This weekend was about giving tribute to Lawrence Stuckey through T-mode convention. He was the founder of the convention who died after last year's convention. His wife Renee (with very little convention experience) made the convention happen in six months, basically. I think the main theme of this LJ post is "Can a relaxacon work in anime fandom?" I will answer the question at the end of the post. To Robotech and anime fans in general, click on Saturday's part.

Friday

-Took the train to the convention. I nearly missed my train because of traffic issues, but the train was just late enough. Sometimes the fannish gods are with me and sometimes they are not. The rest of the trip to the con was uneventful.

-Got there at about 7 PM and getting the room key and membership dog tag was not a problem. It was small, but that was expected.

-Kevin McKeever (Harmony Gold's Robotech Marketing director) was doing an autograph session. I got his autograph and had a chance to talk to him about Robotech for a few minutes.

-Relaxed and settled into the room and at 9 PM went to see the Panels that rock panel. It was an excellently done panel by Nick Ferris (Katsucon's VP for Programming). He gave alot of good tips for people. He will put up his notes for all of his panels for the weekend online and I will gladly put a link when he does.

-After that I went to see and talk to fannish friends (say Hi to Nai of Zenkaikon and Renee herself).

-At 11 PM, I saw an interesting panel on Zentai cosplay ran by Yuffiebunny. It was very interesting and adult look into a fandom that nobody knows about. She talked about Kimaguri and some things that I didn't fully understand.

-About 11:45 PM, I went up and got a few hours of sleep.

Saturday

-After getting showered, dressed and eating breakfast. I went to see Mushi-shi. It is about this gentleman who can see and tame spirits. It is probably amongst the most beautiful anime you have seen outside of Miyazaki, but it has speed of Molassis. Anime USA does a late night event called Iron Shonen (basically who can see bad anime the longest). This may be Iron Shonen fodder because of it's molassis like pacing.

-I went to the Dealers Room and looked around. There were only six dealers and no one who specialized in DVD's or Manga. It was almost all toy dealers. There was one card gaming dealer and one webcomicker. I will talk more about the dealers room and (the non-existant) artist alley in the notes.

-The weather was awful for alot of Saturday. It rained and was a howling rain. I had alot of fun getting lunch to go from Chili's. I should have eaten there to dry out.

-Got back to see starting a career in Voice acting panel. It was the first panel by Stephanie Sheh (Orihime from Bleach) and Johnny Yong bosch (Ichigo from Bleach). They seemed to fit in well with the convention and had very well attended panels. They are both on very popular series right now and that can only help.

-After that panel, I went to the Robotech Industry panel. Robotech has an interesting story and Kevin Mckeever told it well. The fanbase (including Kevin and Lisa Standlee) never let the show die after it's original airing. It is doing well in this country and throughout the world including the release of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (currently available from Funimation and hint to Kevin Standlee). There is also a deal to produce a Live Action movie. Lawrence Kasden is currently writing the script.

-Also as part of that panel, Kevin talked about Anime in China. It is massive right now and growing. Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is being released there right now. Kevin had the honor of going to a Chinese con last year. The biggest event in China had 437,000 people attending it. That is how animation is there. The biggest untapped market for Intellectual Properities is China.

-Ben Jonas (a fellow Dc anime fan) asked me to do my best Jay Stewart and do Let's Make a Deal with him. We had an interesting bit of luck, as the prizes arrived about two minutes before showtime. We did end on time, had a great crowd of 20 there and people like my version of Jay Stewart. I hope he can do that at Katsucon and that I can be his Jay Stewart with a chance to bring a suit.

-Had Dinner and then went to the Masquerade. It was more of a Masquerade/Talent Show. Geist (a local band) opened the show, we had eight acts in the middle, a local comedy troupe talking about Geeks performed and the awards were announced. It was a good hour and a half show that works for a 250-300 person con like this. Best Skit was the Naruto Sex Ed Skit that was led by Kekashi.

-After the Masquerade, I saw the top 50 anime heroines panel. Nick Ferris did another excellent panel. He tooked some of the heroines I suggested (including Cutey Honey) at number 3. The list nearly forgot Sai from Princess Mononoke, but made the last at #2. The two biggest suprises were at #18 with Sailor Moon and #14 with Motko Kusanagi. #1 was Card Captor Sakura. He did an interesting mix of shows including unlicensed stuff.

-Saw Stephanie Sheh's focus panel and a little bit of Johnny Yong Bosch's panel, but I was fading fast. That meant bed time for me.

Sunday

-After a good eight hours sleep, I showered, packed and had breakfast at nearby diner. They served too much food and I need to start making better con choices for breakfast.

-I saw part of Kamichu (a very sweet anime about a middle schooler who is a goddess) and Innocent Venus (a show about war that bored me).

-Nick Ferris did a very good panel on Maid Cafe's. Maid Cafe's are where men are served by Maid's in Japan. The Maid's see these men as masters. Katsucon is doing what may be a very authentic maid cafe where they will refer to their guests as master or mistress. The costumes are going to be authentic. The big difference is there will be one maid for each table is their hope. You can take pictures with them and by doing so help the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. The hotel will fix the food for a variety of liability issues and the maid will take the orders and serve their guests.

-Got Stephanie Sheh's autograph. She is a great young lady and was very cordial with me when giving it. One of the cool things about this con is that the guests are seen having fun. That is one of the cool things about T-mode.

-Saw part of the Acting for Video Games panel. If I ever become a video game producer, I will let the actors and voice director work. How to drive an actor crazy is by micro-managing.

-I went to feedback and then to the closing ceremonies. They thanked everyone for coming, the guests said their goodbyes and then Geek Comedy Tour 3000 gave a short performance to close things out. They had a bunch of fun along with all the more local guests who came.

Feedback panel and my feedback

-Dealers Room/Artist Alley was a big issue. They filled neither of them. They have a problem filling those areas. A couple of things that were suggested is to do rooms where Dealers can run things and sell their wares (like having the Manga Library sponsored by Anime Pavilion). My suggestion was to set Dealers Room prices at between $80-$150 per space. It is too small of a con for it to be more than a $150 per space.

-Hotel had big issues. The roof of one of the rooms leaked basically cut the capacity of the room in Half. They were hard to get anything done from the very beginning. It was hard to negociate with them including they didn't want to expand the room block. The AARP convention was in that convention center and I think that is why they had a hard time getting more rooms. They did meet their room block. Another thing that drove me up a wall. I got a room late in the game and I paid the $129 a night convention rate, but there was a cheaper (pay at check out) option on Hilton.com at $109 a night. This wasn't priceline or hotels.com. This was the hotel's website.

Other things that hurt people like Dealers and attendees was the cost of Parking. It is $20 per night. A place with Free parking is something that will help this con grow along with being close (not next door) to a metro stop. Some of the suggestions were given was to use the Sheraton Tysons Corner (a Place we can be at for several years) or the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center (a place where we can get an affordable room rate $99 a night for Magfest).

-Finances-She can manage money, but she can't break even. It is partly about getting free hotel meeting space and cheap or free rentals. I think they should ask Anime USA or Katsucon for how much for rentals for projectors. They would probably rent them for cheap.

-Guests-They are doing good things because they look for local guests such as YuffieBunny and FireLily (who was an attendee last year) was general concensus. I think they should have a fan guest of honor who can provide programming (maybe like Nick Ferris or Patrick Delhanty). I think I would work on less bands and no Japanese bands. Anime USA understands the cost of one band, but T-mode had two bands from Japan. They were on tour and stopped there for the day on Saturday. I would have two bands: Geist and The Slants (for example).

-Masquerade/Cosplay-The variety/Masquerade show is a good idea. It was thrown together, but is only a stop gap measure. The con needs to develop a good masquerade. I would suggest reaching out to someone like Marty Gear who has run Masquerades and use the ICG system. I would rather have eight excellent skits than two memorable and six that don't work. Maybe, it could be a fashion show masquerade to encourage people to perform. I think they should alos invite Cindy Shockley to do a good Green Room. Very few anime cons have green rooms and that may encourage cosplayers to come and perform. They listed several cosplay events, but what is needed are only two or three good cosplay events. I think they should do Kanyuga next year along with Anime Dating Game (late night only) and the Masquerade.

-Registration-I have personal misgivings for Dog Tags for one reason. You have to put your name on the other side. It discourages a sense of community in a fandom that should encourage it. I do like them for the reason that they are nearly impossible to replicate (a problem that anime cons have and I am surprised that Worldcon doesn't have). I wish they had a form people filled out for registration. It is a give cash and get dog tag and packet system for T-mode. They are missing information that can help them grow their con, such as average age and e-mail addresses. They can opt out of e-mail communications by saying no on the registration form.

One other note before wrapping it up, the weekend was a fine way to honor Lawrence Stuckey. It will not mean that this con will continue. Renee Stuckey (his wife) is very undecided about the future of this convention. I give this convention a 50/50 chance of having a next year or even in 2010. I hope Renee stays active in fandom (no matter what she decides to do) and I hope some good DC/Baltimore con runners step in and say this is a con that we should help. I am willing to be their hotel liason and have told her that when she is ready to contact me.

I think it is time to answer "Can a Relaxacon work in anime fandom?" to wrap up this post. There are two ways a con can be viable: Financially and Fannishly. It work fannishly because people have a good time. In order for it to survive long term and that is what Renee should want (if she wants to continue), it has to break even or make a small profit ($500 or so) consistently. That is what will make it work in a crowded convention market (four anime cons in Baltimore/DC right now). It has that feeling of everybody knowing your name. People thought I was a Fan Guest of honor. That helped the ego and scares me.