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Nov. 11th, 2010 at 3:52 PM
The Show: Youmacon
Where: Detroit Mariott at the Renaissance Center (The GMC convention center) in Detroit, MI
When: Halloween weekend (October 29-31), 2010
Which Fandoms: Anime, though I saw a decent number of other things, e.g., a Xena, a Hellboy, a dancing banana.
Demographic: The usual, with a notable number of old-school Naruto fans and a handful of older people from the hotel just wandering through to see what all the fuss was about.
How Many Days Did You Attend: All of them
Why Did You Attend: the Artists' Alley
How Many Years Have You Done This: This was my first.
Review of Con-Staff interactions: The staff members we talked to were super-helpful and super-friendly. There were, however, a few hiccups.
Review of Pricing: The sudden table shrinkage brought this from "good" to "okay." I paid $60 for an 8' table (switched to 6') and $35 for a pre-reg ticket. Registration was $45 at the door.
Review of Location: The GMC convention center is huge, with architecture reminiscent of FF7/Advent Children's. (Big, gray, industrial.) There's a CVS and a food court in the bottom floor, with places open for breakfast but not open very late. The Coney Island hotdog place is tasty; the Rice Box (Americanized Chinese) place uses so much sugar in their sauces their food is barely edible. The hotel/center itself offers relatively cheap hot dogs and nachos until odd hours.
Convention center valet parking costs $25 a day, though there's spots as low as $3 a day within walking distance. I don't recommend wandering the neighborhood--actually, you could easily spend the entire weekend inside the center--but the location itself is not in the "bad" part of Detroit.
The elevators were not built to handle this convention's traffic. People with lots of stuff to carry shouldn't expect to get up or down them in any reasonable amount of time on Friday or Saturday night. People trying to get up or down them on Sunday should be prepared for hotel staff to take over and (possibly) not allow you to get on. Thankfully, there's lots of escalators on the floors where Youmacon takes place.
The center takes its security seriously. My stuff all got checked out by bomb dogs. In related news, my one roller-tote is now named Tallie Ban Box.
Review of Artist Alley:
The juried Alley was in an unsecured hallway which anyone--attendee, hotel-goer, or random person off the street--could access, which required artists to set up and tear down every day. One side of the Alley was clumped together in three close-set rows; the other side was a single strip of artists along the balcony. Lighting was not very good for those of us along the balcony, but outlets were available if you remembered to bring a lamp. (I forget if we were supposed to pay for electricity or not.) A Starbucks a few floors down was within range for us to get free wifi, which came in handy for processing credit cards. (A full third of my intake for this show was credit card sales, with a very high number of cards declined. If you take cards at this show--or any show, really--I'd highly recommend running them right then and there.)
On Saturday, in the half hour to hour after the dealer's room closed (aka prime selling time), convention staff forcibly chased customers out of a strip of the Alley in order to make room for the masquerade line. Later that night, they set up a line for the dance three hours before the dance actually started. The dance line wrapped around the building and down a floor--then the bored attendees screamed memes for about three hours straight.
The staff we talked to, though, apologized for problems and swore they'd try to amend things for next year. All without pliers or threats of pulling teeth! <3
Lots of smaller ticket items sold. That said and even with the problems, sales were still good enough to warrant a return.
Other Thoughts:
The registration line was insane. People on Friday sat for two and a half to four hours, waiting to get their tickets. As Youmacon's attendance numbers continue to balloon (from 6,000 attendees last year toOVER 9000 this year), it becomes imperative for them to upgrade to a more efficient system.
Fast food all weekend is not good. :(
Where: Detroit Mariott at the Renaissance Center (The GMC convention center) in Detroit, MI
When: Halloween weekend (October 29-31), 2010
Which Fandoms: Anime, though I saw a decent number of other things, e.g., a Xena, a Hellboy, a dancing banana.
Demographic: The usual, with a notable number of old-school Naruto fans and a handful of older people from the hotel just wandering through to see what all the fuss was about.
How Many Days Did You Attend: All of them
Why Did You Attend: the Artists' Alley
How Many Years Have You Done This: This was my first.
Review of Con-Staff interactions: The staff members we talked to were super-helpful and super-friendly. There were, however, a few hiccups.
Review of Pricing: The sudden table shrinkage brought this from "good" to "okay." I paid $60 for an 8' table (switched to 6') and $35 for a pre-reg ticket. Registration was $45 at the door.
Review of Location: The GMC convention center is huge, with architecture reminiscent of FF7/Advent Children's. (Big, gray, industrial.) There's a CVS and a food court in the bottom floor, with places open for breakfast but not open very late. The Coney Island hotdog place is tasty; the Rice Box (Americanized Chinese) place uses so much sugar in their sauces their food is barely edible. The hotel/center itself offers relatively cheap hot dogs and nachos until odd hours.
Convention center valet parking costs $25 a day, though there's spots as low as $3 a day within walking distance. I don't recommend wandering the neighborhood--actually, you could easily spend the entire weekend inside the center--but the location itself is not in the "bad" part of Detroit.
The elevators were not built to handle this convention's traffic. People with lots of stuff to carry shouldn't expect to get up or down them in any reasonable amount of time on Friday or Saturday night. People trying to get up or down them on Sunday should be prepared for hotel staff to take over and (possibly) not allow you to get on. Thankfully, there's lots of escalators on the floors where Youmacon takes place.
The center takes its security seriously. My stuff all got checked out by bomb dogs. In related news, my one roller-tote is now named Tallie Ban Box.
Review of Artist Alley:
The juried Alley was in an unsecured hallway which anyone--attendee, hotel-goer, or random person off the street--could access, which required artists to set up and tear down every day. One side of the Alley was clumped together in three close-set rows; the other side was a single strip of artists along the balcony. Lighting was not very good for those of us along the balcony, but outlets were available if you remembered to bring a lamp. (I forget if we were supposed to pay for electricity or not.) A Starbucks a few floors down was within range for us to get free wifi, which came in handy for processing credit cards. (A full third of my intake for this show was credit card sales, with a very high number of cards declined. If you take cards at this show--or any show, really--I'd highly recommend running them right then and there.)
On Saturday, in the half hour to hour after the dealer's room closed (aka prime selling time), convention staff forcibly chased customers out of a strip of the Alley in order to make room for the masquerade line. Later that night, they set up a line for the dance three hours before the dance actually started. The dance line wrapped around the building and down a floor--then the bored attendees screamed memes for about three hours straight.
The staff we talked to, though, apologized for problems and swore they'd try to amend things for next year. All without pliers or threats of pulling teeth! <3
Lots of smaller ticket items sold. That said and even with the problems, sales were still good enough to warrant a return.
Other Thoughts:
The registration line was insane. People on Friday sat for two and a half to four hours, waiting to get their tickets. As Youmacon's attendance numbers continue to balloon (from 6,000 attendees last year to
Fast food all weekend is not good. :(