#ala13

First and foremost, I would like to explain that I do not have a general dislike for ALA. It is perhaps my favorite winter convention to go to. However, for the past 3 years, I have been feeling the end of a terrible thought process that even staff had told me last year. “We are trying to put and end of Fan based panels, and move towards to professional panels.” Now in the past 3 years, I now have taken that to heart. As it really does show the end results. 2 years ago, the convention moved to Ontario, CA. It has the entire convention building for the weekend. However, if anything is a reality, we “Fans” and “Creators” do not get the same respect as the “professionals” of the medium. And let me explain why.

The last 2 years have been a shit show for fans. In fact, the fan panels are not even in the same building as the convention. But rather placed in the back end of a hallway across the street in a hotel where you would be lucky to so much as 7-10 people in the one room you get for running a fan panel. However, when you fill out your application you get a drop down to see how many people will be there like 50 or 100. And this disturbs me because an over assumption can make you look like a liar in your application and could get you denied for next year. It has happened.

However, a youtube channel with like 1000 subs and a couple hundred likes on their facebook page will get a ballroom that could seat 600-800 people in the main convention will get that room because they are considered “Professionals” and “Promote Japanese Culture”. Well ALA, I’m sorry, but is that not what an Abridger does? Is that not what an Anime Reviewer Does? Is that not what a fan of this community does? Promote and enjoy this content!? Even a professional is a fan. The words of Crispin Freeman himself, The English Voice Of Itachi Uchiha, Says So Himself In HIS PODCAST!

The complete disregard and blatant disrespect to the “fans panels” are why they are dying in your convention. And it’s not just the fact you are throwing them across the street in the back room of a hotel hallway either. It’s also because you make them compete against bigger panels and also the careless timing of these panels. You put these Fan Panels up against panels with Voice Actors, Industry Panels, and put the fan panels at times where people would have to get up at 8-8:30 in the morning after a rave from the night before hand. You don’t even consider putting the fan panels in the rooms where there are empty time slots on the main convention floor. That is completely unfair and unjust to the fans that care so much about the community. And eventually, will use the excuse of the dwindling numbers as a way to cut the fan panels.

Anime Expo wouldn’t even dare to do that. They put a lot of trust into their fans to fill the seats of their panels. They allow the compelling and the dedicated to using their floor. The are also smart enough to program fan panels and industry panels around each other to give everybody a shot. They also keep everything on the convention floor and not across the fucking street. And you can't say “We don’t have space” because I have seen the Ontario Convention Center. You have so much space, there are traces of DARK MATTER! So it would be the matter of whether or not you are smart enough to figure it out. And by the results of the past 3 years, you are “an hour in the ball pit” stupid.

Fan panels work both ways here. really they do. To bring the fans of the fans and also great promotion for these fans. We strive to reach out as much as possible to touch the hearts of people that love our medium but to treat them as if they do not matter is just very disappointing. And people who are just unaware do not know of these results. People like, Lost Pause, Team Four Star, Misty Chronaxia, Voice Actors, even Myself, are still fans. We all strive to make this community as amazing as possible. We put in our own time like you guys do to bring together the community on a grand scale. We the fans love doing what we do but putting us in one area or the other is not fair. You have the floor space, but putting all this bias clutter makes it useless and infuriates the people that do spend their time putting together these events for the fans.

I wanted to share this shot from a spontaneous Homestuck photoshoot that happened in the ALA '13 hotel garage. While the image can't capture the incredible, chaotic energy of the actual moment, it remains the most memorable and entertaining photoshoot I've ever attended.