Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

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turntechGodtier
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Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by turntechGodtier »

So, normally conventions are a time to make new friends, to have good memories, to enjoy oneself. It's generally expected by convention-goers that they'll be treated politely by the staff, and that situations will be taken care of relatively quickly, should they arise.

For those that have been avoiding Homestuck at conventions, I would like to tell my stories involving my time at Anime Boston, including the lead-up to it, as the behavior of the staff has left me a little bit confused in some respects.

We in the Homestuck fandom will occasionally participate in a thing called the Can Town Project, which is essentially a canned food drive run by fans, and donations are taken to local charities. Ours at Anime Boston brought in 172 pounds of food, in 11 boxes for the Greater Boston Food Bank. All in all, it was a huge success, and I want to thank everyone again that donated.

Actually getting Can Town to Anime Boston, however, was another matter.

We initially approached the convention staff in early November of 2011 about having it. After several weeks of waiting for a response, of any kind, we told them it would be interpreted as a green light if we didn't hear back soon. The response we got was incredibly rude, very short-tempered, and in the end, we never did hear 100% either way from the convention staff here on the forums. We were offering to do charity, in the name of a fandom, and we were very badly mistreated by several staff members. It was to the point that I wrote to the convention chair about it, asking that these particular staff members be addressed. As a staff member for another convention, it is drilled into us at every meeting that attendees are paying to be at our convention, and our online presence is just as important as our offline one. Being told that we had "no place at Anime Boston," simply because we weren't of Japanese origin, is incredibly elitist, not to mention stifling to those of us that want to do good in the name of our fandom. A word of advice, from one staff person to another, is to remember that you are in a customer service position, and while one good experience will be told to one person, one bad experience will be told to ten people. It was to the point where, had I not been financially and socially committed to this convention, I would have taken my business to PAXE instead.

That being said, I want to commend the day-of staff for their quick responses on Saturday night to an incident that arose. I have a breathing condition, and when I had a bad reaction to the rescue medication, the security staff and EMT were there almost as soon as I told someone to call for them. A particular shout out to Nikki should be put forward, as I believe it was her that got the ball rolling. If anyone knows the RN's and EMT's names from Saturday, or has any way for me to contact them to thank them again, I would greatly appreciate it.

The day-of staff was also very accommodating that night, when one of our shoots was going to interfere with another panel being run. I want to thank them again for suggesting another place for us to go, and for working around us when a line formed right through our shoot space.

The long and the short is, Anime Boston should consider revising who they put in the public eye, especially here on the forums, as I have seen staff members mistreat other non-Japanese groups as well. Although we don't fit into the definition of anime, we are still a presence at anime conventions, and deserve to at least be treated with respect, even if certain things such as panel time cannot be allocated to us.
Anime Boston 2013
Friday: Sirius Black (Harry Potter - 75%), Fancystuck Aradiabot (Homestuck - 60%)
Saturday: Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians - 100%), Sirius Black
Sunday: Casual something or other
hg revolution
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Re: Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by hg revolution »

It seems there was a response in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13767

Seems like a polite enough response to me: permission to do it, not making it an official AB function, and a warning about need to avoid causing trouble with the Hynes' rather restrictive food rules. Where's the rudeness?

It's not "elitist" to want an anime/East Asian pop culture convention to stay anime/East Asian pop culture-focused. They're obviously very open to other fandoms cosplaying and having meet-ups, but some focus in the official programming is understandable.
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turntechGodtier
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Re: Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by turntechGodtier »

HG Revolution wrote:It seems there was a response in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13767

Seems like a polite enough response to me: permission to do it, not making it an official AB function, and a warning about need to avoid causing trouble with the Hynes' rather restrictive food rules. Where's the rudeness?

It's not "elitist" to want an anime/East Asian pop culture convention to stay anime/East Asian pop culture-focused. They're obviously very open to other fandoms cosplaying and having meet-ups, but some focus in the official programming is understandable.
It's not so much the thread itself, as much as it was the private correspondence I had with other staff members. It took them much longer than it should have to get back to me, and in response to questions about being in the masquerade, that was where they took on the attitude of, "You're not one of the animes, so we don't want you at our convention." The day-of staff was fantastic to us; the online staff, not so much, which is where I have an issue, because the forum staff is often the first face of a convention, and if it's being run by people who can't word their emails more politely, then you will lose people going to your convention.

It's as I said in my last post - if I hadn't been financially and socially committed to this convention, I'd have taken my business to PAXE; they had more programming that interested me, and more people from my particular fandom were attending, not to mention the fact that their staff has yet to be rude to me online.
Anime Boston 2013
Friday: Sirius Black (Harry Potter - 75%), Fancystuck Aradiabot (Homestuck - 60%)
Saturday: Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians - 100%), Sirius Black
Sunday: Casual something or other
hg revolution
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Re: Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by hg revolution »

turntechGodtier wrote:
HG Revolution wrote:It seems there was a response in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13767

Seems like a polite enough response to me: permission to do it, not making it an official AB function, and a warning about need to avoid causing trouble with the Hynes' rather restrictive food rules. Where's the rudeness?

It's not "elitist" to want an anime/East Asian pop culture convention to stay anime/East Asian pop culture-focused. They're obviously very open to other fandoms cosplaying and having meet-ups, but some focus in the official programming is understandable.
It's not so much the thread itself, as much as it was the private correspondence I had with other staff members. It took them much longer than it should have to get back to me, and in response to questions about being in the masquerade, that was where they took on the attitude of, "You're not one of the animes, so we don't want you at our convention." The day-of staff was fantastic to us; the online staff, not so much, which is where I have an issue, because the forum staff is often the first face of a convention, and if it's being run by people who can't word their emails more politely, then you will lose people going to your convention.

It's as I said in my last post - if I hadn't been financially and socially committed to this convention, I'd have taken my business to PAXE; they had more programming that interested me, and more people from my particular fandom were attending, not to mention the fact that their staff has yet to be rude to me online.
Did they say they don't want you at the convention, or just not in the Masquerade? With extremely rare exceptions, the Masquerade never includes non-anime/game-focused skits. Some non-anime cosplay as part of bigger skits with an anime focus does appear to be allows; there was a Nepeta in the masquerade afterall, but in a group of mostly anime cosplays.
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aquitaineq
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Re: Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by aquitaineq »

Well, the bigger the get the bigger their head's get.
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aquitaineq
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Re: Mixed Reviews: Anime Boston 2012

Post by aquitaineq »

Anyway, what I'd really like to know is if the convention center's staff has gotten any better or not, because they have been awful in the past which is why my sister and I didn't come this year.
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