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SakuraCon 2004

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Sakura-Con 2004 Report

Last updated: Friday, 30-Apr-2004 17:01:49 PDT

     For my second time staying the whole weekend instead of previous single-day visits, I put out requests to be part of the staff this year, either in the Merchandising booth or the Theater/CCTV rooms, and as it happened did work in both. Why'd I do it? Probably the biggest reasons were both an attempt to get over some of the shyness of being one nameless face to everyone in a crowd of 3000+ people (4500 or so this year), and knowing it was an all-volunteer staff with positions still open near the end of the pre-Con setup stage, I figured I could help somewhere. Plus the black t-shirts don't hurt; I was late for hotel and registration discounts this time.

     So for a couple months before the doors opened, I helped out with pre-con walkthroughs and training, convention bag stuffing, filling gaps in the video library for the weekend, etc. Hey, it's better than hanging around the house all day on Sundays, and I meet people at the same time.

     When Friday came around, and I got a ride from work down to the Hilton to be able to make it in on time for the Anime Music Videos showing, things ran smoother than I had thought. I had been asked a couple days earlier to have a Merchandising shift that night, but it conflicted with the AMVs; well, the AMVs seemed to let out a bit earlier than planned (one of the few things that happened with in the Emerald Ballroom this year), so I was able to do that shift after all as well.

Battle Royale contestant, with
the Merchandising booth behind her

     Then it was time to head to Programming to check out schedules there; I filled out a hole in the 10pm-1am shift right away, and then head back to bed to wake in the morning. On CCTV I caught the tail end of the extended version of Battle Royale, and I think I'm glad I have the original; I'm not too fond of the 'Requiem' tack-on portion; but then that's what the original novel and manga are for, ne?

     Saturday morning, I helped open the Merchandising booth on a scheduled shift (9am-noon). Then after some hall roaming and a CCTV shift at the Marriott, it was time for the Dealers room, larger this year with a whole wing of the Marriott hallway on both sides, and more roaming with the camera.

     It was also my first year cosplaying (other than a brief high-school attempt as Riff Raff at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening), and part of one costume didn't arrive until the absolute last minute. I did have a couple people through the day recognize it--Yang Neumann, the YF-19 designer in Macross Plus--one took a snapshot, as well.

     I was also Hal "Otacon" Emmerich from Metal Gear Solid 2 briefly, but with a white lab consultation jacket as the only obvious costuming bit, I don't think anyone "got it". I have some ideas to make them both better next time, though, not the least of which is losing the weight I had already lost but gained right back over the last year.

     Then concert time. Hiro, apparently one of the hottest acts in Japan (previously in the group SPEED), visited SakuraCon as her first North American concert, and her first time performing some of the songs she sang and danced to. There was a lot of crowd mentality waiting in line for it to start, since as the next-to-last event in the room that night, with other things during the day running late and the concert starting even later for various reasons, a lot of people were in line for a long time.

Hiro, links to her webiste

     I'm not so keen on Pop music all the time, but I had a good time; turned out I was next to a few of the other Programming guys in the fourth row, off to the right side, and we had a great view. Near the end when she read a note in English thanking us, and asked us to sing along to what turned out to be "Fly Me to the Moon" (hushed silence during her intro, but a roar of applause and singing at the obvious parts), I'm sure she made new fans that night. In an encore, she came out in an Ichiro jersey from the Mariners to a loud roar of applause as well.

     Since I start my normal job at 7am, I decided to take a 7am Programming shift on Sunday to help keep ready for the early morning wakeups, so I decided against the dance after the concert (which was the most-delayed event, and with city curfews enforced, made a lot of attendees angry apparently; I missed that completely, though).

     After the concert I was about to go to bed when I remembered the announced screening of Living Hell--being a sucker for horror movies, I opted for a couple less hours of sleep after all, and saw the movie first. Let's see--take nearly every tortuous element from a variety of Hollywood and Hammer Films movies, and stick them all into one show, then add on some family insanity from the likes of The Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and you have one sick freakshow of a movie. I thought the ending was pretty weak, but maybe that was due to the action and insanity up until that point.

     When Sunday morning came around, I had the 7am-10am shift for a video room, including an episode of a show I wanted to catch anyway (Tenchi Muyo! GXP, episode 8 of which is chock full of fan-service--not a bad way to start a morning). Next up was a plan to rush my videos back down to Programming and rush back up to the same room to catch the screening of Nescaflowne, a fan-dubbed spoof of Escaflowne as the story of Juan Valdez and the Kingdom of Folgeria versus Ziggy Stardust and the Starbach Empire (yes, coffee puns and hordes of others were in abundance).

     Around 9am or so, Mike, the Video/CCTV Coordinator asked if I'd be willing to pull a double shift, so I stayed in the room after all and enjoyed the show along with the rest of the folks (with an eye toward the door to clear space by inviting people in to enjoy the show). It was a hit, followed by a favorite classic of mine, an unedited Nausicaä.

     (It wasn't all such a hit; the show I had before Tenchi Muyo! GXP was a Korean animation called Bastof Syndrome, which unless it gets better after the third episode probably won't make it to my collection. But it was okay for a quick Sunday morning, and had some nice video gaming references.)

Squeek! closing shop

     Now being after noon, and already too late for the noon hotel checkout, I knew I was going to have a bit extra to pay anyway, so I checked with the front desk about the time limits--I had heard that 5pm was the limit for the discounted late checkout, but someone at the desk the previous night told me it was 3pm. I verified it was 5pm for the 2nd-late rate (after which it's a full night's rate), and went back up to help out with Merchandising until the 3pm closing.

     We finished off sales a little after 3pm, and packed up boxes while a line got antsy for the Closing Ceremonies (running late again from a previous event in the ballroom). I finally checked out of my room at about 4pm, checking my bags with the Concierge to catch the "Assault and Flattery" panel at the end without needing to lug around the heavy gear. If only I'd thought about doing that last year, I'd have caught the A&F panel last time too, but oh well.

     Of course, since Closing Ceremonies was late, the final panel started late as well; I did meet a few webforum members while waiting, only one with a real introduction at the time (hi SushiGlomper), the others I hadn't realized until reading the boards at home (hi FateRuins and FizzTheCarbonated; I know I'm missing a couple still).

Sakura-Con 2004 executives

     With any volunteer-run organization, problems will crop up when things get going at the last minute, and a lot of issues were brought up at the panel and the webforums afterward about rudeness, the late starts/ends of the events, crowds based on the ever-growing size of the con, and the like. I know I didn't run into any problems personally, so I wound up having fun; but I certainly did miss a lot by being busy in the dark video rooms and off-to-the-side CCTV controls at times.

     There are lessons to learn from it all to make next year even better. And yes, I'll be there, too.

~ Eric

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