Thread by @DJShenny

Some Nine World's stuff worthy of a read.

https://twitter.com/quizlacey/status/1074338386033475590

One of the reasons why the 9W stuff is interesting to me is partly due to how it all turned out, what they achieved and the hardships they faced and also partly because I could see Kitacon going the same route and facing the same challenges.

Obviously I'm keen to avoid the pitfalls others have made in order to maintain a strong event and team but I can't help be worried about the geek/nerd communities being swallowed up by non caring events worried only about their bottom line.

What's interesting is that with the fall of 9W event runners, attendees and others are now in the wind. Unsure of what other events even exist like it and there are tons.

Volunteer run events have an exposure problem. We don't market because of the costs involved.

By that I mean advertise outside of con flyers I guess. You won't see a Kitacon poster on the tube unless things drastically change.

Word of mouth is what rules in our World.

But this raises problems of it's own, as we are currently only attracting the same people over and over again. We need to grow to allow those that love the event to still attend year on year but also for new faces with fresh opinions and ideas to join us.

Kitacon also hasn't been a anime (only) convention for a number of years now. It is a multi-media geek event but we just happen to be called an anime convention because of the event model we adopted from our peers and the organisers intentions at the time.

Over the years Kita broke away from Anime only programming to be more inclusive to our communities growing fandoms and their associated material.

If you want to see this in a microcosm - think of the Anime vs Western Music debates that take place every year.

Anime will always be a part of Kitacon but it will share equal footing with other facets of nerd culture we all enjoy today, whether it's gaming (tabletop inc), cosplay, writing or film/tv.

There is certainly room to expand the anime/manga programming at Kita for sure but I hope to approach each area/topic to be represented equally.

Additionally I want to provide more opportunities for marginalized voices. I want Women, POC, LGBT+, disabled voices to have a more prominent role in discourse at our conventions.

This is really important to me but I'm not ashamed to say I will seek help making this happen.

I know the #Safe, #NotSafe thing was a meme born from a Kita opening skit but it's also paramount that everyone feels safe and included at our events.

While I can't speak too publicly about what Kitacon will be in the coming years because there are still large internal decisions to be made and while I may steer the ship, I am not the only voice. We're a committee of peers and equals for a reason.

Kitacon and its position in the community is to me a polarizing one. It started as a rebellion and through the acts of the committee a few years ago, turned it into somewhat of a flagship of positivity, community, inclusiveness and "production".

Production is in quotation marks because it's a bizarre thing for our type of community anime con to have.

Our cons thrived and grew by individuals donating to the cause. Tech and the presentation was something events didn't spend money on unless it was infrastructural.

Tech was something that was cobbled together from the committee or they bought items that could be used by themselves and the event. This was just the standard norm of the old guard event runners who where also techies in both life and profession.

Games rooms used to be cobbled together from whatever the committee personally had. Names scribbled in marker stating who's the TV, PlayStation, Xbox, GameCube etc was who's.

Reg systems and databases sitting on unencrypted laptops in OPs. This is how things were.

Things are not like this anymore, at least I fucking hope so.

Out of all the cons in our anime/geek circle Kita introduced some of the more complex digital reg systems. For better and worse at times and while queue management is something that isn't very sexy to talk about my time with the RTX Team Leads has been an eye opening experience.

Registration doesn't have to be complex but equally advancements in tech can make it a sleek process but also a more costly/complex one.

Do you go for a piece of paper printout? or some sort of digital system?

Regardless of which you use you need a contingency.

Amecon and Ayacon used in their event rooms the tech that was already there. Most of it provided by the venue, Kitacon didn't.

Kita was uniquely positioned to bring in excited, nerdy techs to help for lack of a better word "show off" the event and I mean that as a positive.

Kita as a result had areas of high production and people who very much cared about the presentation.

This lead to the decision not to use the SU and instead focus the budget on the main hall. I'd certainly say personally that this had mixed results but it looked great. 👌

I know was much as the next person that high production can be a hindrance and even against community spirit to a degree...

Gone are the spare of the moment stage ramblings, In is the structural scheduled keynotes.

From an event runner perspective I see this a good thing.

I want to state that just because Kita has more outwardly higher production it doesn't mean that other events don't put effort into structure and schedule their events to run and look as best they can.

You need to focus on the important things and that's not always a LCD screen

Obviously these are just my opinions and shouldn't be taken pure fact as I sit in a privileged position. Once the new year rolls around I'm excited to get to work on Kita but we've a long road ahead of us yet.

So this has been my Monday ramble.

I rambled a bit more on Kitacon and events in @BunkazillaUK's first Big Stomp episode, recorded at @Hibanacon last month. It was a time for those interested:

bunkazilla.co.uk/2018/11/26/the…