Wise words

[dalekboy]

"...they don’t think they need saving. I mean, they haven’t changed for years, have they? They’re not designed to be wanted because they don’t want to be wanted, not really. They want to be left alone to do their thing, and they don’t want any loud new people in the room. They serve a dwindling audience, and they have to be aware of that — so they have to be in it to simply serve that audience, to provide that presumably cosy experience to their people until the last light goes out. Otherwise they would have done something different years ago."

That's Warren Ellis talking about sf magazines, but he could be talking about the majority of sf fan clubs and conventions in Australia.

Just because your friends turn up, doesn't mean it's good.
Just because it breaks even, doesn't mean it's a success.
Just because something runs, that doesn't mean it's still relevant.

More on this later...

Comments

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I once co-presented a panel on the future of Internet art forms, and the audience wouldn't get past e-books. And we were all like "but look! This page actually changes just by the act of loading it! You help create the art as you view it!!" and they were all like "But now I can read Heinlein on my monitor!"

Great times.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Wai-Con is a weird beast. It's huge and monolithic, and also bizarrely unwelcoming and standoffish. It was an odd experience going last year. I felt it was how an "average joe" would feel coming to a Swancon, which I'm ridiculously familiar with, and then suddenly I was trying to wrap my head around 97 hour costume parades.

I didn't realise WASFF had said it wouldn't succeed. I always figured a big anime con was always a good bet - although admittedly I didn't predict it would be *that* big. If anyone in Perth was clever enough to do a comics/pop culture con, I suspect you'd get similar numbers.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

In America they seem to have a problem where all the young fans abandoned Worldcon in droves to go to Dragoncon, which is noticeably younger, fresher, more excitable and has sexier costume parades.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The biggest hurdle JAFWA faces today is (and I suspect this is blindingly obvious and I'm telling you how to suck eggs) that anime used to be this hard-to-obtain commodity, and now anyone can download it off the net - or just wait a few months and buy the Madman DVD. A club where you passively watch is always going to start losing members when those members start finding more convenient ways to passively watch.

The solution? I'd recommend a smaller but more dedicated club, less screenings, more discussions, a strong push to develop a local doujinshi/amateur manga subculture, maybe a shift away from weekly meetings, stuff like that.

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

And lets face it, knowing what some fans ware in costume parades you definately want to be going to the younger, sexier ones :P

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

I think like many things on the internet, there is heaps out there and it takes effort and time to sort through the junk until you find what you want. And personally, I must say I'm really slack.

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

So that's why every time I sucked eggs I failed < / sarcasm >
No, it's apparent and obvious i.e plank to the face obvious. Hence the apathy, why get together with people when you can watch it at home. There isn't even that movie mentality where you have to watch stuff with mates.

JAFWA keeps trying to foster a more enjoyable friendly atmosphere, we now have a foyer where we play games and chat. And the theater is downsized, the problem is if you completly change, you lose people you had before.

In regards to the last bit, Reckon you could keep a saturday night free at some stage? I have a group I want you to meet.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Another problem of course is that Madman now cherry-pick most of the best anime before JAFWA would have a chance to screen it.

Yeah I can keep a Saturday free, depending on which Saturday it is.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

To be honest, there's precious little chance of any decent idea needing months of wrangling through WASFF - we're a pretty positive bunch these days.

I also don't think that the hotels problem is being ignored - it's been a major topic of conversation in con committees and the WASFF board since at least 2000. But each year we manage to find a venue OK, so the tough choices haven't yet had to be made.

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

True - call it a pessimist moment from me.


*love*

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

And I'd argue that that is really all you need. It doesn't really matter if the old people aren't interested in trying new things - the new people will bring new things, and maybe some of the old people will find they like them, maybe they won't, but its all good. Tradition is fine, as long as you can make new traditions. If people don't want to try new things, that will usually break down pretty quick once the people who do try new things start seriously having fun. It doesn't matter if the individual people are somewhat conservative, as long as the institutions are not.

Sadly, though, most fan clubs are deeply conservative institutions.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I don't recall anyone saying Wai-Con wouldn't succeed at a WASFF meeting. I think some people thought Wai-Con might run into some issues with committee structure etc, but as far as running a successful event, I think everyone knew the audience was there. Don't confuse something one individual WASFF member might have said. FWIW, I've been on WASFF for ages, and I was well aware of the success of overseas anime conventions before Wai-Con existed.

I can promise you this - if Wai-Con had approached WASFF wanting funding and advice at any point, including prior to the first con when the size of the audience was unknown, it would have got a positive reception. Whether Wai-Con and/or WASFF are better off now that the con is established without WASFF we'll never have an answer to.

And also - WASFFs role isn't to be the *source* of new ideas. Its supposed to be a boring organisation, because its role is largely to ensure that attention is paid to boring things like insurance, budgets, contracts, etc. I think its lost track of how to do that *well* in recent years, but WASFF already has a process to deal with that problem (its called 'annual elections').

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't that we keep ignoring hotels as an issue - the problem is we keep discovering that its still a hard problem to solve, and every time we take steps to tackle it the next year its got a little bit worse.

(I'm off the opinion that the only *real* solution is to grow swancon as a customer, which means growing attendence both in size and probably spending power. But that just replaces one big issue with another)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The media/lit fan split is real, but if you only go to Swancon and/or Continuums, you probably think its not a big deal.

I'm told its much more notable if you to a thing like Supernova (which advertises itself as a 'pop culture expo' rather than a con). Writers are an afterthought they are a bit confused about. People told me about selling more in one hour at Conflux than in an average day at Supernova, even though Supernova is literally orders of magnitude bigger.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

coughWestLodgecough

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've had that experience too. And bizarre fanatics for and against ebooks, both resolutely ignoring more interesting possibilities.

I'm a little bit bemused by how much the majority of web comics stick to the newspaper daily three panel strip format, too.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've had a lot more to do with it than me, but that's certainly my impression - an incredibly conservative club that wants nothing to change, and wants to remain simply a nostalgia exercise.

I understand JAFWA has managed to get declining attendance at the same time as anime enjoys unprecedented popularity, too.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

well why bother getting off one's arse and going to a meet if you can download it off the net?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Sure. But doesn't Wai-Con show that you can get hundreds of anime fans to attend other sorts of anime events?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The problem with being "The sort of conference that hotels want" is what they want is one that pays a lot. And not just for function space, but hotel markup coffee prices, catered meals, etc.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that's 2 days a year - as opposed to making a weekly commitment. I have students planing on going to Wai-Con. They've been saving for it. But they don't have the time/ resources/ transport to go to something regular like Jafwa (and that's if they even KNOW about it).

[angriest.livejournal.com]

But JAFWA's problem is that they were created as an opportunity for people to see this wonderful exotic thing called anime, and now you can rent all the anime you want from your local Video Ezy.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Three panels works very well for setting up jokes: setup, setup, punchline. Or four panel comics doing: setup, setup, build suspense, punchline.

[bigevilogre.livejournal.com]

The first part was not wanting to be saved, and wanting to be left alone to do their thing. I had been working on a project for 19 years and I didn't want to be saved from that obsession. (I just wanted it to ammount to something) Serving a dwindling audience and to only want to serve that audience, which is how I felt. I didn't care if anyone even knew the project was mine, I only wanted it to be out there and to reach some level of recognition. to provide that presumably cozy experience, you know. I didn't want any money. It would have been nice to get a few bucks if the story sold, but if not I still would have been extatic if it even made it out there. And the last light, mine has gone out. It has left me in a very very ugly depression (And I feel guilty for that. My problem as big as it is to me is so little compared to other people and their problems) I should have done something else years ago.
I had faith, dedication, and people don't even believe how hard I worked and it netted me nothing at all. It broke my heart.
Basically I failed at every single thing I have tried to do or be in my life. I have exhausted everything else I ever had even a little interest in. The story was the last love of my life.
So it might not be the context the article meant, but those were the thoughts it gave me.
Really all I have left in life is sleep and going to work. There really isn't anything left for me.
Sorry to dump such depressing garbage on you like that. I know it's petty and selfish.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Don't be silly, we all need to talk or vent now and again.

My first thought is obvious, easy to say and hard to do - If you've failed at every single thing you've tried, maybe it's time to try some new things. Or old things in different ways. It's scary and hard and you might fail again, or you might not.

But you're the only person who can change it. And I have no doubt that you're strong enough to do it, you certainly have the attitude at times. You just have to make the anger work for you, rather than let yourself sink into dullness and oblivion.

I'm doing NanoWriMo, the flash fiction version of NaNoWriMo. I've never written flash fiction, I have huge problems writing fiction now, I'm pretty certain I'm going to fall substantially short of a story a day, so in light of all that, I've given myself a realistic goal. Two stories. More than that was probably going to be setting myself up for a fall. But I know I can get two stories done in a month, just on anger and determination alone. They may not be good. They may suck arse. Everyone may hate them. I don't fucking care, because what matters is that I do something. If I've done two flash stories by the end of November, then that's two more than I've written in the last eighteen months.

I'm letting the anger make me a volunteer in my life, not a victim of it.

Don't get depressed about being petty and selfish. Get angry and do something! I have genuine faith that you can (as opposed to those new age fuckers who say "Oh I have faith in you, really I do") because I've seen your fury, I've seen the power there. I may hate what you do, I don't know, but it doesn't matter! I'll still be happy if you try something.

And if you fail, I'll kick you in the arse and tell you to have another go *grin*