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tiggymalvern
I had a fantastic time, with a bunch of new faces to go with most of the old ones returned from last time.
Overall, the con was a big improvement on last year, with much better organisation and a lot less waiting around while things were delayed. Lessons seem to have been learned. The only particular problem was the hotel's fault for booking a convention for The Church of God in the meeting rooms that yaoi-con wasn't using. Apparently some of those people didn't like us much, and there were a few complaints 0_0
The hotel room was both better and cheaper at the Clarion than last year when we stayed at the Westin. I'd definitely go for that one again.
The dealer's room was a disappointment compared to last year, with no big book chains there - nobody was selling art books at all, and the manga selection was fairly limited. Not a big problem for me (a bit sad in that you can usually buy cheaper at the con), but some people don't have a convenient Kinokuniya in their city and rely more on the cons. I still managed to spend a fair bit of money, though, despite not getting everything I'd planned, but that was the only let-down. The bishie auction was just a scream, with some genuinely entertaining *cough* 'performances'.
We managed to see quite a bit more of SF too, this year, thanks to the wonderful![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mac_lynn playing chauffeur and tour guide again for five days. I can't recommend the night tour of Alcatraz highly enough. It's timed so that you leave the pier in the late afternoon, you reach the top of Alcatraz island just as the sun sets behind the Golden Gate bridge, and then after the tour of the cell blocks you get to see the whole place in darkness with the SF skyline lit up all across the bay. Obviously we lucked out with the weather, as we did most of the week - a dull day wouldn't have had half the impact - but it's a lot more variety than just going during the day.
I didn't go to too many panels - it's not my thing at cons, I'm too busy talking to people to sit and argue over the differences between slash and yaoi - but I enjoyed the ones I did get too. Watching Kodaka Kazuma draw was quite an experience (I'm a bit bummed that the Alcatraz tour meant I missed Higuri You doing the same ::sniff::) and there's some great stuff coming up in the English language releases from various companies. More and more people are jumping into the yaoi publishing thing, which is great as long as they don't start turning out crap and then declare that nobody wants yaoi. Given the titles we were hearing about, that doesn't seem to be happening - the editor of TokyoPop's new Blu line is apparently subbed to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yaoi_daily and checking out what everyone wants.
Count me in line for next year :-)
Overall, the con was a big improvement on last year, with much better organisation and a lot less waiting around while things were delayed. Lessons seem to have been learned. The only particular problem was the hotel's fault for booking a convention for The Church of God in the meeting rooms that yaoi-con wasn't using. Apparently some of those people didn't like us much, and there were a few complaints 0_0
The hotel room was both better and cheaper at the Clarion than last year when we stayed at the Westin. I'd definitely go for that one again.
The dealer's room was a disappointment compared to last year, with no big book chains there - nobody was selling art books at all, and the manga selection was fairly limited. Not a big problem for me (a bit sad in that you can usually buy cheaper at the con), but some people don't have a convenient Kinokuniya in their city and rely more on the cons. I still managed to spend a fair bit of money, though, despite not getting everything I'd planned, but that was the only let-down. The bishie auction was just a scream, with some genuinely entertaining *cough* 'performances'.
We managed to see quite a bit more of SF too, this year, thanks to the wonderful
mac_lynn playing chauffeur and tour guide again for five days. I can't recommend the night tour of Alcatraz highly enough. It's timed so that you leave the pier in the late afternoon, you reach the top of Alcatraz island just as the sun sets behind the Golden Gate bridge, and then after the tour of the cell blocks you get to see the whole place in darkness with the SF skyline lit up all across the bay. Obviously we lucked out with the weather, as we did most of the week - a dull day wouldn't have had half the impact - but it's a lot more variety than just going during the day. I didn't go to too many panels - it's not my thing at cons, I'm too busy talking to people to sit and argue over the differences between slash and yaoi - but I enjoyed the ones I did get too. Watching Kodaka Kazuma draw was quite an experience (I'm a bit bummed that the Alcatraz tour meant I missed Higuri You doing the same ::sniff::) and there's some great stuff coming up in the English language releases from various companies. More and more people are jumping into the yaoi publishing thing, which is great as long as they don't start turning out crap and then declare that nobody wants yaoi. Given the titles we were hearing about, that doesn't seem to be happening - the editor of TokyoPop's new Blu line is apparently subbed to
yaoi_daily and checking out what everyone wants.Count me in line for next year :-)
