Day Trip of Disappointment

Ever since I joined the department, I try to attend as many ACG events as possible. Luckily, I have a lot more freedom this year as I've already started working and paying for the car. The ACG event I attended last week was situated far off from KL so I invited Audrey, Teri and Ying Ling to car pool to the venue. We were commenting how there were good signage pointing towards the university until we reached the area, there were no signs to direct us to the university campus =w=;; so much for good directions. Getting in was easy peasy, we just told the guard we're registered and tadaa! we're in! =D No checks or ripping me from my driver's license or asking me to come down and fill any form.

The place was arranged into 3 areas, registration, gaming area and the main hall where the event is held. The place brings back a lot memories X3 of CF 2005. I was merely attending for the sake of studying the overall event and cosplay competition format and the execution. The turnout was surprisingly good for an ACG event located in the middle of nowhere but the event was a real let down, reason being:

1. Emcee

Having a good emcee is essential for a successful event. For the first time in my life, I see how disastrous an event can be without a good emcee. The way he was announcing the announcements sounded like he was talking to himself, and when he couldn't get our attention he started to raise his voice and it came out in a very rude tone, which was why I shouted back and heck my voice is louder =_=. During the cosplay competition, he was resting at the podium and the cosplayers had to walk towards him thus all the attention had to be focused on the side of the stage. During the Q&A session, it felt like an open conversation between him and the contestants. His failure to communicate with the visitors is just... SAD. Much thanks to him, the event was pretty much a flop.

2. Epic = Sad

The amount of 'epic' used into this event should just be replaced with 'sad' instead. That would pretty much express how disappointed I am in this event. The booklet content is terrible in terms of language and rationale. I honestly felt like screaming and ripping the book into pieces when I read one of the sections. Doesn't help much when Audrey read it aloud in the car on our way home lol. Promo materials overall looks like half-assed work. The whole place was quite quiet.... doujin booth members were mostly stoning lol.

3. Backdrop

The backdrop design was so-so but what caught my attention was the Animax sponsor logo that was placed at the bottom right of the stage. The Animax logo looked like it was drawn on a piece of mahjong paper and then pasted onto the backdrop! Only the outline of Animax was shown and no corporate color! Oh gods, I had a heart attack when I saw the logo. Their logo was also placed in a position that it will be covered by the stage speakers so at least 1/3 of the hall wouldn't be able to see the Animax logo. In return, Animax provided EIGHT slots of airtime!!!! *pull hairs* I'm very, very, very, very, have I said very yet? oh yes... VERY disappointed. The very least they could do was send it for A3 digital print, cut it out and paste it on the backdrop.

Those would be my complaints about the event =w=;;; I do notice some good points about the event. Mainly on how they market their event in the early stages. There were oncoming updates every 2-3 days which makes people go back to the thread and check for them. Great that they provide shuttle buses and spam updates of their event over Facebook. Compared to other events of the same scale, they really did a good job for the pre-planning stage.