Anime Club Support

[Saien_Alryu]

I'm a member of a small anime club in CA wanting to put on it's own convention and i'm looking for advice on how to make it... not as sucky as it's going to be if we keep letting the officers run it x.x anyways anny and all advice you could give me or if you could e-mail me or something of the sort it would be greatly appreciated thank you for what you can do :)

[Roark]

Moving to Convention Forum, since it's about conventions and all.

What do you have planned right now? Also, what size of a space do you have to work with, how many people will be coming, and how much money do you have to play around with?

[Saien_Alryu]

well it's a highschool anime club so we're pretty poor but i'm doing what i can with them and get it done i'm trying to get a voice actor or artist or something of the sort and we're going to do what we can but our town has no bookstores so no manga and we've really got no store that sells anime merchandise unless you count wal-mart x.x so we're in bad shape i've got some friends out of state who say they can help me contact voice actors but that's no gaurantee x.x lol and it's fairly poorly organized so i'm not sure how stable this is but worse comes to worse i'll do it all myself i'm stoked about this :P

[Javer]

Is your school anywhere near FanimeCon or Anime Expo?

[isolatedotaku]

From one anime club member (actually, I'm a president, I don't know your standing) to another, let me tell you to step back and think. Ponder this point; a convention, of any sort, is hard to set up. I dare to say that it is one of those tasks that is impossible to accomplish by yourself.

You're definitely going to need support staff, space and content.

My advice to you is to wait on trying to start your own convention. Try doing some small movie-night esque things. Small events will gradually lead up to bigger events. Also, through smaller events, you will gather and train support staff who will make your life so much easier once you try to start an actual convention.

All things in time.

[Saien_Alryu]

Javer: I have no idea really i haven't looked it up enough cuz i don't really have any big conventions near me i'm near fresno and merced if that helps

isolatedotaku: i'm just a regular member who joined this club when i heard they were nearing completion of a convetion and joined wasn't asked to do anything and didn't hear anything about it except that they weren't doing it yet anymore... as for doing it myself my mother has expirience as a convention director not for anime but for other things so that makes my job much simpler... i've had my ideas pushed aside in this club a few times so i'm just becoming impatient they're so unorganized it isn't funny my friend an i are doing research for advice and any kind of help possible.. the closest thing to movie nights we do are playing an episode during club every now and then and because the club is so loosely composed people are leaving every meeting and it's growing smaller and smaller so that's not helpnig my impatients i apreciate your advice though thank you i'd like to hear more from you


( yes i'm aware that i've got tons of typoes and this is basically one long run on sentence but i don't plan to have gramar as one of my friends because i haven't the time lately x.x )

[isolatedotaku]

Saien, check your PM box in the upper right hand corner of the screen (when scrolled completely to the top).

You should try attending a few established cons to see how they do things, because you live in California you have a lot of opportunities to attend some of the bigger cons in all of the US.

[Saien_Alryu]

thanks and i can't really go to cons cuz i'm not 18 and most of them are at least 2 hours away and i can't drive yet the club isn't put together enough to go either x.x

[Mana]

Age is no excuse. Grab a parent or older friends and hit up a con. You have no right to be trying to start/run a convention if you haven't even been to one.

As nice as VAs and musical guests are, they aren't really necessary, especially for smaller conventions. Remember, anime cons in the US started off by doing nothing else but showing anime and selling/trading fanmade stuff, doujinshi and what not. If your budget's low, just get your anime friends together, pool your DVDs, and get a projector.

Start slow, and work your way up. Even smaller conventions normally have several people on staff, as well as gofers and security. If it's mainly just you that's going to be working on this, you shoud really step back and do some thinking about your position.

[Saien_Alryu]

I understand that age is no excuse but it's also a matter of distance i've tried for 3 or 4 years to go and it wasn't originally my idea to do the convention but the people who were planning it haven't got enough control over the club over all to do it right now. i understand that VA and musical guests aren't what make the con but they'd be nice. we have a projector and i'm not sure how much fanmade stuff we have. we plan on cosplaying and doing skits and such the bigest deal is that the people in charge of club don't have any control of it right now. we've got people for staff and security and i've looked at this from every position i can think of and i understand that i'm out of my league but i'm doing what i can for something i'd like to accomplish thank you for the warnings and advice it's very appreciated :)

[Roark]

I think we're still missing the whole picture, on this. I'd like to offer advice, but I don't want to be throwing flechettes whilst blindfolded.

How much space does your club have to play with? What are the facilities like?

How much money does your club have to fund this?

How many people do you expect to attend? Is it limited to club members, or are members of the community invited?

Will there be an even nominal admission charge?

How much control do you personally have over the convention?

How much time do you have for planning/fundraising?

What kind of dedicated staffing support do you have? This means more than just "Well, if I'm not busy I'll help."

If you could give us clear answers to these questions (preferrably using the Return/Enter key), it would help us a lot.

[Saien_Alryu]

we've got a high school gym for space not sure how much exactly and it's an empty gym basically

we have about 175 dollars of funding

it's a community invited event so hopefully a big outcome

if by nominal admission charge you mean entry price then yes we don't plan on having it be high but we do plan on having one unless things change and we decide against it

i have no controll other than over the few people i know (by few i mean like 6 i really don't know many people) who agree with me and we're going to throw our pitch to the president soon as we have enough good advice, goals, and plans.

we don't have a date set for the convention so it's basically when we get all our crap together right now x.x

if by dedicated you mean i threaten to kill them then i've got alot but i'm not really sure people are leaving so often now it's hard to tell

this is as clear as i can make it on my own i'm searching for help on my own with nothing from the president or any of the officers cuz i don't like where things are headed so sorry if this doesn't help

[Tyrdium]

I'd suggest you look at holding an anime marathon rather than a convention. You'll likely need thousands of dollars in funding even to hold a smaller convention. With a marathon, all you need to do is request screening privileges from the distributors.

[Roark]

Alright, advice time:

First, set dates. Get dates that you want to hold this and work around those. Deadlines are powerful things, so set realistic goals for "OK, we want this done at this time."

Then, take a look at what kind of activities you can have. Given your space, you pretty much have one or two rooms (if there's a divider in the gym, that is). Given your budget (or lack thereof), you can't do much. Hate to say this, but no voice actors. They want hotels, at the least. Musical guests are going to be limited to whoever you can drum up. Know anybody in a garage band? Know any aspiring DJ's?

What you CAN do is cheap stuff. Screenings and marathons just require DVD's or Fansubs. (DO NOT USE PIRATED MATERIAL!) Costume contests are cheap. Give credit at The Right Stuff or on Amazon or something. Panels are free, just get people from your club to run some.

Probably, you'll want the gym divided. Play video content constantly on one side and plug in cheap activities on the other.

If you're charging admission, figure out a way to tell who paid. Stamps work for this, but people like badges since they're kinda souveneiry. Again, make sure you don't used licensed material without permission.

If anyone in the club has an interest in art, set up a small spot to display their works. Do not do this in the video "room."

Set up game tournaments in the "other" room (assuming the divider). You can probably use this room for multiple events at once, if you space it well.

You're going to be begging and/or borrowing most of your equipment.

The important parts are: Set dates. Budget. Plan activities that are cheap or free.

Any questions?

[Tyrdium]

Better yet, run two (or more) different video rooms. That way people can watch something else if they don't like what's on in the first room. Someone might rather watch mecha than magical girl, for example.

[Saien_Alryu]

the help is perfect thank you all. we spent last meeting electing officials (i didn't run cuz i was late but whatever) and things seem to at least be moving in a better direction now than before..

the convention is off or postponed for at least a year if not much longer

as for smaller events we were going to do a ddr fundraiser but we need equipment as you said and are working hard on aquiring it but we've no deadlines as of yet

i thought of (and was beat to the idea in a sense) of doing a christmas/new years cosplay party to show that we can do things of a fun and larger sort but i've got basically a day to throw my pitch to the president cuz then they're on christmas break..

the person who beat me to the idea is only inviting a select few people unlike me who was going to invite all the people i've noticed are adiment about the club

so i'm not sure if i'm going to anymore i'd hate to see her party get shot down (even tho i wasn't given any sort of invite to it i just heard about it)

they've decided to bring dvd's every few weeks and watch one or two episodes of that anime at those times which is better than their last idea of it

if you've got any links to any distributers that have an advocates program that'd help alot aswell

thank you all i'm learning more and if nothing else that's better than them listening to me right now -_-

one last question for now has anyone heard of another convention in california other than anime expo that's any time soon... maybe i can get a few people to go (i'll be able to drive soon so if nothing else i'll go)

[kittycouru]

Hello, I'm new to this site, and I am also a Japanese Culture Club (JCC) Vice Pres. of Wilmington, North Carolina, New Hanover High School. Our club has also been considering starting up a small convention or Anime fan-Gathering. I'm overjoyed to have stumbled across this site, and found the information we may need to get started. I have recently been on group trips to Animezement '06, and Neko-con '06. All with JCC members, and for the most part, we have enjoyed it. Although, Because the school year is drawing so close to an end, and funds been little to nothing, as well as it being my senior year, our club may just end up organizing a few trips out to conventions(already organized by other people), again, rather than creating our own. lol. I am an artist as well as an anime fan, and I hope that the next convention I visit (animezement '07), I will be able to set up a booth and sell my art. ^_^<3
So far Our Japanese Culture Club has done wonderfully. Our teacher/supervisor, Mark E. Matney, has done the voice of Ken Nakajima as well as Ken's father, from the anime You're Under Arrest. And is also my Programming and broadcasting teacher. The students love him because he acts more like a student than a teacher, which is amazing! Hopefully, if we do get to run our own anime convention, he will be a guest of honor!
We are thinking of starting out with an anime cosplay/ball/dance. and have a small area where anime will be viewed, and another area for manga reading. We already have a dealer who is willing to come and sell there anime goods, as long as we have the convention going. I'm still contacting alot of other dealers who do not wish to call me back. >_<;;
Alot of the students will be gathering supplies together to set up the dance, so I'm not in it alone, thank god. I knew that setting this up would be hell if i was alone in it.
If and when we do set up the semi-convention(lol), I invite all of you to come down and visit if you can. Also, people dressed in anime costume, with a picture showing who you are going as, gets a certain % off the ticket price, which is still yet to be determined. o.o;; I'll try to keep you informed as much as possible if you'd be interested in going.
I'm sorry If I am rambling, I saw this thread and thought I should say something. ^_^;;
I'm getting over the christmas excitement. ~sweatdrop~