Complaints.

[Darkwolfsoul010]

So, it's sunday evening and I am sad to say that the con is over. I had an over all good time. I give the con a 7.5/10. It was much better than last year, but I still have a few things to say.

1. The worst thing about the con that had ruined my friends and mine evening; The masquerade. I was looking forward to showing off my costume in front of a lot of people and I had a wonderful time doing that. What really ticked me off was the rule that stated that we couldn't leave. Me and my friend were about 10th in line so we finished our part in the masquerade in about 20 minutes. 7:15 (Ish) we check the time and settle back to watch the rest of the cosplayers. It got unbelivably hot very very fast. It was dificult to sit still in the costumes in such a hot and crowded area, on top of this we were wearing wigs and makeup which don't do well in sticky and sweaty situations. After this we thought we could get up and walk around for a while, but nope, I was told that we were not allowed to leave until the judges told us the winners. This would have been ok if the half time show didn't last 2 hours with uncle yo talking for 3/5ths of it.

At one point the judges went over time so Uncle Yo was improvising. Also the judges got lost?...Or something like that where we had to wait some more for them to get back and announce who was the winner. Another thing I had wrong with the masquerade was the fact that is started at 6.45 and tech rehearsal ended at 6. This leaves practically no time for the contestants to eat dinner. The nearest food joint was a block away at Grand Avenue Mall, and in 45 minutes, I don't know how fast you would have to eat. On top of this they expect us to sit for 3 hours on an empty stomach. I felt really bad for the skit performers who had to stay even longer!

So to sum it up I hated the fact that we had to sit still for almost 4 hours in a hot smelly sweaty and crowded room on an empty stomach. It left me exaughsted.

Another problem with the masquerade was low quality technology. 3/4ths of the time I couldn't hear or understand the people doing the skits. How come all the guests and judges get a mic when they coe on stage but two or three people who are performing cant? I understand if a mic was the crappy clip on ones but still it would be better than nothing. Add a huge amount of whispering or cheering or rude people in the crowd, and you could hear nothing at all.

While people were walking up and down on stage to show of their costumes, there was music playing. This is understandable because it would be awkward to walk onto the stage and be greeted with silence. But could you at least choose apropriate music?! Maybe the anime theme or something. But something completely irrelivant like the Pokemon theme (Really? Really?!) made the crowd start singing and lose all intrest in the cosplayer.

My last thing to add to this list about the masquerade is the lack of organization. My friend and I were led backstage and then left there with a group of other contestants. There was practically no supervision and if there was they had no idea what was going on. It was time for the masquerade to start and every contestant was told to stand up and then we were haphazardly placed in order. Why couldn't they have done this in the begining when everyone was waiting? Why were we asked to come 15 minutes early to do nothing in a huge gumble of confusion? I don't understand.

2. The line for registration. Me and most of my group had pre registered (Thank god!) but one friend of mine arrived on saturday at 10 am. She was out of the line at 2PM. This is unacceptable. She wasted half of her day in the line. When we passed the line at 4pm it was still reaching around the building into the hallway. What is the point of coming if by 4pm you are still in line?! IDK what was going on to make it this slow, but something NEEDS to be fixed! Add more people! Add maniac robots! Monkeys even! But to arrive at a con and waste most of your time in line is pathetic.

3. From what I understand the rule that bags aren't allowed in the rave still has not changed! Where do we put our bags? Coat check? I'm sorry, but I am not comfortable leaving my cell phone, money, and other valuables in a room filled with strangers. Why can't we bring these things into a rave? It's not your problem if I loose something by bringing it into the rave on my own accord. That would be my fault, but what if something went missing at the coat check? Then it's your fault.

4. Stupid rules that aren't enforced or followed.
•Do not cut in line or save spots for events. This rule is never followed ever. I saw people reserving whole rows of seats for their friends. If you hve a space on your website for this rule why is no one enforcing it? Why is it there if it doesn't matter?
•No bare feet. I understand this rule because of the danger that might occure. But again NO ONE is enforcing it. Even a close friend of mine was walking around barefoot for most of the con and recieved no comments (Besides mine)

5. I understand that hugs are a good thing. Everyone loves them. Glomps are a different thing. A running tackle can seriously injure a person. Glomping a regular person might cause some harm. Glomping a cosplayer might do serious damage. A friend of mine broke a few cosplays and STILL didn't listen when we told her to stop. If I spent a huge amount of time and money on a cosplay only to have some maniac jump on me and break a peice off, I will be PISSED. Again I say, where are the workers? The volenteers? Anyone? Come on safty should be the biggest concern shouldn't it?

[Angelskiss2007]

My friends and I also spent 2 hours in line on Saturday. It was a frustrating process since they seemed to have 5 stations for processing people, yet a few time there were only 4 in use, and while there were 3 people per station, it was still taking between 3 and 5 minutes to process one person. I love and adore those that choose to volunteer, but texting while your registering people makes those in line want to murder you, just sayin...

[vashgunfighter]

I can't address all of your complaints but I can at least answer one or two. The bag rule at the Rave is not because we're concerned you'll lose anything but because it's easy for people to bring in things they shouldn't. That's more of a rule for safety of con attendees.

The registration line was an issue and it will be on top of our list for things to discuss for next year. We apologize for the wait to your friend and all of our attendees. We had an unforeseen volume of walk-up registrations and we did all we could to get people through as fast as possible. Trust me, we are aware of the issue and it will definitely be discussed =)

As for the glomping, I personally never saw this while there and I'm not going to make excuses for these things happening. However, I will level with you and admit human error is likely for this one (we can't be everywhere). We do work hard to keep con goers safe and enforce the rules whenever and wherever we can. The most likely solution would be expanding the staff which we always are looking to do. I will bring this up at our next meeting

That goes for all of your concerns. Seriously, we appreciate critical feedback. We want to know what we can do to enhance your experience at the convention. It's about you guys getting the most out of your weekend with AMKE. We're still a newer, growing convention and, as such, we're still learning. The best way to shape it into something you all want is making sure you're heard. Spread that message along if you can, we can always use some more perspectives from you guys!

[vashgunfighter]

My friends and I also spent 2 hours in line on Saturday. It was a frustrating process since they seemed to have 5 stations for processing people, yet a few time there were only 4 in use, and while there were 3 people per station, it was still taking between 3 and 5 minutes to process one person. I love and adore those that choose to volunteer, but texting while your registering people makes those in line want to murder you, just sayin...

We actually had four walk-up stations and one pre-reg station. The pre-reg station wasn't equipped for money transactions unfortunately otherwise we would have totally opened that up. The time to process someone on average was because we have to enter the registrant's information into our system in order to print a badge the assemble it quick. We'll be discussing ways to enhance registration for next year so this hopefully won't be an issue again. Once again, we apologize for the wait from registration.

[quinnsanity]

The only problem I really had was at karaoke. Don't get me wrong, my problem is NOT with the group running it. They are amazing. I was there last year for every hour that karaoke ran.

My problem was with the people at karaoke.

I FINALLY got to sing and asked that no one come on stage with me so my friend & I could sing (The same group kept jumping on stage for every song they did NOT sign up for). If you want tp dance in front of the stage, awesome. Just have some respect for the people who signed up & waited. Sing while you dance. Before the music even started, the group jumped on stage with us and basically pushed me away from the microphone. I almost walked off stage. I did leave right after the song because it was just ridiculous. I even told someone about it, but don't know if anything was said.

[Blue Link]

For the line, I would suggest letting us pre-register for single day passes. They fact that you could only pre-reg for the whole weekend is kinda dumb since they would have the entire weekend so waiting in line for them wouldn't have been bad, but for the single days you spend anywhere from 1/4 to a 1/2 of your day in line.

Another thing, see if you can negotiate something with the parking structure for Special Event parking. When we asked the booth attendant about it when we were leaving, his response was something along the lines of "Well that started at 12:30". I can only assume he ment 12:30 pm, but just because we got there 45 minutes before, we didn't get a special rate? I mean regardless of if someone is parking there or not, the structure is still there and the fact that this event is bringing so many people, they should be able to strike a deal.

[vashgunfighter]

The only problem I really had was at karaoke. Don't get me wrong, my problem is NOT with the group running it. They are amazing. I was there last year for every hour that karaoke ran.

My problem was with the people at karaoke.

I FINALLY got to sing and asked that no one come on stage with me so my friend & I could sing (The same group kept jumping on stage for every song they did NOT sign up for). If you want tp dance in front of the stage, awesome. Just have some respect for the people who signed up & waited. Sing while you dance. Before the music even started, the group jumped on stage with us and basically pushed me away from the microphone. I almost walked off stage. I did leave right after the song because it was just ridiculous. I even told someone about it, but don't know if anything was said.

Hmmm, we can talk to the karaoke group and see if something can be done about reigning that sort of thing in a bit. I can understand why that would be upsetting. Apologies all around.

For the line, I would suggest letting us pre-register for single day passes. They fact that you could only pre-reg for the whole weekend is kinda dumb since they would have the entire weekend so waiting in line for them wouldn't have been bad, but for the single days you spend anywhere from 1/4 to a 1/2 of your day in line.

Another thing, see if you can negotiate something with the parking structure for Special Event parking. When we asked the booth attendant about it when we were leaving, his response was something along the lines of "Well that started at 12:30". I can only assume he ment 12:30 pm, but just because we got there 45 minutes before, we didn't get a special rate? I mean regardless of if someone is parking there or not, the structure is still there and the fact that this event is bringing so many people, they should be able to strike a deal.

Single-day passes for pre-reg is something that was already suggested after the con and will definitely be discussed. As for the parking structure, that situation is a little more difficult. The structures are hard to negotiate with for the discount because they're not owned by the hotels or convention center like your typical parking structures. They're owned by the city of Milwaukee and they're a little harder to arrange something with. Regardless, it is something we will be exploring further!

[S-Config]

For the line, I would suggest letting us pre-register for single day passes. They fact that you could only pre-reg for the whole weekend is kinda dumb since they would have the entire weekend so waiting in line for them wouldn't have been bad, but for the single days you spend anywhere from 1/4 to a 1/2 of your day in line.

Another thing, see if you can negotiate something with the parking structure for Special Event parking. When we asked the booth attendant about it when we were leaving, his response was something along the lines of "Well that started at 12:30". I can only assume he ment 12:30 pm, but just because we got there 45 minutes before, we didn't get a special rate? I mean regardless of if someone is parking there or not, the structure is still there and the fact that this event is bringing so many people, they should be able to strike a deal.

The website had a section for giving tips and tricks on how to park in downtown milwaukee. but it was kinda vauge about it. There is cheap parking in downtown. an example of that is I parked in the boston store parking complex which is $5 for all day. and it's a little over a block away from the Frontier Airlines Center . BUT if you go right next door to the open-lot parking. then it shoots up to $10 in morning $15 at night.

Another trick is there's a window of oppertunity where if you're working on friday and you show up to a downtown convention later. you can park very close to the side-streets because everyone is going home from downtown and the concert events and bar-time insanity hasen't started. so usually between the hours of 6pm - 8pm you can park on the street for almost an all-nighter (up until 2am then the cops will ticket you $25 for not having a street permit)

As for negotiating with parking structures for better rates. That might be a no-go as due to the Marquette interchange being completely torn up where people used to park ultra-cheap ($2-4 back in the day) everyone who owns a parking lot in downtown knows it's a premium and they're not going to back down on their prices.

[AnimeGeek120]

[quote="Blue Link"]For the line, I would suggest letting us pre-register for single day passes. They fact that you could only pre-reg for the whole weekend is kinda dumb since they would have the entire weekend so waiting in line for them wouldn't have been bad, but for the single days you spend anywhere from 1/4 to a 1/2 of your day in line.

As stated earlier that's a great idea and will be discussed, but there is just one thing I want to point out.

I've been to many cons (AnimeIowa, ColossalCon, Animezing, Geek.kon, ACEN) and the ONLY one I've seen that does pre-reg for single days is ColossalCon. And believe me, some of these other cons could definitely use it as well.

I agree it's a bit dumb, but it's a dumb thing many other cons do. May be we can get a trend starting to get single day pre-reg for other cons as well.

[yuri53122]

The line on Saturday is the reason why I'm already preregistered for a VIP badge for next year.