Having never attended an Anime convention before, I looked forward to Nan
Desu Kon 2 in Denver last weekend. I wanted to start with a smaller con in
order to get a feel for what they were all about before venturing forth to
one of the "real" cons.
After attending, my reactions to this event could best be described as:
mixed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming the con. I'm sure they did the
best they could. But there were things even I noticed that were less than
optimal.
To begin with, it was held in the Stapleton Plaza Hotel and Fitness Center.
Now, I have to admit, it was a nice place. A bit pricey but nice. The
hotel is located next to a bunch of other pricey hotels built at a time when
it was thought inconceivable that Stapleton International Airport would ever
close. The construction of the new Denver International Airport has left
Stapleton a ghost town. So, hotels like the Stapleton Plaza have had to
scramble for business. This might explain why they were willing to cut a
deal with the organizers of Nan Desu Kon for use of their facilities in the
first place.
The hotel is an 11 story around a central atrium structure that provided an
unrestricted view of the entire interior from top to bottom from the open
hallways. For the most part, even from the 8th floor I could look all the
way down to the level where the con was to see what the crowds looked like.
Each room even came equipped with a private balcony outside. Nice touch.
(I used mine in the cooler evenings to sit outside with my pipe and my
laptop while my recently purchased Ranma CD blared out of the boom-box I
brought with. I'm sure the neighbors appreciated that.)
The down-side was that what the hotel left the convention goer with the
unmistakable impression that the hotel was going to be cooperative up to the
point where it affected their other business (things like family reunions,
meetings for the local spouse abuse organization, and a couple of technology
seminars). In short, there were a lot of hotel clients all vying for the
hotel's services at the same time. (The snooty desk clerks didn't help the
impression any.)
As the hotel was 11 stories tall and there were no stairs to be used (open
one of *those* doors to the two stairwells and you get a fire alarm),
everyone had to depend on three elevators to get from floor to floor. Even
if you wanted to go up or down ONE floor, you needed to wait for an
elevator. Inconvenient to say the least (although I can think of some
stronger language I'd like to use). Anyway, it quickly became apparent that
one had to plan their trips to the con VERY carefully else get caught up in
the one-floor-at-a-time elevator yo-yo.
I arrived in Denver on Thursday in order to get settled into my room and get
a good night's sleep before tackling the con. I was also able to spend some
time with my sister who lives in the area and generally unwind. (Perhaps
'unwind' is not the best word here. My sister cooks only slightly better
than Akane Tendo and her kids are more annoying than a room-full of Sailor
Moons.)
Now, I never saw anything that announced when the con was to start. In the
confirmation material the organizers sent me, all that was said was it
started on Friday and ran through Sunday. Okay, I thought, surely they
would start around noon or so on Friday. The hotel's activities board had
the con listed as starting at noon on Friday so I thought my assumption was
fair. Little did I know that the noon schedule was only for volunteers.
Okay, no problem, I'd just wait until 4 PM when all the rooms were scheduled
to open. Wrong again. That was the start time was for orientation for
those manning the various rooms. Registration, I discovered by a
hand-written note posted near the registration desk, was to begin at 5 PM.
Of course, nothing was open yet - including the vender room - so I had to
kill another hour to register.
By 5 PM, I was *really* getting anxious for this to get under-way. Of
course, I had to wait in line with the rest of the early arrivals. Good
thing the line for those pre-registered was short and there were no
glitches. With packet and t-shirt in hand, I considered what to do next.
Nothing was open yet, I had another hour to kill, so I hauled everything
back up to my room on the 8th floor and perused it carefully to try and lay
out my weekend to get the maximum effect of the con. (Heck, the elevator
ride took almost 10 minutes each way. That alone killed a good chunk of the
time.)
At 6, I endured another elevator ride to get to the vendor's room. Now, let
me take this opportunity to mention that in all the literature I'd gotten,
including that handed out at Registration, said there would be 30 tables
dedicated to the vendors. Not even close. The room the vendors were in was
so small that a
complete circuit of everything amounted to about 6 paces each in all four
directions. There was, by my count, only 4 vendors present. The only way
they were going to fulfil the 30 table count was if they included in the
count all the registration tables, the panel room tables and half those up
in the bistro. In short, by 6:30 I'd seen everything the vendors had
brought to sell, spent my limit, and was now faced with what to do with
the rest of my evening.
The 7 PM 'Opening Ceremonies' kept getting pushed back to closer to 8 PM, so
that accounted for a good chunk of evening sitting in a room while a pack of
AV nerdies doing 'mike checks' and generally entertaining each other with
rude
noises and comments. I hung around for most of the introductions of "Guests
of Honor". Steve Bennett was everything I'd ever heard about him - and
more. (BTW, in a one-on-one conversation environment he's a very serious
and thoughtful person. He may act goofy for the crowd to keep his "happy
guy" image intact but he's a LOT deeper a person than you'd expect.) After
the Dream Factory appeal they went on to introduce the other seven "Guests
of Honor". By then, I'd already lost interest and wandered off to check out
the movies.
I'll give them credit for their selection of flicks to show. They weren't
going to surprise anyone with something new on their video screens.
Dominated by OAV's that were already available in my local video store, it
soon became apparent that this was going to quickly become a giant time sink
hole. I can think of a bunch of things I'd rather be doing than sit in a
darkened room watching 'Macross Plus 1-3' or 'Tenchi Muyo! OAV 1-2' or even
'Transformers' - again. (Especially since Kissy and Sly refused to travel
all the way across Kansas just to sit in a darkened room within arms reach
of me.)
There simply wasn't much there - there.
The gaming room was a bunch of board (or bored) games. The only real
interesting one going on was Animayhem (sp?). Not riveting mind you but
interesting. (I also thought the 10 year old 'Axis and Allies' game was a
bit out of place.)
So, I wandered down to their 'Hong Kong Video' room. I've never understood
what the fascination was with movies where a character says 'yes' while his
lips move for two minutes. Perhaps it's the gratuitous violence. Besides,
my local used car banana slug already shows these on his late night Saturday
TV time-killer. At least he has a talking dog for a co-host.
With that, I gave up on Friday and set my sights on Saturday. Surely there
would be more to be had then.
Wrong.
Saturday was just a busier version of Friday. (A ton of locals bought the
one day pass for Saturday so the place actually looked like a convention by
Saturday morning.) I checked out the closet-sized room where they had the
model and art contest. (So much for the advertised bigger and better
event.) That took, oh, 15 minutes or so. The game room was right next door
so I tried that again. Nope, still playing board games (I always thought
there were some kind of video gaming going on in these things).
I wanted to check out the Video Contest but it got moved so many times that
its final location became a secret known only to the con organizers and
perhaps the ChiComs. (Their revenge for all those bad Hong Kong movies, no
doubt.)
Trapped with nothing to do, I went back to my room and turned on the TV
while I tried to make alternative plans. Luckily, I caught a notice for the
annual Cherry Blossom Festival in downtown Denver. Changing into attire
suitable for 100 degree temperatures, I made a bee-line for 19th and
Lawrence where the festival was being held (a long, hot drive). Got a good
shady parking spot in a lot adjacent to the festival and showed up at the
steps of the Denver Buddhist Temple just minutes before *their* opening
ceremonies.
The taiko drums that opened were worth the trip by themselves - all three
groups of them. The little kids that followed doing traditional dances was
really kawaii. I spent the better part of the day sucking down noodles,
washing them down with Sapporo beer and sake, and generally looking like a
sloshed gaijin in a blue happi coat trying his faded Japanese on native
speakers who spent a lot of their time nodding and smiling (all the time, no
doubt, thinking "who IS this guy?". (Hint: If you can, join your local
chapter of The Japan-America Society. You're treated more like family when
you show up at these things.) The entertainment and food was certainly
better than Nan Desu Kon - cheaper too. I did get into a fascinating
discussion with William Takahashi (no relation) about Shinobi traditions and
weapons over at the display and lecture about Samurai swords. He seemed
quite well informed and most eager to discuss this most misunderstood
element of Japanese culture. I also sat in on a short lecture on the
Buddhist religion (held at the foot of the temple shrine) by Reverend Kanya
Okamoto. It was VERY informative and a bit inspiring as well. I can think
of several places it could have been inserted into my stories.
The Cherry Blossom Festival actually became the best time I had in Denver.
I got back to the hotel in time to shower and get cleaned up before the
'interesting' panels were scheduled to be held. I shouldn't have gone to
all the trouble.
The 'Minimal Japanese' panel was interesting. Not overly enlightening, but
interesting and entertaining nevertheless.
I bailed on the 'Where Do You Go for Anime' panel as I don't spend enough
money on such things in the first place, it was unlikely I'd get any use out
of the discussion.
By 6 PM I was really fired up for the 'Writers Panel', figuring I might meet
some FFML members there or at least get into an interesting discussion about
writing fan-fictions and the like. Wrong. To begin with, it took 10
minutes to get the previous panel to vacate. They kept pausing on their way
towards the door having a loud conversation about the old days of Colorado
Anime clubs. By the time they left, there were only 6 people sitting in the
audience - including one very young lady playing with her Sailor Whatsit
doll that couldn't care less about writing. A hasty announcement was made
that half the panel couldn't be found, and the organizer of the con herself
decided she was going to 'sit in' - just to bring the panel up to three
people.
For the most part, the panel became a conversation between some woman
dressed all in black - including makeup (who failed to identify who she was -
I guess she figured she was so famous we should automatically KNOW who she
was.)
and some guy in the audience wearing a spiked dog collar and a tank top that
had
a neck line that plunged to his belly button. All they talked about was how
to
format scripts to submit to 'Babylon 5' and troubles the lady had experienced
helping local independent film makers create masterpieces that would
probably only be shown in their basements to whomever they could collar.
All through her monolog she kept saying that "there are some really good
books out there on scriptwriting" and we should go out and buy one.
Forty-five minutes into the hour-long panel, the lady decided to say
something about the basics of writing that anyone who'd ever taken a basic
composition class should have known. By then, the little girl and her
mother had bolted. I quickly followed.
In short, the panel was a colossal waste of time.
Disappointed, I pressed on to the Costume Contest. Scheduled to start at 7
PM, it finally got underway around 7:40. What took so much time was they
needed to organize the 14 Costume contestants and the 3 Cos-play
contestants/teams.
After introducing the five judges, little slips of paper were passed out to
the audience so they could vote. (Which left the obvious question: What
were the judges for?)
Eventually, a Richard Lawson look-alike in a nuns habit announced the start
of the Costume judging. (At least, I'm assuming it was a look-alike. One
never knows about Richard.)
The first out was a Ranma Saotome - and not a very good one at that.
Okay, I thought. Easy costume to do. Always start small and build. Let's
see what comes next. Next out of the box was a Ranma Saotome in girl form.
Not very original, I thought, but certainly it gets better. The next out
was,
you guessed it, another Ranma Saotome. To his credit, he at least had a RED
shirt on instead of the black ones the other Ranma's were wearing. I was
beginning to detect a pattern when they broke it with a Sailor Jupiter.
Well, she was different. Didn't look half bad in the costume either. Maybe
the others were just a coincidence. Nope, I got that one wrong too. What
followed was a steady diet of Ranma's, Shampoo's (a REALLY bad Shampoo), a
Mousse (who at least had some original props), a Ryouga (complete with that
hot new gag of not knowing where he was going), followed by some people who
looked like they whipped up their costumes that morning out of whatever they
found in their hotel rooms. No pandas, no Robotech pilots, no... well, there
WAS an 'X Files' duo. (Let's see... daddy's suit coat, an overcoat, and that
ugly tie I got from Aunt May last Christmas. Yup, got me a costume here.)
Really, really disappointing.
The Cos-play was over so fast that if you blinked, you'd miss the whole
thing. Nothing original (or even very interesting) there. (One of the many
previous 'Ranmas' runs out on the stage and says: "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry
about that." and leaves. Well, I should hope so.) The only reaction any
of the
contestants got was when 'Kodachi Kuno' stripped out of her dress into a plain
black leotard. [Sigh] Needless to say, it was over quickly - much to the
relief
of the 50 or so folks who showed up. However, there were three cameras
recording
it all for posterity, so I suspect they can do something with it in editing.
At that point, I worked my way back upstairs to my room, canceled my Sunday
night reservation and made plans to bail early Sunday morning. My expensive
trip to Denver over.
The con was... interesting. Not invigorating as I expected, but interesting.
I chalked all the disagreeable parts up to this being the second year for
the con and the first outside of a college campus. There's bound to be some
'growing pains' in the transition.
The worst aspects?
Well, if you didn't have a car or bring LOTS of money, you had to bring your
own food. There simply wasn't anywhere you could walk to for a meal. (The
hotel was located in what the Denver Police refer to as: The Dark Zone.
It's a place they warn you about going outside after dark.)
Just being there was expensive. The Stapleton Plaza might be a fine place
to go on an expense account but shelling out my own money made it look
outrageous. I suspect they anticipated enough local interest so that all
they had to worry about was parking. The hotel might get stiffed on rooms
but the con would make out okay with daily and weekend passes. (I've
concluded it was more for the Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs folks who
could drive for an hour or so, spend a day at the con, and drive straight
home afterwards.)
The vendor room was pathetic. Frankly, it led me to the conclusion that if
I REALLY wanted something, I'd be better off driving down to Pittsburg
Kansas and going directly to Asylum Comics. Better selection and I'm sure
the prices would be better than the con. (Although the SyCo folks were
simply great. If I ever go to another con again, I'll look them up first.)
The movies? If there was anything new there, it was a well guarded secret -
probably shown at 3 AM in an unmarked room.
They announced a video game challenge Sunday morning as I was checking out.
Nice timing folks. Bet they kept the location of that one secret too.
Timing of the con itself was probably not the best, coming on the heels of
AX98 and all. There was also a lot going on in Denver that weekend -
including the Renaissance Festival. So I'm not surprised that the crowd was
rather small.
[Hint to the Nan Desu Kon organizers: Take it back to the campus.
That way folks can pick a cheap hotel to stay in and there will still be
better facilities for the con and lots of free parking.]
As a final note, I suppose I shouldn't have expected very much -
considering this was one of the smaller cons only in its second year. Based
on that knowledge, I'd have to conclude the con itself wasn't so bad. The
fact I ran into absolutely nobody I knew there (tough trick considering how
small the event was) probably colored my observations somewhat. However, it
does point out the necessity of having backup plans should the con itself
prove to be a disappointment. I was just lucky that the Sakura Matsuri
(Cherry Blossom Festival) was going on the same weekend.
In short, I might drive the 600 miles for the Sakura Matsuri next year but
I seriously doubt I'll do the same for Nan Desu Kon 3.
*****************************************************************
G.L. Sandborn [aka Uncle Fester]
Home on the range at: sandborn@microlink.net
sandborn@burnsmcd.com
All my stories can be found at:
http://www.microlink.net/~sandborn/
*****************************************************************