Fanime 2002 Location: Same 'ole Westin Hotel in Santa Clara
Okay, let me start off by saying that I came to this con expecting to do some cosplay, meet some people, and have some fun. Of those three, I believe the last of them was the only one I succeeded at to any degree. Since I forced myself to not bring a camera (saving for digital), I lack the wonderful pictures that others will be posting. I do, however, offer a perspective on the convention that isn't always seen. That perspective is the behind the scenes view, from the point of a Volunteer (Vol). While not originally in my list of things to do, one look at the hole, and all the memories I had from the year before compelled me to go in again. A few moments later, I had a second badge and had signed away at least 14 hours of my life. So here is my story, From Friday to Sunday, here is what was going on from one Volunteer that managed to be almost everywhere and helped do a lot of things.
Friday: Rolling Start
I'm not quite sure if it was the fact we were awake at 7 in the morning, or the fact I was up until 3, or the fact it was Friday, but regardless of reason, I woke up, grabbed my stuff, and made haste down the stairs to the parking lot. From there, our car headed out. It was me plus three other members of the CSUMB Anime Club. We stopped at Jack In the Box (yum) on the way, and got to the Westin about 9:30 or so. There was no line at reg, and so we were looking for ways to kill time. I went up the escalator, and walked down towards what I discovered was ConOps. Next to them was "the hole".
For those that remember last year, I tossed most of my time to the Volunteer thing, and I had a blast. So I slipped in, talked, signed up, and got my badge. I figured I would be doing things like last year, which was right and correct for today only. I ended up helping out at the dealer's room, registration, and smaller tasks all around. The club went for dinner at 5, while I was taking care of the badge checkpoint at the dealer's room. From there, it was back to the hole and the coaches said they needed help in Sonoma for something "artistic". I go down there and learn they are setting up the VIP party for all the guests. I set up the projection, sound, and lighting, while others set up the structures. And then, the party started, and everyone who helped set it up got to stay and mingle with all the guests for this convention. I felt a sort of odd shyness in all honesty. I mean, these are the people we look up to and go "wow, you're cool." Voice actors, the director of Sailor Moon R, all the guests were in there. Needless to say, I chilled there for quite some time. By the time midnight hit, I was far too tired to go seek out food so I collapsed in a heap on the floor in our room.
So where was I: Dealer's Room, Console Gaming, Vol Hole, VIP Party (heh heh), Registration
Saturday: You Ran a What?
Start my day any earlier than 10, and I will not function well. The meeting was at 7 am. I literally crawled my way up to a standing position, and got dressed as best as my clouded mind would let me. I made it to the elevator, waited 15 minutes for one to come in either direction, jumped in, and made my way down. Today was the day I didn't plan to work, because there were several panels and things I wanted to do / see. And besides, this was masquerade night. Sheyne and Matt were already in line for tickets, and we got permission from the Info Desk to attend the staff meeting to check in and then return. I didn't take any work shifts, and the ticket process was easy. Ticket in hand, I chilled and wandered for a little bit, and then set out to attend my first panel: the webcomic panel.
I get there, and there is a huge crowd outside of Central (which seats 30). After asking a few people what they were here for (the webcomic panel of course) I looked around and grabbed a person. This person was Rob from press, and I told him what was going on. He took me to ConOps, and we couldn't find Trevor who was in charge of live programming. You just can't fit that many people into that one room. So we got a new room. Rob is amazing like that. So we went back, interrupted the panel, and got Greg, Dom, the whole NekoBox crew, and BatJew to move upstairs to the green room. By the time the panel was well underway, there were approximately 120 people in that room. Imagine trying to cram them all into a 30 person room? I went across the way to the press lounge and thanked Rob profusely and went back to watch / staff the panel. It ran late, but we had the green light from Ops to let it go as long as they wanted to account for the move time. It was a sweet panel. When they finished and left, I had to turn it back into a green room. That meant all the chairs to the wall, and the tables back in the middle. While I was doing this, the masquerade tour came through, with people explaining how the masquerade was supposed to work. It was interesting to try and rest a room with all those people in it. When that was done, I went back across the way to talk with Rob, who said he needed someone to help with the Green Room during the masquerade. Being the person who can't say no, of course I said yes. I was to be back at about 5:30 or so.
In the mean time, I wandered around the con, and got to actually go into the dealer's room. I escaped spending almost nothing, which was a really good feeling. There just wasn't much that caught my eye. Let me rephrase that, there wasn't much that caught my eye that was also affordable. Three key chains and ten dollars later, I was done. Went back to the volunteer room, checked in, said where I would be, and went up an hour early to go chill with Rob in the press room. When media, industry, and news crews weren't there, we were screwing around and having a blast. Rob had some old school anime songs, and a few other ones you would never think of. I have an urge to either download or rip from my DVD the ending credits to GunSmith Cats. I never actually stopped to listen to them. ^_^
When 5:30 hit, I moved myself across the way to the green room, and started getting briefed on what I was supposed to do. As 6 came around, people were being checked in, and we were setting up the A/V equipment. By "we" of course, I mean me doing all the work in the green room, and someone else doing stuff at the patch panel. Apparently last year there was no sound in the room, and I'll be damned if I was going to miss the masquerade simply because I was working it. We finally got sound, only to have the people pull it because the other room (where they were simulcasting) wasn't working. So I walked down to the theater, over to the sound booth, and explained. We had our sound back eventually, and had it fully operational in time for the Masquerade to start. There was one other staffer who had helped with Masquerade before, which helped. On the down side, it was us two and an entire room of cosplayers. So, what ended up happening was he took care of getting people down and making sure the rovers and other people were doing their jobs, while I had to field any problems or concerns in the green room.
Two staff members, one of them (me) really only a 19 year old volunteer managed to run the green room and backstage almost perfectly. The only minor issue was saying we would move the cosplayers down during the video break and were then told the break was going to be 20 minutes. Despite that, we got everyone where they needed to be at the right time, and back up for the press and media, and then out almost perfectly. It was smooth, and exciting. I don't know why I enjoy dealing with logistics and operations so much. By the time we were done at the masquerade, we went and talked to Bryan (who was running the front end) and got checked out. I realized I had been working for 6.5 hours just for the masquerade. We had a volunteer meeting that night, and then we also had the Great Skeeve Afterparty. The head coach, David (Skeeve), was leaving after this year, and so this was his party in his honor. Most of the upper levels of Fanime staff were there, and I left a little early because sleep was begging me. Got to take a bed this time, so I fell asleep even faster than last night.
So where was I: In Line, Central (webcomic), Meeting Room 203 (webcomic), Press Lounge, Meeting Room 203 (green room), Running Around Crazy (when you are suddenly in charge of the back end of the masquerade, what do you expect? If you were back there, I was the one in all black with cat ears and both badges clipped to his collar.) I also stopped into Yaoi Con for a few moments before my meeting. I had intended to go, but the masquerade dragged on way longer than it was supposed to.
Sunday: Wait, how is this over already?
So Sunday morning is here, and I wake up in time for the meeting, give or take a few minutes. Sheyne asks about breakfast and then it dawns on me. I haven't eaten since Friday morning and have somehow been functioning. I know I will catch hell from Marce for putting that, but I honestly never even thought about food. I was a little too busy elsewhere. So I attended the morning meeting, and got to relax for the morning, wandering through the rest of the con and seeing what was up. We all got hotel buffet breakfast, which costs a nice pretty ten dollars, but none of us wanted to do an IHOP trek. After breakfast, it was some goodbyes, and we attended a few panels. Sheyne and I sat in on the club panel with Rob, and we started a club networking email list. "California Anime Clubs" was born at Fanime 2k2. After the panel, it was a little more relax time, and we decided we weren't going to stick around for the closing ceremonies, and we made the drive home. Thankfully, this was the more relaxing day.
So where was I: Dealer's Room, Artists' Alley, Stitchin' Babes Panel, Club Summit Panel, Lobby
In The End?
Well, for one, having BayCon people be Fanime ConOps is a bad idea. They don't seem to understand how different an Anime convention is from a Sci-Fi convention. It's a different mentality, the fandom isn't quite as mature yet, and all these concepts were lost on ConOps. That and ConOps didn't know ANYTHING. You had better luck asking a Department Head than you did asking ConOps. Separating ConOps and the Info Desk was also a bad idea. Especially since they didn't have the manpower to send messages to the Info Desk and tell them what was going on. also ran around a lot more than I thought I was going to, and ended up working the convention way more than I thought a Volunteer ever could. While I don't deny that running the green room was cool, I can't help but shake the feeling that there was supposed to be a higher level staff that was doing that. So this is what happens when you work at a convention. It was a blast, although I missed my chance to meet some people I have been dying to meet since about September or so.
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