Comments, compliments, concerns for NDK 2009

[allpowerfulbob]

We here at NDK are always looking to improve the convention, as such we would love to hear your comments on how to improve, or what you loved about the convention right here on the forums.

Good, bad, ugly we want to hear them all. Please note replies to comments will be civil, no one on staff will be upset with you for your comments, and as such no other attendee replies should be rude or otherwise off putting. Any and all overly argumentative replies or impolite replies will be deleted.

[modbreak]
As an addendum, we understand that several of you have the same complaints. Mentioning them over and over again doesn't bring them more to our attention. We are aware of most of the major complaints and we are definitely looking into them. So I would ask that you not cloud this thread with duplicates of the following:

• Space/Room/New Venue
• Parking
• Rude staff/volunteers

There is an exception to Rude staff/Volunteers if you have a name and/or description you may PM any staff member with this information. I guarantee you it will be investigated and we will deal with it. I got word back recently that at least two volunteers who were reported to ops were asked not to return. So we do take this seriously.
[/modbreak]

[nemisis47]

I for one had fun this year. This NDK is my fave due to the fact I stayed all 3 days and made a bunch of friends. All I got to be concerned with is the growing attendance being more of a hassle than a blessing to the cons popularity. I agree that ndk needs a bigger venue for when the contract expires. And you guys need to enforce the con funk rule a little more. A friend of mine almost either fell ill or fainted in the karaoke room around midnite because some guy smelled really bad. Luckily, a staffer came to help.

[rini]

wondering about the feasibility of mailing out badges in advance? ACEN does something like that, as does an old convention i used to go to back home. it just makes life much easier, and even more of an incentive for those who pre-register. i realise it would take a lot of pre-planning and much logistics issues, not to mention mail costs! but it might be worth it, and a lot less complaints about waiting in lines, for pre-reg at least.

also, i do think the con needs to consider an attendance cap. it seems draconian, but this year was really chaotic, and it's no fault of anyone, staff or attendees. 6,000 seems a reasonable number for both the hotel and convention to accommodate.

[xanderman]

I have a compliment.  

I saw lots of well stated, respectful requests made from staff members to convention attendees. That kind of high quality presentation makes a world of difference for compliance. Also, having the staff member give a brief explaintion when they shouted out requests really helped the attendees.  When people understand that a request is because of safety, or because of limited space, or because of what have you, then they take it a lot better. You did a great job.

[animefiend7]

Compliment:
Events: I found that this year, instead of having to rush from panel to panel, the panels were very much more balanced than in previous years.
Dealers Room: Staff this year handled the dealer's room superbly.

Concern:
Size: NDK was HUGE this year. It felt INCREDIBLY cramped everywhere you went.
Panels: Some of the more popular panels filled up so fast that there was caps put on the amount of people to get in. Seemed like people should have prepared for a larger response to panels like Chris Patton Shares too Much and Anime Girl Fight.
New Rule Clarification: The new rule this year about contact needs some clarification, because even with permission, staff was still getting angry at glompage. Idk, i feel like if they have my permission, it should be ok.
Pre-reg for next year: IDK if its just me, but to have to hold onto a slip of paper till next con, when i lose things daily, seems kinda brutal. If a follow-up email could be provided, i think that would be fantastic.

[animetart]

I had a great time this year.

Yeah, it was crowded, but it's ALWAYS crowded. I'm not sure we need an overall attandence cap, but I do thnk we should cap the dealers room. After a certain number of people enter, we need to stop letting people in until a corresponding number leave. It's a nightmare in there!

Also, the hallway dance parties need to stop. Seriously. There are WAY too many people there for that crap. I was getting off the elevator on the main floor and there was this girl flailing around in some kind of dance seizure, surrounded by a group of people right in front of the elevator. She came THIS CLOSE to hitting my kid with her spastic foot. It would not have gone well for her if she did.
On Sunday, we were leaving Main Events and out in front of the EMS desk this group was having a West Side Story style dance off. It was crowded and I was trying to get around them, when one of the girls got all snotty with me. Don't block off a walkway with your silly, desperate-for-attention dance and then get mad at me when I try to get past.

Other than that, I thought things went well. I had a great time and can't wait until next year. 

[nemisis47]

I actually agree with rini on the mailing out the pre reg badges in advance. That way less moaning and groaning with pre-reg lines and it'd be very gratifying to get that badge you paid for in the mail.

[Plushbot27]

Great:
Staff member at the autograph lines Sunday - I did tell him he made my day putting me at the start of the 1pm line.  =D   I got the only signature I wanted (Michael McConnohie).  <3

EMS Staff member who fanned my brother to keep him comfortable while he waited to go up on stage for the costume contest.  She was a sweetheart!  <3


Concerns:
# of people who managed to cram into the Iris room for my basics to plushie panel was EPIC!!!   O_O   It was great & amazing (it was my first time hosting a panel at a convention), but there were people on top of each other and sitting right up against the table I had my stuff laid out on.  




Bad:  
Staff member inside art show room Friday evening was short-fused and unpleasant.  (yeah, I'm not letting this go for a while - at least not until I forget.... which will be a few months)   _{GAWD!!  He could calm down!  I did NOT know!!!!  Just tell me politely, quietly, calmly and I'll happily comply.}

[Kyaa the Catlord]

I have to say nice things about the hotel staff. In particular, the morning cleaning crew and "The Lift" crewmembers. Even though the waitstaff at the bar kicked me out at 5am on Saturday morning as I was blogging about the con (during those precious moments when their wifi actually works during the con), they were polite and friendly about it.

Each morning this weekend, the cleaning crew appeared and greeted me as I waited to open up Lupine for the asian cinema room. They were full of smiles and goodness in the chaos we spread and did not seem to care that they were cleaning up after the 7000 or so of us and our mess.

[Choco]

Yeah, the plushie panel was rather cramped, though the "How to be an Anime Villain" panel has to take the cake as the most crowded panel I was able to get into.  Every square foot of that room (except for about 1 foot away from the desk Wendy was sitting at) was occupied by someone it seemed, till they relocated us to the Aspen room.  I didn't mind though, that's better than capping it and not letting people get in, I didn't mind standing in the corner...

Also, the anime dance panel could use a bigger room next time.  Yeah the room can fit 50+ people, but that assumes they are sitting down and not flailing around everywhere.  As a side compliment, the lady running that panel was great, even managed to put up with/control the loud group of guys in front of me while still teaching us the dances (2 in one hour is great timing), I admire her patience!

Man, on that note, I think that my only complaint is that there did not seem to be enough room in general.  My guess would be that next year there will be even more people, and from what I saw especially on Saturday I don't think the hotel can handle any more.

[Sirblood]

As much as I hate to say it, I would be against mailing out badges and here's why:

Most conventions don't because if they do, people have months (at least weeks) to make copies of them.  Loads of conventions suffer from people making copies of badges and quite simply, only giving them a day or two to make a copy is far better than giving them plenty of advance notice, and all of their 'sources'.

A comment on badges though:
Make the badge number MUCH larger.  Also make it bold black on a white background.  I would suggest taking up 1/8th the size of the badge and have it on front and back of the badge as they are printed on both sides anyhow.

This would make it 1000x easier for people to report problem causers.

Security suggestion:
See about bringing in 2-3 police officers, if anything just for saturday from noon til 3 or 4am... most of the time if you are a npo, you can get them for around 15$/hour per officer.

Signs:
I would suggest more signs as to what the lines are for, for instance pre reg A-K and L-Z.  Write on the floor with gaffers tape marking like a pedestrian's cross walk.  I witnessed dozens of people cutting in line at the hotel's check in line.  I witnessed hundreds of people who were clueless about the pre reg line.

Cosplay: and main event room events suggestion
The hotel has one or several channels that they can show a video feed on, why not take advantage of that option... display more than just the convention schedule on it, during cosplay or sell out events, have it displayed on there.  This would be for everyone who had a room in the convention hotel.  Perhaps record the mega popular panels, and play them on one of the hotel's channels and posted replay times...  Having dealt with hotels in the past, they usually have this option, they don't advertise it, and they often charge a little more for it... BUT you will have overflow options with this!

VIP badges:
I may of just missed seeing it, but offering vip badges for people who were willing to pay for them, and limit them to so many people.  If the admission for the convention will be 50$... 200$ is a reasonable price, and tons of people are willing and able to pay that! Vip badges for people who don't know, allow them 'no lines' for main events and autographs.  They still have to wait to get into regular panel rooms though

Late night programming:
While lots of people are sleepy and goto bed early, there are tons of people who are still awake at 3am... why not have panels that go beyond midnight? (at least until like 2am)  You don't have to save that time for adult only programming... it can be family friendly programming as well.

Water!
I know saturday is hectic, but maybe the hotel should be informed, they need to assign 1 person to nonstop (or very regular) water refills from 2pm until at least midnight?  I would say that no less than 50% of the water stations were empty at any given time after 4pm saturday, and told the hotel front desk about it.

Parking:
I heard about the power tripping security officer at the empty (as in building for lease)office building threatening to tow anyone who parked there...  Some conventions offer a shuttle service for attendees.  There has got to be somewhere within a couple miles that has a large parking lot, and is willing to lease it out.  Some conventions have their staff park off site, and have a few reserved parking spaces for shuttle staff... volunteers or staff who just drive people to/from cars, go get stuff as needed etc.

[aerykz]

Okay, maybe I am becoming an old man, but there are a few things that could easily solve a lot of the complaints on this board. I have been to NDK since 1998 and can't think of any single issue I have had over those 11 visits.

1. Personal responsibility - you are an intelligent person that knows how to act in public, do so. You are responsible for your actions and your property. If you set something down and someone stole it, you failed to secure and protect your property. No one else has the responsibility or incentive to secure and protect your personal property. If someone commits a injustice against you, in any form, retribution will only escalate the issue to new heights of injustice. Contact the staff.

2. Respect - respect each other, their property, their opinion and your host's property and right to organize a private event. Respect other people's individualism, even if they are conforming, as they are acting as an individual. Respect other individuals personal space, e.g. do not touch people without their consent. Your needs and wants do not supercede those of others.

3. Due Diligence - if you need something, actively seek it out. Ask questions. Be aware of the rules & regulations and act within them. If you neglect to educate yourself on the rule of the con, expect them to be shouted at you, not as a sign of aggression, but because we all know volume and an authoritatize voice gets results. The staff are not misanthropic minions who enjoy screaming at you. It is physically, emotionally and psychologically draining for them to repeat the same rules 100 times to someone who doesn't read the rules or willfully chooses not to obey them.  

And finally, be understanding and imagine if you were in the other person's shoes. I know this sounds grade school'ish, but everyone here is complaining about single events at the con when the staff were taking on a barrage of issues throughout the entire weekend. Missing out on any one or dozen things at a con will not impede upon your ability to continue living a productive anime filled life.

[kagemusha23]

*I enjoyed the con but there seemed to be a few things lacking. I recieved a little bit of info as to why there were only two video rooms like that it would be costly to keep upgrading equipment since everything is going to hd and blueray, and that with more video rooms keeping good quality anime would be more difficult. Also mentioned was that with one video room closed there would be more panel room.
Now I understand money and there being a lack of it but on the subject of viewing material I wasnt impressed with what was showing. I read the schedule and have either seen some of what was showing or after reading the synopsis I didnt find a whole lot of anything that I wanted to view.
*As for panels there were lines for everything and with the rooms being the sizes they are there was no way me and mine would make it in. I cant be in line for something when I'm in the room already watching a panel or something.
*The goodie bags lacked any real *goodies* like in years past like cards and other random stuff.
I would like to ask if the schedules were printed late? I found the activities schedule on the reg table but I had to go to OPS to get the video schedule and synopsis.

Also some of the staff seemed to come off a bit more hostile then usual. I understand that yelling is necessary to be heard above the din of the con but maybe be a little more polite in asking people to get against the wall or to move along?
Lastly the pre-reg lines we huge, is there a way we could streamline it so it moves faster like dealing with pre-reg exclusively till a certain time and then do "at the door" reg?

Some of us dont go to other cons so these things concern or irritate some of us so I apologize if this seems petty to those who do attend larger cons.

On to the good things, I'm glad that jumping in the elevator has been noticed and dealt with in the way of signs in the elevator. This is one of the first cons that I have attended at the DMTC where the elevators for the tower have all worked for the entirety of the weekend! ^^
The animes I did see *Baccano and Blassreiter* were good, and the trash in the video rooms was really no problem at all this year that I could see.

I really need to thank the staff for NDK for doing what they do to keep this con going and I hope the things I have mentioned in this post will be viewed as constructive critisism and not an attack on anyone.
Thank you guys for trying your best to keep people happy, safe, and finding videos for us to enjoy, I didnt find much to watch but I'm sure others did.

[Himeno]

Mailing badges out really doesn’t work. It only creates more work for the registration team and leads to many more complaints then there would otherwise be (people who don’t get their badge, who forgot or lost their badge, etc). Sending badges out early also allows people to copy the badges. Also, the main point. How do you expect to get the program book and schedule? The program book that normally isn’t even printed until a few weeks before the convention?
You are still going to have to line up when you arrive at the convention.


I don’t think the current venue can support much more growth. The panel and screening rooms are extremely small for a convention of this size. NDK should consider moving to the convention center downtown or expanding out to other hotels in the area, such as using the Hilton Garden Inn and Hyatt across the road.

[nemisis47]

The only hotel complaint I got is this. I will never eat at the atriums lift restaurant ever. Why? After the heroes and villains dinner friday everyone on my table (the heroes table) paid their share of the bill. The bill was 50 bucks and some cents and everyones money came to 45 bucks. So I paid my side of the bill plus a tip with my debit card along with the 45 in cash and I thought everything was good. Til I called what my balance was and I thought I had over a hundred but I ended up having 33 in my card. I talked to the hotel if the charged me twice and said all they charged was the deposit. Then I talked to the lifts manager and said they charged me 50 because I didn't have a credit card or something (or the guy charged me twice idk) and they'll give it back in 2 or 3 business days. He better be right or they'll be hell to pay. All i'll say is if you eat at the atriums restaurant and pay with a debit, prepare for that. Anyone had that problem?

[missy]

first off, i had a great time at NDK this year for persona reasons.

artists' alley was fantastic this year, i saw a lot of variety and great prices!

and the elevators didn't break down for hours and hours and hours!! regulationg 8 people to an elevator was a huge success!

also, kudos to the cosplay chess participants! very entertaining!

i'm sure i'm not the first one to bring this up, but we seriously need to do something about the overpacked panel rooms... i didn't end up staying through any of my panels because the rooms were so overcrowded that i couldn't see the presentations, and all the panels i picked out relied heavily on visual aid... as a suggestion, what if some of the panels werescheduled more than once so we could make them more avalaible to con goers and weed out over-attendance?

my last suggestion is for a particular panel, anime auditions with kyle hebert. i attended this panel at wasabi in march, and i enjoyed the panel. but can we please bring a wider varietly of sample scripts? bringing more scripts will allow people to try out different character types that they might have more of a nack for. and  i know my boyfriend, who is big into old school anime, would have been much happeir with the panel if he had the option of reading a DBZ script (we also really love Gurren Lagann).

[Haithin]

One thing i can think of that seemed a little out of control this year was lines. I think maybe setting down where lines will start and wind through might be a good idea. something that is permanent, and maybe more visual, where the breaks in lines need to be etc. I know of one instance where more than one line was created for a panel(i think that's what i heard about) and it got all confused. So, the biggest thing i can think of is just line organization. And maybe for the bigger panels in the smaller rooms making it more known about the capacity of the room and where that reaches in the lines. Whether saving spaces for friends is/is not allowed(people behind you can get very irritated), and making sure if it is allowed to count them while checking where capacity would hit in the current line.

[Joeonewing]

I really only have one suggestion. I have been to AX and E3 before and thats about my only con experience outside of NDK. but maybe prereg could let people pick up there badges on Thursday. I know I usually always show up a day early for the con as well as others. Also I am sure people would not mind coming to get their badge a day earlier to avoid lines. I understand the issues involved with doing such a thing. manning something a day earlier then the con but this may help alleviate those lines. I know E3 did it. Just my thoughts.

[Kira-San]

I want to give props to the staff/volunteers who kept things running over the weekend. Thank you guys so much!

I had two things to comment on:
1) Parking: Honestly, this was worse than normal this year. I spent two hours circling and looking for a place to park. I'd appreciate it if we could perchance find some alternatives for upcoming years? I have no urge to repeat that experience again. Just a thought, but could we maybe work out a way that those who are registered at the hotel can park there, and maybe rent out another lot for the majority of the other attendees? I don't know if that would work, but it's a thought.
2) Overall Staff Air: Everyone seemed kind of up tight this year on staff. You guys did a great job, but I felt that some of you got a little aggressive. I know my boyfriend ran into some issues with staff at the Chis Patton Tells To Much panel when he was the cut off point. He had also forgotten his badge, and apparently he was teased for that. I understand that my boyfriend should know better than to leave his badge upstairs, but the teasing was not well timed, seeing as he was quite bummed that he didn't get into the panel because it was full.

Other than that, it went fantastically! Thanks for a great time guys!

[loki]

I've been reading about various issues and it seems one prevalent one is crowding.  Now while crowding is expected of a popular con, and while technically (as mentioned in another thread) that NDK is not over the Marriott DTC limit, I would be hard pressed to be convinced that some rooms weren't over the limit.  When every chair is filled, that's generally considered capacity in a room and if you have people start to sit in aisles and stand against walls, that's over capacity.  Just a quick mention, there are two versions of capacity: sitting only and standing only.  From my experience, you cannot use standing only capacity to justify more than sitting only capacity when the room is filled with chairs.

Now putting aside the calls to go to a bigger venue - because that won't happen due to contractual obligations for at least a couple of years - what is the staff's view on attendance caps?  I've seen them justify why they can't move, but I haven't seen any serious replies on the attendance cap front.  I would please like to know if that an attendance cap is an issue being seriously considered.

Oh and btw, I work two much larger cons (Anime North which uses 2 hotels' meeting space and most of a convention center and Otakon which introduced a cap for a couple of years but now is comfortable with the new Hilton space that is attached to the BCC), so I do have the experience of knowing how logistics of people movement and control works.  Plus I have attended SDCC (which is way more crowded and they've literally doubled the price of registration from this year to next year from 75 to 150 to help control it) and Anime Expo (they don't use all the rooms in an entire convention centre).