Connecticon Forum

Re: What Artists Want for Their Money

[quote author=“yuureikun”]So straight up, I have a question that I would appreciate answered.  We understand why you put in the rules.  Repeating them in response to our gripes won’t make us suddenly have an epiphany where we immediately exclaim, “oh, we get it now.”  We get them.  We know why you justify them.  We don’t like them.  We have been going to this convention and others in the area (yes, everyone posting here goes all over New England and further) for a long time.

We obviously have a number of problems (and while it seems like those new to the alley and complain are listened to more than those who have been supporting you with the attendees that come for us, the programming we provide, and with our space fees and membership dues for years. . .) and it is obviously not only one person who feels this way.  I think Inyx, Owls Mirror, Project Poppet have well addressed your responses.

So onto my question: do you care that we are unhappy?  Will you consider our gripes? Will you try to work with us to fix them so the people who pay for the section are happy?  With your posts it doesn’t seem like it (defending them doesn’t make the problem go away for us).

We care that you are unhappy - is there anything we can do about many of the things you are unhappy about? In many cases no we can’t, at least not right away - floor plans are set nearly 18 months in advance, the fire marshall and the convention center have to approve the floor plans, we can’t max utilize or face the aisles the way we’d like to in the AC because of the way the room is laid out and where the fire exits are. We can’t put you back out in the hallways either - the convention center was being damaged by artist displays and/or backstock on the window sills (notes: artists often complained that one hallway was busier than the other, they were concerned about the security of their tables when they weren’t around, they disliked the long hours - most of the artists who have moved to the dealers room have done so because they’d like to make more money and work less hours at the convention). We have already started putting together the floor plans for 2012 and you’ll be happy to note that the Artists Colony IS going to be moving into the exhibit hall next year. This move has been in our 2012 plans since August 2010… it takes time to make changes. Especially, when you need to have four authorities sign off on your layouts.

We do, in fact, consider your gripes, we consider EVERYONE’s gripes and do our best to come up with solutions that appease the majority. Comments and feedback from people are discussed monthly or more often than that - often times our hands our tied on certain issues (location due to space allocations, layouts due to fire code, it goes on and on), and some issues we’re going to stick to because we’ve let them slide for too long and need to reign things in before they get completely out of control. Over the past two years I’ve had vendors in the dealer’s room complain to me about what we’re allowing people to sell in the Artists’ Colony - most notably t-shirts, prints and buttons of copyright protected characters - this is unlicensed merchandise (even if the artist created the art on their own) being sold. We’ll also be cracking down hard this year in our dealers room to remove unlicensed and bootleg products as well as the vendors who sell them (we’ve finally found someone who is willing to help us with this and knows there stuff).

A lot of the complaints we’ve received from artists are things that we can do nothing about except change our venue, except that in Connecticut there isn’t another venue of proper size to host the convention. We do our best to make the majority of our participants happy.

It is unfortunate that you are unhappy, for those of you vociferously complaining about our recent policy changes, some of which have been LONG overdue. Please be aware that your feedback is not the only feedback we receive and have to work with, it is just the most public.

[quote author=“yuureikun”]If the answer to any of these three questions is no, then this entire thread is moot.  While you need to stay within the law (just as every other convention of this nature does), you also need to make your customers happy or they will no longer be your customers.  There is a serious lack of professionalism with this situation (though less so in this thread).  With nothing posted on the website, the threat of locking the thread (to attempt to silence dissent as I see it), and no communication before this thread was created (by the way, the next time James sends out an email can you ask him to send it to himself and BCC the mailing list?  I was surprised to see my personal email address and everyone else’s go out to everyone), this convention is known for a lack of professionalism.

I’ll apologize for James Monty-Carbonari - sometimes people make mistakes and click send before reviewing what they’re sending - we’ve all sent something and had an “Oh, crap!” moment just after sending it.

[quote author=“yuureikun”]On another convention’s AA forums, “I have absolutely no idea what’s going on with Connecticon’s AA this year - or in previous years. I just hear whispers from other artists to Not Do It, that it Used To Be Awesome but has since just turned into this hodge-podge of “D:” faces.”  From someone who has “not done Connecticon before (and [has] no plans to do so)” this should be the kind of information Connecticon worries about.  On a convention’s facebook page (the whole convention, not just AA), someone wrote “Who’s going to Connecticon 2011?.” While there was a few “what is it?” and “maybe just for Saturday” responses, the most poignant one that you should listen to was “meh.”

Every convention receives negative feedback along those lines - even the big ones like Otakon, Dragon*Con, GenCon, AnimeBoston and AnimeNEXT - and that type of response could be for ANY reason - maybe they don’t like the guest lineup, maybe they don’t see any panels they want to attend, maybe they have to work or they can’t get the time off, or maybe it is too far away for them to attend, maybe they don’t have the money to attend - a “meh” response in my opinion is just a message of “not interested and I don’t care to explain why”.

[quote author=“yuureikun”]Skydancer, it’s great that you like the ballroom for the AA; but you’re not the one selling in it.  We are and we don’t.  Ian, it’s great that you think booths are oversized and to an extent I agree.  But going from “anything goes” to 6’ from the floor give artists used to any extreme (from no display to a massive one) just 40” from the top of the table and a small table surface for display.  That is a VERY small display space.  Compare it to Otakon (a convention with the same fan art rules): 60” from the table (Yes, 20” makes a BIG difference for artists).  The next point I have about displays relates to another one of CTCon’s policies.  Our displays are stationary and sturdy.  Yet 7,000 attendees can make props 8’ tall (dwarfing our tables), 150 lbs heavy, and movable.  This alone doesn’t make sense.

I like that you used the term booths, a booth is typically an amount of floorspace set aside to setup and display tables, racks and merchandise in. Artist Alley and Artists’ Colony sell table space - there is a big difference there.

“Anything goes” can be fine, as long as people are reasonable - our staff here feel that things have started to get increasingly unreasonable in Artist Alleys at many conventions. Don’t be surprised if other conventions start increasing the restrictions on Artist Alleys, especially display heights and merchandise restrictions, especially if things continue down the path they’ve been headed for the past 3 years.

AnimeBoston this year felt like a billboard canyon - with leaning displays kissing each other overhead in the center of aisle spaces, aisles were crowded and nearly a hazard.
Otakon last year was creeping up towards something like that.

If all of our attendees started bringing in oversized costume props and we felt that they were becoming a hazard, we’d adjust our policies to reduce the size of the props or the number of people allowed to attend with those sized props.

[quote author=“yuureikun”]With the fan art rule, I have never seen a funimation booth at CTCon.  I have never seen Disney at CTCon.  So to protect the convention in the contract you waive all convention liability.  Not to mention, I have friends who have sold at Anime North (where Disney does attend) and they were approached by Disney’s lawyer.  What happened?  They were given a cease and desist.  There was no law suit.  The only new rule in effect was no Disney-owned character fan art (including marvel now).  Adding onto that, Anime NEXT, about the same size at CT Con has no fan art rules and had no problems.  New York Anime Festival, attached to NYCC has TONS of industry guests, no fan art rules and no problems.  Copyright laws were not made to protect companies from fan art, but from another company taking their character, design, concept, etc, and using it in their own games, books, videos, etc.

It doesn’t matter whether a company attends a convention or not, our fan art rules are there to help protect EVERYONE. Even getting a C&D is a BAD thing, a company doesn’t need to attend a convention in order for them to randomly send a lawyer to a convention to hand out C&D’s, and then follow up with the C&D later to see if they can pursue a suit.

In addition, we receive screening permissions from many of the companies you speak of, a lot of our members enjoy going to the screening rooms - our permissions could get revoked if we continue the path of keeping lax policies on bootlegs, and fan art.

Also, do you realize that creating and selling copies of fan art is doing exactly what you just said copyright laws were made to protect against? It doesn’t matter whether the offender is a large corporate competitor in the marketplace or a small business (like an artist going to conventions to sell their works).

[quote author=“yuureikun”]Displays at Anime North (since we’re looking at the convention already) are a “sturdy and does not impede your neighbor’s space.”  Everyone posting in this thread was previously a new convention artists.  I started at CTCon in the hallway with a few pieces of fabric (on Saturday because only then did I realize everyone used table cloths), a few shoeboxes to push up my prints to higher display, and a small portfolio.  From there I learned to utelize vertical display because a table top isn’t that big.  And people don’t like to flip through portfolios.  And you need to be eye catching so try to have all of your prints on display.  Use lights and sound if you can.  And over time displays develop into ones like the staff seem to dislike.  But okay: those new alley members go to CTCon, see the 6’ tall rule, and then decide to expand to other conventions.  They will again be dwarfed.  They don’t learn, as Inyx wrote, about merchandising or more professional displays until they go some where else and realize how silly the CTCon conventions’ rules are.  I’m glad I was dwarfed by first year.  I made plenty of money to pay for my table and profit a bit, and seeing those huge displays inspired me to do a bigger display.  Not only that, talking to the artists and looking at their displays helped me know what to get to impress and boost my sales.  And going to the first convention, seeing the bigger displays help people learn so they can do even better at the next convention they attend.  I have told at least a half dozen new artists at various conventions what I do for display and where they can get the material for it if they want to try.

For comic artists who do have the 6’ rule: they are published, they are mostly doing commissions, and there are industry guests at those conventions who they want to impress.  Your rule doesn’t make it fair for everyone; as Owlsmirror said it makes it equal, but not fair.

The new 6’ from the floor height requirement will ensure, without question or argument that artists are not impeding upon their neighbors space or line of sight.

Artists at comic book conventions usually don’t have rules in place about space usage and height restrictions, they just follow general professional courtesies towards one another. It is true that they mostly do commission work - Artist Alley at conventions used to be very much the same - artists took commissions from customers based on their portfolio and were happy to do so, things started to drift from that and have now sailed out of sight from those roots.

     

projectpoppet - 17 June 2011 07:58 PM

Rather than rehash Inyx, OwlsMirror and Yurreikun’s points, I’ll state that I support the points that they brought up. I too am a native of Connecticut. I bought my tax license and waited as patiently as I could for the AA to open only to find the issues that it had before staff opted to use the old system. Web issues happen. This is understandable.
What gets me, even though this rule doesn’t affect me too much, is the fan art rule. If anything, fanart is the draw to attendees, and most use it to showcase their artistic style. The money is all well and good, but one could benefit from that little extra to draw in traffic.
My main concern was the space. It was too remote, making it that much more difficult for those who carry a lot of stuff for displays and still will despite this rule that the display cannot be higher than six feet from the floor. To me, artist alleys are as much shopping areas and should be part of the main traffic. Going back to the commentary directed at Inyx about how she should stick to running the alley at AN, I’ll say to anyone that reads this just as I said to Inyx when she requested feedback, that one of the best things that she did was place the AA in close proximity to the dealer’s room. The two areas were separate, but it was placed in a high traffic area. That all the shopping was in close proximity proved more efficient. CTCon’s AA location might best be served as a gaming area. Why not place us in the same place as we were in 2007 or 2008?
Going back to the display rule, is it true that displays can not be higher than 6 feet from the floor. If yes, am I the only one that finds that a little unreasonable when most alleys say 5 or 6 feet from the table. The ceilings at the CT Convention center are fairly high. So long as the display is sturdy, 5/6 from the table is not going to prove dangerous. Is it so much of a hassle to have staff go around a few times and talk to artists that are blatantly breaking rules and/or are dangerously unsturdy?
I want to keep vending at CTcon, but there is a limit, I want to make some profit, nothing to make me quit my day job, but some return as well as getting my name and webcomics out there, and I do feel like the artists are being edged out starting at the location.

A sturdy display is only as sturdy as the surface it is placed upon, a display 5’ or 6’ in height falling off of a table that is already 2’4” from the floor has the potential to fall and block an entire 10’ aisles worth of traffic, and I would prefer NOT to trust a folding table to getting nudged more than gently and maintaining the balance of such a display. A 3’ 8” display off the top of a table should be plenty high enough, and if it were to fall into the aisle would only block of half of the aisle allowing for the display to be picked back up without impeding all traffic flow.

     

hemlock_inyx - 17 June 2011 11:32 AM

ICAW, well I am glad that someone on staff is talking with us. However you don’t have a signature, perhaps you could introduce yourself and let us know what you do on staff?  And you said you’ve been going as an artist to other cons, could you share with us a website and/or DA page of your work?  I always like to know who is running the Artist Alley, and see their work.

And I am sure we have met and talked at con, but I am sorry to say I am horrible with names, and as everyone tends to use a different name on the forums, I can’t say I remember who you are.  Or I should say, I may remember who you are, but not knowing your Forum username, I might not realize just who I am talking too.

Also, I understand the need to defend yourself and the points we bring up, but we aren’t asking you to justify every little thing you do. But to realize that people aren’t as happy with things as you think they are, and realize that you might need to make compromises with your artists, or risk losing out on some quality people.

I do want to bring up the Dealer’s room issue though, since I’ve had this problem at other cons, where I would be happy to get a dealer’s table—just one Big problem.  From what I’ve seen with most Dealer’s rooms, is that they go back to the people who’ve already had tables first.  Which means that if every dealer from last year returns—no one new can get in.  So its not as easy as you seem to think it is to just pick up and move to the Dealer’s room.  However, in the Artist Alley it’s first come, first served, every year. So returning artists and new artists all have the same chance at getting a spot.

Now, if I am wrong and Connecticon doesn’t do this—and its first come, first served with Dealer’s room as well, I’d be happy to hear about it.

Our dealer’s room policy is to offer spaces to currently exhibiting vendors the opportunity to pay for, in full, the same space they’re currently using. After the end of the convention - we usually have 20% or so of our room available on a first come, first served basis. The past three years our dealer’s room has sold out, all booths paid in full during December/January.

     

Re: What Artists Want for Their Money

[quote author=“Owls Mirror”][quote author=“Skydancer”]

We try to be intuitive and prevent incidents like when DRS showed up and yelled at some artists because they didn’t have licenses. It’s not easy trying to balance state laws with the opinions of our artists, as it is equally difficult for lawmakers, but I think the AC staff does a good job with this.

The unfortunate truth about the DRS raid is that Connecticon was 100% responsible for the lack of information pertaining to the need of the sales tax license in relation to the Artist Colony. Connecticut law was and is very clear on how it applies to an trade show exhibition. Think about how bad it would have looked for Connecticon if just one artist actually had a license ready to present. It would then show how much more knowledgeable the attendee is than the con staff that should be fully away of these regulations. There was never a concern for years so it is understandable that it slipped through the cracks, but the ultimate liability sat on Connecticon.

The positive side is that the DRS only gave a warning and demanded that all of the artists file the sales tax and Connecticon corrected the information for the following year. It was turned into a much larger issue than necessary. The site says too much making it sound like a scary requirement. It can be simplified to:
You must have a CT Sales and Use Tax License ID in order to submit your registration for an Artist Colony space.
The fee is $100 and is active for 5 years.
Go to “website” to file.

I just simplified more than 7,000 characters (with spaces) from the AC page into 3 simple to understand lines. I hope you will take my above suggestions into consideration to make the tax issue a much easier process in the future.

[quote author=“Skydancer”]

I personally apologize if the rules affect anyone in a more profound way than others, but they have to be fair for everyone.

Actually, our rules of membership which also apply to Artists’ Colony members in addition to any rules applied only to Artists’ Colony members do state that you must comply with all federal, state and local laws. So while the state laws changed on us between our inception in 2003, and the day DRS decided to stroll through Artists’ Colony and cause a havoc in 2009 - while it would have been very helpful for us to keep up on changes in state laws, responsibility of knowledge in order to comply with federal, state and local laws falls upon the member to follow and the respective government agencies to enforce - we do our best to keep everyone informed.

We did initially try to use a few simple lines on our AC info page, but we were constantly hit with questions, concerns and confusion about it, that said we felt that we should include more information on the page regarding the sales tax license and it has drastically reduced the number of questions we receive.

We also used to have our AC rules posted on that page - I’m guessing they are one of the many things that seem to magically disappear when content updates were made in the past - I’ll see if I can’t figure out how to further update that page to include the AC rules.

[quote author=“OwlsMirror”]I will disagree that they are fair for everyone otherwise you wouldn’t hear us complaining if we didn’t forsee an impact. They are equal for everyone, but that has always been the case. They are an attempt at making the previous complainants happier, but in the process you are upset a new group.

As far as the fan art rule applies it doesn’t affect me, but it really upsets me how much more strict Connecticon is making the rule than other cons. Sadly this rule has been scrutinized by many other anime conventions because of a particular couple who have never attended Connecticon. What angers us off the most about this is that their antics are affecting us well beyond their scope of attendance. And yes, I do have a personal vendetta against that couple because one of them had stolen a piece of our work for her own profit. Even if you want to deny any relationship all us us artists can backtrack the incidents leading to all of the restrictions that have built at every con in the last few years.

I understand the need for Connecticon to protect itself legally, but the only fair restriction on fan art is to ban it altogether and only allow original art, but that would be against the spirit of an artist alley because fan art is what the attendees want.

Since I am hitting at the topic of copyright issue you might want to take a look at the AC rules and make a slight adjustment:
The following items are prohibited from sale within the Artists’ Colony:

a. Any work with copyrighted logos, regardless of whether or not the work is
original.

This should say Trademark logos. Copyright will come with it naturally. The use of the logo would be trademark infringement because posting that logo is the same as saying it is official art and a representation of the artist/organization that originally created the idea. Trademark infringement is a much worse offense than copyright infringement. The fun, joy, and ambiguity of intellectual property.

I agree, it always sucks when one person can ruin something for everyone else.

I appreciate the thoughtful updates to the rules, we’ll look into getting those bits updated, and take into consideration your suggestion regarding fan art altogether.

[quote author=“OwlsMirror”][quote author=“Skydancer”]

The biggest shows that I’ve been to have even stricter rules about their AA’s. NYCC is the best example I have- their AA spaces are just seas of barren tables. They’re often not allowed to display work at all, they have to keep it to portfolios, fliers, and business cards. So, I know that the new rules are not out of line. We would not have approved them if we thought they were unreasonable.

NYCC is actually not a fair comparison to Connecticon. No artist who exhibits the way we do at CTcon, Otakon, AnimeNext, AnimeBoston will, in their right mind get an artist table at NYCC unless they are a fully established Comic artist. The table is more than $400 and the reason the displays only contain artist books is because these are primarily professional, established comic artists that are presenting the published comics they have worked on. Most of these artists are selling the original artwork to get it out of their hair because they know they can get a good return and they have no need to store it. For the most part these artists are primarily doing commissions and sitting at the table to promote themselves. Some may be unpublished and are displaying in hope of getting a buyer to publish their work. They aren’t their to pay off the table and hotel expenses. I’m not saying this is true for all of them. But it will hold true for the majority. This is a convention run by an exhibition company whose only concern is turning a profit. It is not a not-for-profit membership based event run by fans like the ones I have listed.

NYAF can be a bit more comparable. It is also run by Reed Exhibitions and is now held at the same time as NYCC, but the AA is kept separate. The tables cost about half as much. Maybe both of these events are being run a little different now, but if anyone wants to talk about a lack of respect from event staff Reed events are at the top of my list. I have had issues in dealing with them and have no interest in continuing in the future. The artist were treated like an afterthought. We really were third class citizens. I have heard it has gotten better over the years, but they have been too much of a hassle for my interest. The irony…I live in NYC. I don’t have to pay the exorbitant hotel rates, I don’t have to pay for travel, yet I won’t justify spending on a Reed event. Maybe I will reconsider in a year or two, but I have found other much more respectful events to attend instead, one of which, FurFright, falls on the same weekend. Now talk about a well run convention. I think FurFright instantly jumped to the top of my list.

Back to where this point started. If CTcon wants to go an all tabletop/artbook display route then I know I will be out of the AC for that year…and if the rule isn’t clearly posted on the website before I register I will expect a refund. I hope this isn’t the direction that is coming to mind. If you are going to compare to any convention stay within the theme of your own and you will see where the similarities are. Although CTcon is multigenre, yuurikun is correct in stating that it is anime dominated. Other anime cons are the best comparison, especially ones of roughly the same size.

[quote author=“Skydancer”]

As for communication, I know for a fact that the AC staff is always available to talk with their artists about concerns. They may not be available online 24/7, but they’re always at staff meetings, MADs, and other events. Face to face conversation seems to be their preferred method of communication.

I am a fan of face to face communication, but for an event like this you need to be in contact with people that you could only possibly see face to face at the con. I have worked in environments where the only communication is through email although face to face contact is readily available. In your case email communication is the only option to reach all of us that need to reliably get information in spurts. The website should always have information posted for each department. I know none of you can spend 24/7 checking and responding to email, but maybe each department needs to make sure they have someone holding the responsibility to keep up with emails in maybe a two day turn around or a single staffer that answers a broad range of emails and only tranfers the ones they can’t answer to the necessary department.

I know this is easier said than done, but just a thought to consider to help get the communication flowing better. While watching forums I see three main people posting frequently, thehappyguy, Skydancer, and Cels. It seems that a Communications Staffer would be a big help.

Your feedback and discussion on all of the above matters is appreciated.

     

Re: What Artists Want for Their Money

Hey, the Hartford circus fire was in 1944

<!—m—>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_circus_fire<!—m—>

Perhaps you could referr the AA to the fire marshal rules? A website, perhaps.

     

Re: What Artists Want for Their Money

Ian,

We’ll discuss the potential for refunds and how we’ll handle the height restrictions at the staff meeting this Sunday.

We’ll also have some time to discuss any amendments we might make for this year’s convention and for 2012.

[quote author=“hemlock_inyx”]I have two questions.

First, since you are saying that Artists only pay for the Top of Tables for display purposes, can we have a height restriction from the Top of the Table?  Since we are being discouraged from setting up any kind of display on the floor anyway, it would make more sense.  Several people have suggested 5ft being reasonable and still in line with what you are trying to do by avoiding a “canyon of banners”. Or even 4ft high, which again is pretty close to your current Height restrictions, but gives us an even number to work with, since 3.8’ is an awkward number to work with.  And you could even say that any banner that sits on the Floor not go over 6ft high, while displays that sit on tables, only be 5ft (or 4ft) high.  Again, giving us a little more to work with in such short notice.  Then for next year, you can make the heights even lower, but give Artists Plenty of Time to either change their displays to fit, or just skip going altogether.

And second, if you don’t want to give us a Top of Table height restriction—especially one that we can’t meet in less than a month to the convention, can we get refunds?  Again, since your new rules are Not posted to the website, I can see lots of the newer artists unable to comply when they arrive, not aware of such restrictions.  And many are going to want to be refunded as well, if they are told they can’t set up at all, or have to go with out any sort of display.

And on a side note, are dealer’s given height restrictions on their displays? I can see how many of your arguments about displays falling over could apply to them as well.

Hemlock,

1) The AC staff and I will discuss display heights and get you a from the top of the table height restriction when I hear back from the decorator about the height of the tables (“standard” tables are 28”, 29” or 30” from the top of the table to the floor). AC rules were emailed to everyone who participated in last years’ AC and everyone who had inquired to be put on the waiting list this year, before AC registration opened up this year.

2) I have no problem providing you with a refund, as I imagine you might have some difficulty getting your display to meet our new requirements - I believe it was over 9’ tall when I saw it at AnimeBoston.

Side note) Dealer’s do not have a height restriction, however, their booth set up must not impede their neighboring booths or block off shared foot paths - they’re also required to carry their own insurance in case of an accident.

[quote author=“roofpig”]Much to the disdain of the mods and staff members, I’m going to chime in here.  I’ve made my feelings very clear over the past 6 months, in one thread in particular that I had to stop going into because I was afraid I was going to have an aneurysm from the rage it gave me.  I’m mostly echoing sentiments that have been made in this thread already, the biggest being lack of communication.  I don’t expect you to reiterate your responses, I’m just making a stand for artist solidarity here.

As a previous poster pointed out, the general response to any person who gives negative feedback often feels as if the mod/staff member is dismissing the feedback.  Whether or not that’s what you’re doing - and I’m sure it’s not - that’s the way it comes across.  There are ways to deal with feedback, and I say this in all seriousness, perhaps the staff members of ConnectiCon could benefit from some sort of customer service workshop.  Just a suggestion.

The other thing I’ve heard many times over when negative feedback is given is, “Well, we’re just volunteers.  We all have lives.”  To which I’m going to start saying, “Sh*t or get off the pot.”  If you can’t handle something as big as ConnectiCon with the way your life is going (and believe me, having just had my first kid, being in the process of moving, and leaving my day job, I understand real life obstacles), perhaps its time to pass the torch.  Again, just a suggestion.

I WILL say that I agree on the fan art rules, and I’m sure I’ll be drawing the ire of the other artists because of that (might as well make enemies on both sides).  A flood of fan art in an artist alley is a detriment to those like myself who struggle to promote original artwork.  And, as ConnetiCon is a self-proclaimed pop-culture event and not an anime convention, I’d like a fair shot in the alley.

So, representatives from both sides - lock and load, and get me in your cross hairs.

Most companies/organizations have a pretty standard response to feedback: “Thank you for your feedback it will be taken into consideration.” At the bottom it then tells you not to reply to the notice as nobody is on the other end of the email… we do our best to give you guys our reasoning and rationale behind every decision we make - sometimes it may come across as defensive, but we’re really just trying to keep an open door policy with everyone, so they understand where we’re coming from and why we made the decision that we did. Maybe we should just start off all of our responses to feedback with an acknowledgment that it was received and we’ll consider it before providing an explanation, or maybe we should just stop explaining ourselves - it often doesn’t seem to make a difference…

All I could think of when you said crosshairs was Sarah Palin crazy map! AHAHAHAH! thanks for the laugh =)

[quote author=“yuureikun”]Thank you, Matt, for sounding reasonable in your post.  I know that over the internet things can get misrepresented, but I do want to let you know your posts came out like you were understanding.

Now while I know my biggest problem with the new rules is the display policy, Inyx posted above and I will wait to hear your response to her post before I go further with that.

While the fan art rule is more understandable to have, here is my problem with it.  It has been my problem with it since Otakon enacted it. I think examples always work best to illustrate points:

I am a plushie maker.  I make some fan art plushies.  10 of one plushie is a LOT for me to make of one and 200 plushies would take me a LONG time to make.  But say I do.  I make 10 Cloud plushies from FF7 and I have my 200 fan art plushies.  I sell them for $25 each (which with the amount of time and cost is pretty reasonable).  For the weekend I can make $5000 just off of my fan art, $250 being from my Cloud sales.  We’ll go high too: let’s say my cost for said plushies is $5 per plush.  So at most, my 200 plushies cost me $1000.  My profit here is $4000.

Now I am a button maker.  I make a mix of fan art and other fun buttons.  10 of one button (like a Cloud from FF7) is NOTHING.  I could sell that in an hour.  200 buttons is nothing.  I could sell that in a day and a half.  But okay.  I sell my buttons for $2 each (an average amount for medium sized buttons).  For the weekend, I can make $400 from my fan art, with only $20 of it being from Cloud.  My cost is fractions of a penny per button; so we’ll say my total profit is $398.

This is where I also see a serious lack of fairness (again, equal; but fair? no).  Me as plushie maker could turn a HUGE profit while the button maker in me would profit a 10th of the plushie maker.  Even just focusing on a single character: Cloud could rake me in $230 more if I am a plushie maker rather than a button maker. This is also not to mention the major investments.  A button maker is around $300 for a good one (so now my profits are $98).  A sewing machine is around $200 for an awesome machine (so now my profits are $3800).  You can easily see the discrepancy.  The blanket rule of numbers isn’t as fair as it sounds on paper.  You might find in the coming years that the smaller products disappear in favor of more expensive crafts and large prints.

If you want to have a fan art policy, that’s fine.  In my personal opinion there has never been a big problem with fan art in the CTCon AC to warrant restrictions.  But if you want them, there has to be a better solution than copying Otakon’s flawed rules.  Can we come up with a better solution?  Maybe then, Otakon will copy you.

We’ll see what we can do - it is a prickly subject.

[quote author=“chrisdame”]Hey, the Hartford circus fire was in 1944

<!—m—>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_circus_fire<!—m—>

Perhaps you could referr the AA to the fire marshal rules? A website, perhaps.

Yup - that stupid ass fire is still haunting us all today with all the stupid policies it has put into place in Connecticut - it is why all of our public schools must have twice a month, mandatory fire alarm tests, it is why we can’t prop open doors at the convention center, it is definitely good for the general well being of the public and their safety, but it sure does make things more difficult on a regular basis.

I wish I knew why EVERY broadcast channel in CT runs the “monthly” emergency broadcast system test on a nightly basis… that really bugs me too!

     

Re: What Artists Want for Their Money

I’m glad this is being discussed. I hope the con staff doesn’t feel like we’re trying to gang up on them, or that we don’t appreciate how much work goes into running an artists alley. I do appreciate how much work you guys are doing, and I thank you for it, and I had a great time at ConnetiCon last year, and was hoping to go this year, but I just got so frustrated I decided to wait it out and go next year when hopefully things will be running a little more smoothly in terms of Artists Alley. 

While I do think selling fanart at an anime con is fine (and what most customers want anyway), I can understand if the staff wants to limit the amount of fanart sold, or ban it out right. That’s not the part I have a problem with. I’m frustrated because it took so long to get a clear response about the rules regarding fanart.  I sent an email at the beginning of May (at the suggestion of Cels and Skydancer) and never got any response (at this point I just decided to give up CTcon and wait until next year hoping the rules would be clearer by then).

Also, it doesn’t seem fair that the number of fan art buttons you’re allowed to sell is the same number as the fanart prints you’re allowed to sell. Prints usually go for $20 a pop while buttons sell for about $1 or $2, and I have to sell waaaaay more buttons to make back my money than someone who sells prints. <!—s:(—><!—s:(—> Shouldn’t the limit be based on the cost of the item?  Maybe have a rule like items costing $20 or more are limited to 200 fanart copies, items costing $5 or less are limited to 600 fan art copies, items ranging in between are limited to 400, something like that so it’s a little more balanced. Otherwise I may have to raise the price of my fan art buttons. I also had a question about fanart, do the rules about fanart only apply to trademarked characters? For example long cat is a popular, well known character, but is not a registered trademark and you can’t be sued for using his likeness. Would a drawing of long cat still be considered fanart?

Now that communication seems to be going again and the rules regarding fanart seem to have been cleared up I will look into going next year (I would like too, I loved our neighbors last year), I just wish this had been dealt with earlier.