Comic Con 2012, Day 4 (the final day)
Jul. 15th, 2012 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alisanne- Got up even earlier to ensure a spot for the Dr Who panel. Was initially scared when I was almost the same place in line as I was yesterday hen I got there an hour later, until I realized that people had been camping out overnight, and when they compressed the line, I would be a lot closer. I was. *g*
- Standing on concrete for 4 1/2 hours still sucks, though.
- Fringe. Great panel. It's going to be their last season and they hinted at upcoming plots. The actors were all so sweet, several times as they were talking about working on the show they started to cry. *sniffs* Really lovely. I can't wait to see what they come up with this season. Also? The actress who plays Astrid was just so sweet. :)
- Supernatural. I swear one of these day I am going to start watching this show. I've never seen an episode but every time I've seen them on a panel they are hilarious. They really do have fabulous chemistry together. The writers wouldn't give anything away, but the hints from the preview they played looked very exciting, and the gag reel made us all chuckle. And did I mention the great chemistry? ;)
- DOCTOR WHO! EeeeeeeeEEEEeeeee! Amy (Karen Gillen) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) came, along with the Doctor (Matt Smith) AND Mr Moffet himself, were a lot of fun. And it was nice to see the Ponds one last time. *sniffs* We got to see a FAB preview of next season, which apparently starts with Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. No really, it's the title AND it's what was in the clip we saw. *g* I also got some cute pictures of an adorable little boy dressed up as a TARDIS. :)
- I skipped out after that since I don't know anything about Game of Thrones and went to line up for the one HP panel I saw listed. It was all about the future of the franchise and, while the topics mentioned were mostly okay (theme park plans, Pottermore, wizard wrock, International Quidditch), I was so tired (plus, there was no discussion of the most important thing- Snarry) that I left about mid-way through.
- Dinner with the adorable![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
severa_snape at our "usual" fondue restaurant. Mmmm, cheese and chocolate, how can you go wrong?
- Now I'm back at the hotel packing and planing to go to bed. I'll be home tomorrow, yay!
Dear Comic-Con,
This was my fourth (and last) year attending, so I think I know enough about how things work to give you some suggestions. You may never see them but at least I made the attempt.
1) Hire a professional convention team to run the thing. I believe Comic Con started years ago with some die hard comic book fans who wanted to start a con for the love of comics. Which is great, until it gets so popular that you have 150,000 people showing up and you're still running it like it's 50 of your BFFs.
2) Be consistent. There were no fewer than 4 security companies here, all with a different understanding of the rules and none of whom talked to each other. Seriously, you need a consistent policy and to make sure everyone knows the rules.
3) Speaking of policies...you really should enforce them when you make them. I got an email a few weeks ago in which it was stated that there were to be no strollers on the convention floor, a good rule in my opinion since children tend to get pretty trampled in that place and honestly, it can't be fun for any under prolly...10. I imagine all they see is adults' legs and butts, TBH.
Anyway, you said no strollers, so what did your security people do? Allow strollers. LOTS of strollers. *head desk*
4) You really need to know your audience. Who puts the Iron Man panel at the end of the busiest con day hoping people will leave after the previousboring panels so others can get in? Idiots Short-sighted people, that's who. I got into that room at 10 am and did not leave until after 9 pm. So did most of the other people who lined up with me that morning. If you had made Iron Man the first thing, more people would have left thus allowing more people to see different panels of interest (like the one on the Candidate) which I didn't care about. And I would prolly have gone to see some other smaller panels in other rooms. As it was, I've been pretty much trapped in Hall H for the past 2 days with 6500 people who became my new BFFs. Hey, maybe I should start Ali-Con...
5) Care enough to direct traffic even after people leave the convention center. The crush of humanity at one point was so bad that it took me an hour to walk from behind the convention center (where I had just seen some programming) to my hotel, a distance of half a mile that usually takes me maybe 5 minutes, if that. All that could be solved if the security peeps would simply direct foot traffic on the side walk. In fact, all it would take is some colored masking tape arrows. We are geeks. We follow directions pretty well when we get them.
6) You're supposed to be non-profit. So my suggestion is halve the number of tickets you sell and double the price. It's a pretty affordable con, and that wouldn't put it out of reach of too many, IMO. And the experience would be vastly improved for your attendees and your vendors, who can't be doing well with since no one can get to them because of the crush of people.
That's all for now. I did enjoy my first couple of years here but the last two have been rough. Therefore, I'm afraid I'm going to be seeing other cons from now on. I hear Dragon Con is enjoyable. In fact, the word is that Comic-Con is what stars attend because the studio says they must, Dragon Con is the one stars attend to meet the fans. Guess which approach the fans prefer?
Sadly,
Alisanne
- Standing on concrete for 4 1/2 hours still sucks, though.
- Fringe. Great panel. It's going to be their last season and they hinted at upcoming plots. The actors were all so sweet, several times as they were talking about working on the show they started to cry. *sniffs* Really lovely. I can't wait to see what they come up with this season. Also? The actress who plays Astrid was just so sweet. :)
- Supernatural. I swear one of these day I am going to start watching this show. I've never seen an episode but every time I've seen them on a panel they are hilarious. They really do have fabulous chemistry together. The writers wouldn't give anything away, but the hints from the preview they played looked very exciting, and the gag reel made us all chuckle. And did I mention the great chemistry? ;)
- DOCTOR WHO! EeeeeeeeEEEEeeeee! Amy (Karen Gillen) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) came, along with the Doctor (Matt Smith) AND Mr Moffet himself, were a lot of fun. And it was nice to see the Ponds one last time. *sniffs* We got to see a FAB preview of next season, which apparently starts with Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. No really, it's the title AND it's what was in the clip we saw. *g* I also got some cute pictures of an adorable little boy dressed up as a TARDIS. :)
- I skipped out after that since I don't know anything about Game of Thrones and went to line up for the one HP panel I saw listed. It was all about the future of the franchise and, while the topics mentioned were mostly okay (theme park plans, Pottermore, wizard wrock, International Quidditch), I was so tired (plus, there was no discussion of the most important thing- Snarry) that I left about mid-way through.
- Dinner with the adorable
severa_snape at our "usual" fondue restaurant. Mmmm, cheese and chocolate, how can you go wrong? - Now I'm back at the hotel packing and planing to go to bed. I'll be home tomorrow, yay!
Dear Comic-Con,
This was my fourth (and last) year attending, so I think I know enough about how things work to give you some suggestions. You may never see them but at least I made the attempt.
1) Hire a professional convention team to run the thing. I believe Comic Con started years ago with some die hard comic book fans who wanted to start a con for the love of comics. Which is great, until it gets so popular that you have 150,000 people showing up and you're still running it like it's 50 of your BFFs.
2) Be consistent. There were no fewer than 4 security companies here, all with a different understanding of the rules and none of whom talked to each other. Seriously, you need a consistent policy and to make sure everyone knows the rules.
3) Speaking of policies...you really should enforce them when you make them. I got an email a few weeks ago in which it was stated that there were to be no strollers on the convention floor, a good rule in my opinion since children tend to get pretty trampled in that place and honestly, it can't be fun for any under prolly...10. I imagine all they see is adults' legs and butts, TBH.
Anyway, you said no strollers, so what did your security people do? Allow strollers. LOTS of strollers. *head desk*
4) You really need to know your audience. Who puts the Iron Man panel at the end of the busiest con day hoping people will leave after the previous
5) Care enough to direct traffic even after people leave the convention center. The crush of humanity at one point was so bad that it took me an hour to walk from behind the convention center (where I had just seen some programming) to my hotel, a distance of half a mile that usually takes me maybe 5 minutes, if that. All that could be solved if the security peeps would simply direct foot traffic on the side walk. In fact, all it would take is some colored masking tape arrows. We are geeks. We follow directions pretty well when we get them.
6) You're supposed to be non-profit. So my suggestion is halve the number of tickets you sell and double the price. It's a pretty affordable con, and that wouldn't put it out of reach of too many, IMO. And the experience would be vastly improved for your attendees and your vendors, who can't be doing well with since no one can get to them because of the crush of people.
That's all for now. I did enjoy my first couple of years here but the last two have been rough. Therefore, I'm afraid I'm going to be seeing other cons from now on. I hear Dragon Con is enjoyable. In fact, the word is that Comic-Con is what stars attend because the studio says they must, Dragon Con is the one stars attend to meet the fans. Guess which approach the fans prefer?
Sadly,
Alisanne
