay not really. Mostly just to pimp our convention. And the Transformers guy who was just opposite was really cool. Even if most of the people who came past had no idea what AVCon was or had any desire to fly to Adelaide.
People I met, or already knew but got to see again
Sly from Madman: Really pissed off about the way they were treated and once again no thanks for them despite being a major sponsor. He wasn't even told about the after-party that they held.
Deaths_ally: Came all the way from WA only to be severly disapointed at the quality of the convention and to be completely oblivious to me, despite standing no more than a foot in front of him. Even asking some of our guys if I had not made it over to the con. Nah, it's cool, mate
Sammy: Okay, no I didn't meet him even if it is his home town. Mystery.
Overall
What did we get out of this? 3 free passes for the 15 of us. The majority of the convention's events to run, an otherwise really boring convention and not a single thankyou. Good job guys, see you next year.
Animania(Sydney) 2004 report
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Declan_Vee
- Mr. Poopy Pants
- Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2002 10:56 am
- Location: SA, Australia
