(Reply to this) (Thread)

A first time con should plan and budget for a MAXIMUM of 300 head. Anything more than that is (on paper) unrealistic expectations, and a disaster waiting to happen. Naturally, it's easily possible you could have slightly more... 500 would be phenomenal. But 2,600? Maybe, maybe T-Con 5. Even that's being optimistic.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Actualy you would need less if planned properly.
If they had a dealers room you could pass a few thousand dollars of to them
figure 10 dealers (not sure if they had dealers if they did 10 is a little less than the norm) each buying 1 table for 200 dollars.
thats 2 grand right there.
If they had a program guide. Ads ads ads. Get other cons to buy an ad. or local anime companies to place an ad.
easily racking in 1000.
even though its only around 3000 dollars. that knocks off the number of attendees you need by a bit.
fyi i was linked here by TandokuCon's negative comment thread.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Who were their guests?

What did they offer?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

They promised half a dozen voice actors and 3 bands.

Their big selling point was allegedly affordability, guests, and philly pride. But then they also played the race card, which lost any hope *I* had for them. Who *cares* what ethnicity the people running it happen to be? Hell our senior staff looks like a Benneton ad gone horribly wrong; it pissed me off that there was ANY implication that peoples' skin color mattered a damn.

My real concern here? I know most of their guests personally; I hope they're not getting screwed.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

My real concern here? I know most of their guests personally; I hope they're not getting screwed.

That's my concern as well.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Apparently one of their headliners was Crispin Freeman. But at the last minute his appearance was canceled:

"I regret to announce that I will be unable to appear at the Tandokucon convention this weekend as previously scheduled. The convention informed my agent that they had to cancel my appearance. This was due to forces beyond my control. I'm sorry I won't be able to meet the fans in Philadelphia, but I hope you all have a great convention and I look forward to possibly seeing you at future conventions."

You wouldn't know that by consulting Tandokucon's web site, of course -- I pulled this message off of Crispin Freeman's site under the heading "Last Minute Cancellation Announcement."

I didn't see any similar announcements on the other guests' web sites, but I still have to wonder...

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Updating their website seems to have slipped through the cracks for a long while. The schedule for the convention as listed on the site is entirely TBA for three days, other than opening ceremonies on Friday and a concert-like thing (I'm guessing from the event's name) on Saturday evening.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Y'know, I'm starting to wonder: Was there ANYBODY on staff who'd actually run an anime con before? Or even ANY kind of fan oriented con? Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics, Furry, Gaming anything? I'm seeing either a gross misunderstanding of what to expect from the fans or of how cons work, period. (Always do your research, kids! Most cons' staff will not only be more than happy to educate, they'll probably volunteer if you ask 'em nice!)

Even the most humble of creation cons in a college dorm's rec room can be a blast for all and sundry with some basic understanding of how it all works. Danged if'n that ain't a good prompt for a panel-slash-workshop, I'm a-thinkin'.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

The impression I'm getting, and that I'd gotten before based on what Joe told me, was that this was not meant to be a convention--so much as an ego-trip and mega 'party' for profit for the girl's daughter. Or at least, that's what's underneath the surface.

*sigh*

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Yeah, I'm kinda thinking maybe, as well. Which now begs the question: How is Princess Darling's ego now?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Hell our senior staff looks like a Benneton ad gone horribly wrong

hey... I resemble that remark... ;)

I'm afraid I missed her race remark, what the hell was it?

As to guest... They are pulling some BS on their "attendees" and I think I'd be twitchy if I was there right now.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

The race angle was in their press release, where they highlighted and hammered home the point that it was an African-American group making this convention possible.

There isn't anything inherently racist or prejudicial in stating that, of course, and if all the other conventions had been lily-white in their makeup they might have had a point. But when you're part of a fandom whose makeup is already multicultural almost by definition...

It was just a little bit... off-putting to me.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Wow... That's pretty scary. Worst con I ever went to was organized fine (for a first-time con) but had zero advertising except for a single flier six months previous (back in the days before web pages), and therefore had maybe a total of twenty or thirty attendees. They were easily outnumbered by the staff. Smoothest con I ever went to, that's for sure.

And as for Philcon, don't forget the marathon that's running the same weekend. the main hotel is booked solid, so there's a lot of overflow at alternate hotels-- we're down at the one near the airport. Considering the marathon has been the same weekend as the con for what, three years running?... tells me they could maybe work on that detail a little better, for the comfort of both parties.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I paid for a badge, but the con I run dealers room for next weekend (Anime USA) told me I had to be at a meeting tomorrow. I am so glad I am only losing my ticket for not going. I hope to see some of you at Anime USA next weekend.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Next weekend? As in 16-18th? Ouch, that's Philcon, sorry.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I think I've figured it out. What if this was the convention equivalent of a Potemkin village? Or the equivalent of the fake armies placed in southeast England during WW2 to convince the Germans that the invasion would be at Calais?

(No, I'm not serious.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Alot of us on c.com were warning people about this but they were stubborn and cursed us out for telling them to play it safe.

My friends and I ran a first time con last year at a college...and even we knew not to make EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE expectations. We expected maybe 50-100 people...GOT 250. This year we got 358. But thats not the point.Only a few of us have con staffing experience and I think we did a good job despite that. We even had a guest come out and paid for his room and his plane ticket and we took him out for his first Philly cheesesteak at like midnight the night of the con, fun times. And we gave him food while he was hear.

What I heard about the treatment of the guests upset me alot =/. I heard that Tandoku didn't have rooms for them and other things but we won't know until after the fact if at all.

I'm just really pissed that these people did this and screwed chances of having a REAL anime con here =/.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Good lord.

The whole badge thing is crazy. I mean Kinkos + 10 minutes & a paper cutter = Badges.

Me thinks someones daughter went and blew all her money without thinking of a conservative budget. To expect thousands as a first year con? Did she have any senior staff from other conventions? (I don't expect you to know, i'm just wondering)

And it's a shame about the chances of a Philly area con growing slimmer. I love that city, and frankly wish there was one I could go too.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Thanks for sharing the report. I found it when someone linked to it from the discussion here: http://forums.animecons.com/showtopic.php?tid/284/

(Reply to this) (Thread)

They are reporting their attendance at 3000+ for the weekend with 600 pre-registrations. None of those who attended and posted about it have been able to substatiate it.

Yeah, they never books rooms or arranged for meals for the VAs. They also never posted a scheduled and apparently didn't even have schedules until Saturday; though that meant little as they apparently canceled a number of things so that the VA panels could run longer. Though from what I saw posted, it was a pretty sparse schedule to begin with.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Oh man. I'm so amused at how things were at this con. I was highly tempted to go because I wanted to see one of the guests, who I had gone to school with. However, the circumstances around the convention were such that I was simply dreading what the con was going to be like. And luckily, I got a call to do some work on Saturday that kept me from attending. From everything I've seen and read from friends, most of which have been attending conventions up and down the East Coast for a good number of years, this wouldn't have been worth the gas money to get there if I lived across the street from it.

I'm rather amused at the remark on the boards that Aquawhoever person made that "we had badges and they were checked". Well, that totally contradicts everything most of my friends who were there said. And considering they've staffed a number of conventions, I think they'd know what they were talking about.

I seriously want to hear from the various VA's (other than Chris Ayres, who apparently was raving about the con staff at the Trainwreckucon Q&A panel) about how they honestly felt about the convention. I've also yet to hear any GOOD things about the con that had any specifics, as opposed to all the specific negative things people have said about it.

Really, I'm wondering how in the world they could manage to financially make Tandokucon '08 financially viable. So many people had issues that most people who have gone to conventions for any amount of time will be turned off from it, and any kind of growth they would have would be very minimal, IMO. And even if it DOES end up being listed as non-profit (which is interesting, because no one I know was able to find the original company registered as a FOR profit company either, when they had publicly stated that they were one), that still isn't going to help out anything.

I'm almost expecting there to be an ad hon "Tandokucon report" gathering at AUSA next weekend. :P

Oh, and in closing, one thing that gets me: I have a friend who lives in Philly who has attended dozens of conventions up and down the East Coast, and after checking out this con, even HE refused to attend it. That just drove home for me how bad this was going to be.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Huh. You know, if you think about it, though, the lack of advertising worked to their advantage. Since most people are guessing at roughly 500 people who showed up, that means the 1,500-9500 people they'd initially guessed at don't know how bad it may have been. Okay, part of that is joking. But seriously, from what I saw on their website, it is pretty obvious that the area was small to begin with. (They say "Video ROOM" not rooms, after all.) So by not advertising, they limited the people who might show up that they would not have been able to handle.

What worries me about the con is the reports of bootleg material in the dealers room. There is no better way to scare away companies than to sell knockoffs of their characters at your con. Not to mention discouraging the honest dealers from showing up.

(Reply to this) (Thread)