#constuffs

Pre-con Thoughts and Mentality: First and foremost, this is my second Kotoricon, my first Kotori being the one I spent running around as God Tier Jake English. Kotoricon itself has a lot of sentimentality for me actually; the panel I ran last year became the thing that led me to the cosplay group I have now. We're a very tight-knit group and hang out pretty often outside of convention-ing, and care a lot about each other on more than just a cosplay level. We all have real emotional connections. So, obviously, I was very hype to go back this year. 

My experience: My morning routine for con prep was pretty standard. Woke up early to get gray on, took some time to help friends, etc. and just generally eat and get ready to spent like 10 hours walking around and snapping pics. I DID stop in to a Dunkin Donuts on my drive there and THAT was an experience (read: the DD people don't like seeing cosplayers at ALL). 

My group of 5 got to the con probably 30-ish minutes before our "What's a Homestuck" panel, so we camped out in the little area of chairs and such to just sit around and socialize with other congoers. By panel time, we ran on over to the room, popped in our powerpoint, and got going.

I honestly could not have been happier with the panel. It was pretty phenomenal and probably some of me and Kankri's best panel work. The audience seemed entertained, but also quite informed, and I was happy to see everyone laughing and smiling along with the presentation. Even getting out the whole "bucketstuck" idea felt really relieving, because admittedly we do have a few sour cosplayers, so just raising general awareness about being respectful congoers made me feel pretty good. If I could do a presentation similar to that next year, I really would like to.

The time between panel and photoshoot was a bit of a blur recalling it from one week later. I went into the little blow up planetarium (LOVED IT), did some dealer shopping (even if I'm not one to traditionally spend too much at cons), and again sat to just talk to the fandom.

The photoshoot... was admittedly a little messy. Okay, really messy. But it was probably as organized as a mess could get. On account of location and time changes, a decent amount of people showed up, and we got a solid amount of shots in. (See more about this little photoshoot tidbit below.) After that, we went to Uncle Yo's stand up comedy, and I had to say, this man made me laugh a lot of the uneasiness of the photoshoot away. He's nice to have at cons cause he really does make the whole idea of "nerd culture" seem more easy to relate to, and feel a little less like "bizarre freak culture". If that makes sense.  

So, TL;DR I did like Kotoricon. I will most likely go next year, unless Katsucon decides to do some crazy price rack up (which, you know, every congoer is praying doesn't happen). If I could give any feedback to the con though, from both a panelist's and attendee's point of view...

What Should Really Really REALLY Stay:

Staff. Very accommodating, very approachable, very good with working under circumstances and pressure. Some were a few lost as to locations of things and such, but I didn't really care too much about that. They were pretty good overall, and I don't have any complaints.

Themes. No con I've been to actually does this to the degree Kotoricon does. It's a unique little spin that makes Kotoricon all the more enjoyable. I loved the planetarium, the Star Wars booth I saw at one point had some impressive cosplays, and the whole space design was pretty rad. And this is coming from someone who thought that idea was a little lame upon first hearing it. 

Photobooth. There's almost nothing to say about this. It's pretty obvious that everyone loves the free photobooth. Once again, I've yet to see a con do something like this before. It makes the younger/newer attendees happy to get the anticipated professional pictures, it makes cosplay groups (ahem) happy to get a pic together regardless of which fandom they're cosplaying, and I would assume even veteran con attendees that have shoveled out hundreds to pay photographers over their lifetime would enjoy it.

Relax space. A lot of cons seems not to realize that cosplayers get tired. Or that con parents sometimes just need a place to sit and just chaperone. Honestly. I was so relieved that Kotoricon has chairs and benches and open tables for attendees to take a load off. I can't imagine any of these spaces being sacrificed to fulfill some "better purpose".

Panel Diversity. That is, appealing to every fandom, I mean. Kotori is good at doing this. I'm pretty sure I saw something for everyone on the panel schedule. Please don't change this at ALL. Including every fandom, or at least getting pretty varied, is so important to attendees. If their interests are left out of programming at a nerd convention, then where are they recognized, you know? So keep up the good work with this one!

What Could Maaaybe Maybe Be Improved on:

Photoshoots. I will BEG to have some place for this next year. Photoshoots are really important to every fandom, because it gives people both a chance to show off cosplays and to socialize with fellow fandom members. Please please please have somewhere in the con set aside for photoshoots next year. 

QR codes. This isn't a complaint, so much as I saw no one use them? I downloaded a QR scanner in prep for the con, and was travelling with a sizeable group of people, and didn't actually see one person use them at all. So. Yeah. In case the con wanted to know about that, because I know it was a new feature.

Queue lines. This is going to sound like a really weird one. But the panel rooms weren't really evacuated between one panel ending and another panel beginning. People kinda drifted into and out of the rooms as opposed to having lines to queue for a panel. Like I know personally, it made me a little frazzled to have people in the panel room while I was prepping technology and such. It just felt really weird to me, because between six or so panels last year, that never happened (save for one security slip up last CPAC). I think it would just make both attendees and panelists happier if people were ushered out after a panel was over, and a definite time that people would be let into the panel room was established.

Panel Paperwork and Criteria. This isn't too much of a complaint either really, because I understand the reasoning behind these rules. But oh god was filling out the paperwork an ordeal. The "over 18" rule essentially made it so Kankri was submitting the paperwork, but I was doing the scheduling of the panel. I had all the info and plans and schematics of it all, but they were the one getting the official emails and scheduling info. It was just sorta a grueling process to have to work through her (and wow, does that sound bad) and even led to a mix up at some point. I don't know how this could be remedied, but if it could, that would be great. or else... I'm probably stuck working through an older person again for next year. Also, another very tentatively said point, but ask panels? I'll always say to every con that those are definitely the most popular panels among majority of attendees. I know Kotoricon's size does limit the existence of these, but, once again, IF there was a way to make policy work to accommodate ask panels, it could only serve to help the con.