We had a relatively even split of people who had participated in KBB2022 compared to those who had not (49.5% had, 51.5% had not). Of those who had 75% were writers, 25% artists, 2% betas, and 1% pinch hitters.

General feedback from KBB2021 was positive. We appreciate those who shared how not being told about sharing a prompt with another writer made them feel. We really cannot apologize enough for how distressing this was for our writers. We are taking the lesson learned last year to make sure that we communicate better going forward. We also received a few comments about how communication and feedback from the mods fell off toward the end of the bang, we’ll be sure to try and keep on top of that this year as well.

We’re happy to hear that people thought the beta process was smoother this year than last year.

Overall, 69.7% of people who filled out the survey had participated in a previous bang. Of those 65.2% were writers, 43.5% artists, 17.4% betas, and 8.7% pinch hitters. To address some specific comments:

I'd really like to ask writers to send their drafts in digital form (not an image of the text written by hand), it's hard for a non-native speaker to read written language. This would have to be a request sent to the writer in question. We understand some people hand write their notes first or aren’t always near a computer during check-ins. We would suggest talking to your writer about the difficulties and see if a solution can’t be worked out, such as asking for some clarification on the notes. If something can’t be arranged then please reach out to the mods and we’ll find a way that works for both.

It was fun, but there where times my artist seemed to change the plot entirely of my work, that's fine I'm fine with it but tell me in the start not four to five chapters in.... This can be very frustrating. Communication is of course key from both sides, but it can be tough. We suggest discussing your expectations with your partner about major changes and trying to work this out before you get too deep into the project, but keep in mind that everyone has a different creative process and for some people, that idea that makes everything click just doesn’t come until they’re halfway through. Both partners should hopefully agree to such a major change, please communicate with your partner if you feel that the change is too much for you. As always, you can reach out to us mods for help, it’s what we’re here for.

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In regards to the art portion of the survey:

Of those who answered the survey 81.8% of you were aware of our writer to artist ratio. On the question of if we should broaden the scope of a completed piece of art you voted as follows;

-          No - 15.2 %

-          Yes – Crafts (paper crafts, embroidery, cross stitch, etc.) – 66.7%

-          Yes – Photographs (cosplay, photo manipulations, lego photographs) – 72.7%

-          Yes – Other – 36.4%

Here are some of the suggestions for those who voted for other:

-          Manips/pinterest board-style collages

-          Moodboard

-          Original Music or playlists

-          Animation gifs

-          Fanvids, fan music videos, fan trailers

-          Mixed media

-          Dolls and figures, bespoke pop funkos

-          Podfics

We’ve had a few comments about allowing writers to sign-up as a pair. This is an interesting idea, and one we may put to a vote, or have as an option for when an artist is bidding on prompts if they would mind working with a pair of writers.

Do stick figures count? We do suggest a little more than stick figures if you are able, but we also welcome artists of all skill levels to participate.

I don't think artwork necessarily needs to be coloured, it can be incredibly time consuming, and some pieces just look better without. This is something that we will take into consideration. It’s true that black and white, and grayscale pieces are just as complete as fully coloured pieces in many cases..

I know it's not fair to the artists to ask them to do more work, but is the option open for artists to submit multiple prompts for the reverse bang? Or allow them to sign up for more than one regular bang prompt to help even out the balance of sign ups? This is something we’ve actually had implemented for the last 2 reverse bangs. 

This could get confusing during sign ups, but maybe ask writers if they'd be okay with having multiple writers assigned to the same artist? (And vice-versa.) If we implement the 2 writers to 1 artist again in a future reverse bang, we will definitely be adding a question on whether they feel comfortable with that on the sign-up form.

A more centralized community. Might make communications more streamlined as well. Unfortunately, we can’t force everyone to use certain platforms. We do encourage everyone to join the discord server, and we have changed it so that KBB partners have first contact via email (this point at least we included as a requirement on the KBB2021 sign-up sheet so people were aware of it).

I’m new to the Kylux fandom, but other bangs have allowed for signups to both write and art (in separate partnerships) is that something you’d allow? We do try to allow artists to also sign-up as authors if they wish. There have been years where we have asked if they were okay with only signing up as an artist, but we’d prefer that they are able to sign-up as both if they want.

I already wrote some suggestions down, but one last thing would be: what about toning down the ultra-secrecy guidelines a bit? Maybe it’s just me, but it gave me so much anxiety, lol. We want the piece to be new and a surprise to everyone. We understand that participants want to share, and allow some sharing and previews, but not too much. We don’t want you to give everything away. This may also be something to ask your partner if they are comfortable with some of the projects being hinted at.

If you do a regular Bang, warn writers upfront that their prompt might not get selected, and that's not a comment on them, it's just pure numbers. As well as broadening the art possibilities (excellent idea), it might be worth reducing the number of art pieces required - one for a mini bang, two for a big bang? As a writer, having ANY artwork that goes with my fic is amazing, and it might help artists feel they can pick up more prompts. We want to avoid having any writer have their prompt omitted. This is also why we have a bidding system to ensure that every prompt gets as likely a chance as any of the others to receive at least one bid. It’s very rare that a prompt doesn’t get a bid thankfully, and always find a writer/artist that is happy to take it on.

Part of the reason we have the Mini versus the Big Bang is that it allows for writers and artists to still participate in the bang without having to worry about creating a 10k+ word piece or 4 pieces of art. While we do want to encourage more artists to join the KBB, we still also want to keep it so each partner feels like they are doing an equal amount of work.

Thank you once again to everyone who participated in the survey and shared their thoughts with us. We really appreciate it <3