Con-X-Treme 2007

Pre Convention:

My impressions for the convention the day before the con isn't that great. They don't set up their contacts very efficiently and it takes forever to get responses. After trying to apply for staff, they were unclear on how to pay, and any other necessary knowledge. Their website doesn't list many departments, but only Dealers Room, Advertising, and Art Show. The insufficiency of the website makes me wonder a little bit.
After e-mailing them and asking what time their registration opens almost five or so days before, I still have gotten no response to the day of. Hmm, they also don't seem to have Con Operations. I wonder how they would go and run their registration. Their events page also good for the publicity of their own convention. They list other conventions, rather than events they are going to have at their own convention, suggesting barely any events that will go on. I'm a bit wary to cosplay, but I might bring my cosplay to my mom's work before I go... I may change at her work, but we'll see. It might strike my mom's workers a bit odd if I go bare-backed with my chest... slightly or so exposed. But in about 8 hours from typing this, I'll be at the convention, so we'll see how it goes.

Convention Time!

Friday:
Alright, so Friday. I went there a few hours early because I didn't get an e-mail saying when Registration was up. They were set up, I was inducted into the staff. I found out that Registration is so freaking disorganized. Drivers Licenses were taken down regardless of if it was paid in cash or in other means. That peeved me off and was a setback. Plus, they had a development and decided to get pictures of everyone that was registered, taking two hours minimum to get the badges. Basically, badges were not needed until about 4 p.m. where almost every one had theirs. They didn't do group registration properly with all documentations and different badge numbers for each of the people. It was freaking mayhem. Oh yeah, and in the middle of the day, they decided to switch badges from actual badges to nylon wrist bands. Then the head of operations, Terry, doesn't put a LOT of con-goers in special programs in the system. Most of the names in the registration system was random names and conventions that... trust me, wouldn't go to Con-X-Treme if their lives depended on it or other names such as "Great Master Largo" and Milton Le, Fanime, AOD, etc... They'd get better things to do. Well, and they insulted Fanime twice and that peeved me off big time.
Besides that, they barely had anything going on; their anime room didn't have people running it [when I went in], dealers didn't have many people, and I only saw two or so artists. My haul was pretty good, I think. A Totoro plushie for $10, and a manga from an artist for $8. I haven't read it yet, but he signed it. I can tell you now, they need more organization and staff/volunteers as well as a more efficient website. Their address for the place was wrong [as in the number], there was no good response time from e-mails, no contact numbers, only two or so departments doing their own thing, and no information besides how to register. No events pages, no instructions on how to sign for volunteering... nada. They should have had staff meetings before hand to train the staff to be more efficient... and assign more people and also have more departments. Oh yeh, and the credit card machine wasn't working, either. :/
With the first day, I was completely dissatisfied. If I wasn't a staffer, I would not come back for the rest of the week and demanded a refund. I may be really harsh, but as the first year of this con, they should have tried to make an effort to plan it out to make a first good impression.
My experience: All I did was basically walk around a little bit, and work registration the entire time. =.= I did meet a friend of mine from Registration from Fanime 2008, though as well as a dealer whom I *might* have registered for Fanime 2008, too. Oh, yeah. And all the staff members are really old and... well, not very good to being flexible and accepting new ideas. I was the youngest for staffing.

Saturday:

Alrighy, so I went in at around 1 p.m., relieving my friend from registration. It turned out that the martial arts contest was canceled due to a low turnout. Well, since I went when the bulk of the con-goers were already registered, I basically did nothing for the rest of the day. I walked around near the end and attended a bit of the Cosplay event, then went back to registration... played a song of DDR from this guy's program but I sucked because I was in heels and a bouncy skirt. >.> And then the computers had problems yet again... so then I just tried sleeping the rest of the time. Oh, and I also figured out that the anime showings are the same things from the previous day, Friday. Joy, eh? I find it quite ironic how the turnout was expected to be around 700-1,000, but it turns out to be around 200-300 or so, probably less. Wasn't that great today, didn't eat lunch and dinner until I left at around 9:30 pm. Yeah... unless next year I can get in for free again, and I'm assured that it's organized as well as the website considerably fixed up and information is put on there, I won't be going again next year. There was nothing to do at all, except maybe walk around and watch anime [I'd already watched them before, though]. Ugh, at least I got to work Reg. this convention.


Saturday:
Alright, so Sunday... came at late, at around 12 PM. didn't work but went to the anime room and watched some stuff... I got lectured by Terry today, I think he's either VERY frustrated at me for really no reason, I think he was just ranting about something, I had no idea what, but it made me feel really awkward. After, when I got called home, he gave me a free t-shirt and I didn't have to pay anything.