Yama-Con 2018: The Year of "Re"

Yama-Con 2018: The Year of “Re”

This year was unlike anything before from start to finish. Let me explain.

I did not plan on going to Yama-Con this year, I am in the middle of getting my bachelors degree and not only is it expensive but also time consuming (I am actually ignoring a final I have to do by Sunday night… whoops). I only went on Sunday this year because my mother had her own weekend vacation planned with her friends and was very sad when it fell through because of the weather. To cheer her up I decided to take her to Pigeon Forge for the day and she also made sure I had fun by letting me go to Yama-con for a while. That being said, I had done no research about Yama-con 2018 and it’s themes or changes so everything was a surprise.

Let us talk about this years “Re’s”.

Reconnect:

Within 10 minutes of entering the con (after purchasing my day pass!) I saw some familiar faces. By familiar faces I mean I ran into one of my best friends from the con, shout out to the only fan of Black Clover I have ever met! This person is someone I have known since Yama-con 2016, if you are interested in how you make friends at cons check out that years review post.
I saw familiar vendors – who were just as friendly, or unfriendly depending on the vendor.

However, that being said, I saw someone incredibly important and new that sparked my interest. New owners. That’s right, supposedly Yama-Con changed to new owners who were more prepared to handle the size to which the con has grown. I saw a lot of improvements this year that I believe could be accredited to the new owners.

Reorganize:

As I mentioned, the new owners changes some things around. The first change I noticed before I was even inside the con was the new security policy. Over the speakers you could hear an announcement reminding con-goers how bags were all subject to search, no weapons were allowed on the property, and other security measures. This is drastically different from previous years where the con had security but it was very passive. Being in the Criminal Justice field and working in private security I always question buildings for their safety measures and safety design. Yama-con’s building design is great for conventions, but only decent for safety. That isn’t to say it isn’t safe; however, the structure of rooms such as the main event hall becomes a fishbowl in the event of an attack. It is still stunningly better than places such as where Hickory-Con is hosted, and none of that should be held against the conventions themselves, it is merely an observation.

Another change that was noticed would be the vendors room. Last year I really cracked down about the mix of mature content in with the general population content. By that I am referring to hentai on skyscraper boards, children’s crop tops hanging up highly saying “Yes Daddy”,  body pillows of moaning characters and… well I will let you imagine the rest. I understand that anime conventions are a special place for all types of fans, and I respect that they should have access to merchandise that appeals to them; however, it should not be displayed so vividly at a family friendly convention. I suggested more closed in booths, or a private area for such merchandise. This year the booth that contained those items as well as the squishy/kawaii boobs and male genitals (this blog is fairly family friendly as well) and stuffed ones had dividers to keep the merchandise out of public eye but still available to the merchants. I saw no hentai on display boards or standing out amongst other art. I was very pleased with these changes.

Reinforce:

Along with the new vendor room design and announcements came a few new rules. On the backside of the con badges they revised the standard rules, and added new ones. The con staff were also clearly identified and placed at more stationed locations throughout the convention hall. I also saw them walking throughout the vendors room, hopefully monitoring prices to make sure they weren’t changing throughout the days. I am not referring to the lowering of prices on the last day, I am referring to price gouging which I covered extensively last year.

Reinvigorate:

This short visit to the redesigned Yama-con reinvigorated me to start doing the things I love again. Start dancing, start binging, start reading, but most importantly start going to conventions again. I have already secured my plans for attending Yama-con 2019, as well as my Significant Other, their twin, and one for our longtime friends. So in total I have a group of potentially 8 people to attend with me. This is my new goal for 2019 and I can’t wait to see you all there next year.

I’ve missed you all,

-Aki Ame Okami

Yama-Con 2016- Villians Debriefing- Technical review

                 Yama-Con 2016
Another amazing con season has come and gone. This year we witnessed everything from amazing upstarts (Shelby-con) to seasoned disasters (AARC) but none quite compare to Yama-con.
Yama-Con in Pigeon Forge, TN is an annual convention held during the first weekend of December and is Johnny Yong Bosch's adopted con child. Every year this con has a theme and this years theme was so fittingly  decided as Villains. If you don't live in the south then you might not know but the week before the con, Gatlinburg and Sevierville which are the two surrounding towns of Pigeon Forge got struck with wild fires. Thousands of structures were burned, residents and vacationers were stranded in the cold and there were casualties. A lot of people were concerned as to whether or not the con would even happen but by one miracle or another the con went on. Now there were some personal predicaments that came about that almost prevented me from going to the con, predicaments such as all my finals were due that weekend. That my friends, is where coffee is your best friend and may sleep forgive you at some point.

So needless to say that there were a lot of scares leading up to Yama-Con but as all things in life go, the harder you work for them the better they turn out to be. That rang true for Yama-Con, I don't know if it is all the personal growth that has occurred to me since the start of the semester or that fact that when I finished my finals I had no life inhibitions but I made sure that I took part in as many events as possible so I could come back and write to you all.
This means that this year, I took part in Iron Cosplay, Karaoke, the Professor(?) Shy Guy concert AND the Cosplay Contest! I know what your thinking, "Aki?! Really?! What happened to the admin who was afraid of talking to vendors?!" well the answer is........

I have no idea. I seriously think the college experiences, like being handcuffed to a table and having to figure out how to karate chop my way out of it and roll off - literally, have really helped me to come out of my comfort zone and college in a whole helped me not care about life in the slightest.

So now that the ground work is laid out and you all know just how much of a struggle it was for this con to even happen this year why don't we progress to the review portion of this post!

*~~I waited until after Christmas to begin so that the traditional post con depression and until the after holiday depression would be on its way out~~*

As usual, I am reviewing this convention based off of multiple self set criteria that I find important for every con to have. The items on this list are things such as, friendly atmosphere, fair staff, organized events, clear signage, entertaining events, kind special guests, fair dealers room/artists alley, cleanliness, lively panels, lively social media presence and other things of that nature. (Sounds all official doesn't it ^_^ ).


The hype for Yama-con 2016 has been in the works since the closing ceremonies of last years con. Everyone knew the theme and the cosplayers were set loose with all the creative juices flowing. As always the facebook event group was constantly buzzing out notifications of people talking, updating or just sending warm wishes to those attending. They definitely met my requirements for a lively social media presence.

The process in which we got approved for press passes was swift and problem free on the staffs end. Heiwa and I caused them a little trouble though because we accidentally both applied; however they handled it swiftly, professionally and kindly. I am really thankful for their understanding in the situation. Something that also falls under the category of kind staff would be a unique experience that I don't generally have. I talked to people... Like real people... I got ditched by my group and decided to sit down at a table that some people were already at and by the end of the hour they had adopted me as their own kind. One of them was staff. It was very comforting and I really appreciated them.


The atmosphere was very pleasant. Because of all the problems leading up to the con there was a questionable feeling about the atmosphere. It was either going to be very good or very bad, this time it was very good. They were accepting donations and had their own merchandise booth in the main hall which assisted in providing the kind and caring atmosphere. To provide the fun buzz or excitement there was always something going on, literally. The cosplayers were running around looking fabulous, the panelists were traditionally running late and the staff were always available but never annoyingly present. It was a perfect atmosphere, though a little background music wouldn't have hurt.

Organization and directional units were similar to last year. The signage was phenomenal once again and they added a life size "Cosplay is not consent" sign which is a major plus in my book. As far as the actual organization of the schedule, I think it was well spaced and well planned so that none of the big panels would exactly overlap each other. The only issue I had with the organization or the building itself in relations to the schedule was the photoshoots, I found it hard to locate where the photoshoots were at and ended up skipping them because I couldn't find them.
There were more problems with the organization of the events than anything else that I noticed. As a participant of the events such as the cosplay contest and iron cosplay I have to say that there could be some more guidelines that were explained to the participants. The no rules feeling was nice but rules are an essential part of a successful event. During the iron cosplay event I know that team "Stranger People" broke open glow sticks and splattered them around their interdimensional portal which might have looked cool but, it made a sticky and stinky mess that was hazardous.  For the cosplay contest there weren't really any defined rules so I am amazed that no one got up there and did a strip tease. I know the black butler group was a little suggestive when they were standing in line so it was a concern.
So yes, organizing the events and including some distinct rules would be an improvement but definitely isn't a requirement.

Lets talk vendors room/artist ally! There was such a wide variety of merchandise available this year including everything from Doctor Who to K-pop! There were a lot of repeat vendors but also a few new ones who were welcomed to the vending family. One thing that I watched out for this year was price consistency. One of my favorite rules that little cons use in vendors rooms is the listed prices. Listed prices are when people have to have a sheet, board or something where it is visibly written and available that has all the prices for all the items on it secured to the table at all times. This prevents crowd pricing, which is when the crowd is big the prices are higher and when the crowd is little the prices are cheaper. I noticed a few vendors who used the crowd pricing method. It isn't a con's fault when vendors choose to do this type of thing but it is something the con can fix if they recognize it as a problem.

One thing that almost everyone can agree about being important is cleanliness, not only of the location but also of the attendees because con funk is a real thing. Yama-Con was more or less, con funk free!! It is a huge honor for a con to recognized for being CFF. Now the rest of the building was remarkably clean as well, which was a huge relief because last year Heiwa and I ended up cleaning some of the tables off because the attendees were horribly messy.


Something new that I did this year was I interviewed a few people and got their opinions on the convention and one of the reoccurring issues I heard was that they didn't like the empty corner in the game room. Everyone thought it was a little depressing or a bit of an eye sore. I don't really have solutions for this because it is am empty space so literally anything can be done with it.
Another issue I saw when asking around was that people thought some of the special guests were a little rude or pricey. There are obviously many reason for both of the claims so I am just going to leave that information there with no personal opinion attached.

That is all there is for a technical aspect that I am going to cover in specific groups. So the over all positives and negatives about this year will be listed below in their respective categories.

Positives

• The community came together to support all the fire victims
• There was no con-funk
• The attendees were lively and entertaining
• The staff was friendly and approachable
• The cosplays were amazing
• Plentiful vendors and gaming stations
• Entertaining and for the most part friendly special guests
• stayed true to being family friendly
• ever present but never over present security
  

Negatives

• Crowd pricing
• No sound equipment in the gaming room
• Some of the guests
• The bald corner in the gaming room
• Limited karaoke list
• Sunday lulled
• The locations of the photo-shoots
• The lack of rules 
• Lack of epic background music
•  The end.

That is all for the technical review, I will be writing up separate posts for dissecting panels, concerts, people, events and other aspects of the convention. I appreciate and adore all that Yama-con has done for me personally and for its community and look forward to attending the "Paranormal" themed convention of next year!

~Aki Ame Okami