=tigerangel

We got back from the Ame weekend at 1.30am Tuesday morning Yup you heard me - Tuesday morning! There was a lot of cleaning up to do after the attendees left XD

Oh god, the drive back was..fun. I was so tired from having not had more than 4 hours sleep a night for nearly a week that I was beginning to hallucinate on the way home x_x Not crazy hallucinations, I think I was just somewhere inbetween being awake and asleep, and whilst my vision was totally out of focus, somehow my mind was ' pre-dreaming' and visualising things that weren't there. Fortunately though, I wasn't the one driving 8D

But anyway!


I really enjoyed the Ame weekend. Even though it was a LOT of work being on the committee, I don't think I would have had it any other way ^^ It would have been nice to see more of my friends, and it would have been nice to go for a meal but such is life. If it weren't for me working hard on the committee, then said people wouldn't have had an event to come to in the first place XD

There was only one thing that annoyed me about the weekend itself - The wind totally blew my wig completely out of style and it was really untidy by 10am on Saturday morning ;_; So I'm afraid that all the photos of my cosplay have unsightly messy hair XD Well, there was also having to go on-stage in front of 1500 people. Twice. X_X But that falls under 'daunting' and not annoying. I need lessons in not being scared and nervous in the spotlight XD

I'm really glad that the free keyrings Scott and I suggested and sorted out went down well ^_^ The cloth conbags worked a treat too, and lots of people were squeeing about the artwork I did for the bags ^^ Lots of people liked the Junior badge too, in fact overall I haven't heard anyone say anything negative at all about the artwork this year so we must have done something right in that department ~ I was also in charge of the cosplay ball decorations this year, and many people were saying how beautiful it was which was lovely ^^

The Artists Alley seemed to be much more popular this year than last. Well, I didn't go to it last year but I'd heard it was practically dead, so I guess anything is an improvement over last year. The competition seemed to be very popular as well, and the entries were just so difficult to judge, we had to create 2 more prizes on the day 8D;;

I'm also very glad that the 2 items I put into the Charity Auction raised a lot of money for charity! The Ame-Chan plushie that I paid for, designed and organised went for £400, and the Ame-Chan cel I painted sold for a whopping £460 x_x That's by far and away the highest price I've seen anything go for at a convention charity auction, and I can safely say that the whole room just descended into jaw-dropping shock when it passed the £400 mark. We can all thank Cin for supplying us with that shocker, and also applaud him at the same time for donating so much to charity whilst having to enture the ungodly sight of my scribblings on his wall as an eternal reminder of the hole in his wallet XDDD

Oh! Our main guest Kari this year was absolutely WONDERFUL. Seriously. She was so chatty and nice and absolutely lovely that if anybody didn't chat to her then it's a serious loss on their part. I was really incredibly surprised by how eager she was to meet everyone, and Kari's performance on the masquerade was just flawless. I really hope that we see her again at a UK convention! ^_^


We announced at the closing ceremony that we would be taking a break from running an event at the mass-scale of Amecon in 2009 and we'd be returning in 2010. We just need a break.....a summer holiday would be nice too XD However we did put up a suggestive little teaser image ^_~ I'm not allowed to say anything about that though Mwahaha!

Ayacon, however, stepped up and said they were 'thinking about' running in 2009 instead. So for the first time in 3 years, I will have a summer con to go to where I'm a mere attendee rather than a convention artist or a member of staff of some level ^_~ Crap though, I'd better renew my passport as I'll need a new form of ID by then *sigh* Nevermind though, I hear the new passports have wings on them so all will work out well *_*


The only dampener is the people saying such negative things about Amecon 2008 in the feedback forums. At a very rough guess, I would put it at only 5-10% of attendees but they seem to be very good at making it feel like much more than that figure ; It's unfortunate that we live in a world where people only speak up to complain (and some only complain for the sake of complaining) and simply keep silent about praise or the things that went well or the things they enjoyed. It helps to have constructive feedback to know what things didn't work well, but it also helps to know what *did* work well so we can keep those features and improve them further Fortunately feedback has shifted a lot more towards positive and constructive feedback in recent days though and I've even heard some of the complainers take a step back and admit "Actually, maybe I was a little harsh earlier in the week, as now I've come back home to normality I've realised how awesome the weekend was..." and it's always a pleasent surprise to hear people admit when they were perhaps taking things out us that were beyond our control. Like the weather, unfortunately we can't book the weather XD It's England, darlings, surely you're used to the crappy, unpredictable weather by now? ^3^

I have to say that from an entirely personal point of view, this Amecon went well, given everything that's happened in the last year. Especially since some of the committee members have had a really rough time this year in terms of personal lives. I'm not using that as an excuse for the people who didn't enjoy the event, moreso trying to think of it another way. If we can run an event that the majority of attendees loved when we're dealing with our own personal 'life' problems and running on low steam, then just imagine what we can do when we've refreshed ourselves after a hard-earned year off from 3 years of solid hard work. I'm very proud of how we got through everything to run the event, and I look forward to working with such fine people again, hopefully with less of life's little curveballs ^_^