September 17, 2014 Town Hall PDF

Thank you for attending Amelia Con 2014 or at least caring enough about the event
to read this presentation.
We held a Town Hall at the Days Inn and Suites hotel on Amelia Island on September
17, 2014. Notes from the meeting have been added to provide more detail and
supplemental information to the slides that you otherwise would not know just by
flipping through.
If you have questions or comments, you are welcome to contact us at
[email protected].
All of the information in this presentation was based on research that we did prior to
Amelia Con 2014, feedback we received (namely from the survey and what we saw at
the convention), and research we’ve done after Amelia Con 2014 in preparation for
2016 and in response to the feedback.
We plan to hold at least 2 more Town Hall meetings leading up to the next
convention which will be held on February 5 – 7, 2016 at the same locations and with
the same set-up (a one day exhibit hall with additional events happening on Friday
and Sunday).
Amelia Con Staff has doubled since the convention so that we may better manage
future events. We believe that we are working with a very strong group of people
who offer a lot of expertise in their fields and that this expertise combined with
passion and responsibility will enable Amelia Con to grow.
1
These are the venues that we used in 2014 with the number of people each can
accommodate.
The Fernandina Beach Recreation Center served as our Exhibit Hall and the Women’s
Club served as the Main Events Hall on Saturday only.
We were at the Days Inn & Suites throughout the weekend for select events and
gaming.
Accommodations do not include foyers or outside space.
2
The prior slide’s numbers were used to calculate our maximum attendance for
Saturday’s total admission. We monitored each entry point closely and constantly
assessed the traffic flow to determine if more people could come into a specific hall
at any given time. We even had some volunteers/staff/security patrol and request
that people keep moving in the exhibit hall if they had stopped to stand and talk.
We based our min/max attendance numbers for year 1 on other conventions in the
area and first time conventions in similar venues or with similar guests/exhibit hall
sizes in Florida. We are also taking these numbers into consideration with a +/- 20%
variable for the 2016 event.
We are expanding our attendance cap by reserving the outdoor space at the
Fernandina Beach Recreation Center (Exhibit Hall) and by using tents to provide
additional meeting and panel space.
3
Amelia Con welcomed over 1100 attendees.
Children 5 and under are included in this number. Children 5 and under received free
admission and we plan to keep that model for 2016. However, we will be using different
colored wristbands so that we can better calculate paid attendance versus free admission for
children.
Originally, we did not expect to sell more than 1 Lifetime Pass and we questioned whether
the VIP Passes would even sell or be well received. We sold out of VIP Passes and 50% (4) of
our Lifetime Passes. The Four remaining Lifetime Passes will be available for sale once our
ticketing system is up again. They will raise in price each year, as previously stated. The price
will increase to $200 per Lifetime Pass for 2016.
We did not anticipate selling tickets on Friday. We thought that maybe 30 people would
show up and we were delighted (and surprised) to see over 100 people at the Days Inn on
Friday Night – especially since there was no exhibit hall or special guest appearances that
day. It was really great to see so many people just hanging out and having a good time
together.
The 150+ Participants include all of our volunteers (including the no-shows), Security, Staff,
Artists (12 booths, 2 badges per booth), and Exhibitors (10 booths with a variety of badges
included). We actually comped a few of our exhibit booths to ensure there would be
diversity and fandom representation in the hall. Two of the comped booths include the
Pirates Club of Fernandina Beach and the 501st Legion. We intend to continue comping their
booths each year so that they can take their profits and use them to better the community
through charitable donations and events.
4
Next, we’re going to talk about some of the feedback we received. This was all
compiled from what we saw/heard at the convention and what we received in the
survey, via email, and saw on Social Media Pages (ours and others) about Amelia Con.
We had over 100 people take the survey over the past week. Most of the people
who responded were between the ages of 22 and 45 and lived on Amelia Island. The
next most represented cities were Jacksonville, followed by Yulee, followed by St.
Mary’s (GA), followed by “somewhere else in Georgia”.
Most of the people taking this survey aligned with the anime, video gaming, and sci-fi
fandoms. Comics and TableTop were tied for a close fourth.
5
This was the biggest issue.
For those who did not attend Amelia Con, our main events hall had several problems
– all of which we have already fixed.
Most notable was the audio issue because we were not provided a sound system.
We have already booked an audio crew through Mark Resiter, our head of Security,
and additional audio equipment and service through Fry Dunman, who is our A/V
lead. Fry was instrumental in 2014’s convention because he was the person who got
the sound system working in the Fernandina Beach Recreation Center (Exhibit Hall)
around 1:00 p.m. We were, by the way, refunded for our trouble by the Recreation
Center.
For 2016 (and other events held throughout 2014/2015), we have several wireless
and wired microphones, speaker systems, and individuals who will be able to make a
huge difference in the audio department of the convention.
6
To further improve on the sound quality at the Women’s Club (Main Events Hall), we
are removing the TableTop gaming area completely. The TableTop gaming will now be
on the stage in the Exhibit Hall where the Cosplay Prep room was this year. The
Cosplay Prep room will be relocated to a tent (on concrete – NOT GRASS) outside of
the exhibit hall. We will also be including Video Gaming (thanks to Play N Trade,
Jacksonville) in the Exhibit Hall as well.
We also had sound issues at the Days Inn & Suites. The Panel and Screening Room
were constantly overpowered by the video gaming and TableTop gaming areas
because of their proximity to each other. To better accommodate panels on Friday
and Sunday at the request of attendees, we have booked the Amelia Hotel at the Sea
which is next door to the Days Inn for Panels, Anime Screenings, and adult themed
events (such as Cards Against Humanity and Hentai/Doujin panels). Not only will it be
easier to hear the panels/anime/movies, we will also be able to better check IDs in
those areas. The Amelia Hotel at the Sea also has a small adjacent café area and is
close to the beach. We feel that adding this additional space will improve the
convention attendees’ experience on Friday, Saturday night, and Sunday. Our only
hope is that it does not affect the energy or traffic in either location.
Post Meeting Notes: We solicited feedback to the addition of the Amelia Hotel at the
Sea during the Town Hall Meeting. Feedback was very positive and we now feel
reassured that moving forward with this booking is in the best interest of the
convention.
7
In our survey, we learned that there were many people who did not know that the
Main Events Hall even existed. It was our fault for not providing clearer directions in
our brochures and through signage at the convention.
We were skeptical as to whether Amelia Con would be able to exist after 2014.
Durable signs are very expensive. The posts cost about $2 each and the signs
themselves run about $12 each – plus shipping. These costs add up exponentially
when you add in the double-sided printing and start looking at the quantity that are
needed and may not be reusable from year to year, especially if the location were to
change.
We made signs ourselves but they fell apart due to inclement weather conditions.
We also had a lot of no-show volunteers and this resulted in us not being able to put
out as many signs as we planned to have displayed because we had to reassign staff
to fill in the gaps.
We have budgeted $500 for durable signs that will provide direction to the Main
Events Hall from the Exhibit Hall as well as to other event locations on those grounds.
We will also have a few signs created each year that provide directions to the actual
convention halls from major roads to make travel easier on our exhibitors, artists, and
out of town attendees.
8
We will also have an all-inclusive event map in the program. For example, in 2014,
there was an Exhibit Hall map with a list of booth locations and there was an Event
Hall map with locations and schedules. Those will still exist. But we’ll be adding a
map for Friday – Sunday that show what’s happening at the two hotels and how to
get from one to the other and we’ll have an event map page for Saturday only that
shows how to traverse the grounds between the Recreation Center (Exhibit Hall) and
the Women’s Club (Main Events) as well as the tents and outdoor activity locations in
between. Everything will be color coded to make understanding locations easier.
We’ll also have a large poster at the front of each venue with these maps.
9
We had a lot of strange feedback about the exhibit hall from attendees. It was all over the
place. Some people thought there were too many anime vendors and some thought there
were too few. Others thought we needed more comic book vendors and others thought
there were too many. It was really tough to get any valuable feedback from this portion of
the survey from attendees other than “we want more vendors”.
So, we’re just going to touch on the one issue that we felt that we shared with some of the
survey takers. There were too few anime vendors and that’s an actual fact. We solicited
anime vendors from all over the Southeastern US by attending conventions and talking to
them and reaching out to them online. We were able to get 2 to commit: Magical Project
Anime and Ask Toys & Games. Ask Toys & Games did not show up. They were supposed to
be at booth E11 on the Exhibit Hall map. So, around noon, we noticed there were tons of
people and we converted their booth into seating space for attendees. It kind of worked out
in the end. They did pay for their booth, so they lost their investment. Magical Project
Anime came from Augusta, Georgia and they were very skeptical about participating. We cut
them a deal to get them to commit to Amelia Con for the first year and just sort of prayed
that they would have a good show. They did. And they’re looking forward to participating
again.
That being said, Ask Toys & Games was the plushy, wall scroll, miscellaneous anime swag
vendor that was missing. They had what Magical Project Anime didn’t and Magical Project
Anime had merchandise that Ask Toys & Games didn’t. We will not be soliciting Ask Toys &
Games in the future nor will we allow them to vend at Amelia Con in the near future. Given
that we have very few booths available, we cannot take the risk of someone not showing up.
It only hurts our attendees and it’s a risk we’re not willing to take – especially if that vendor
has a history with us or other conventions.
10
We need help getting anime vendors to commit. They are very skeptical about Northeast
Florida shows and it’s understandable as to why. There were a lot of conventions that tried
to exist here and kind of screwed people over. There’s also a lot of debate in the
exhibitor/artist community (and I know because I exhibit at conventions and am friends with
these people) as to whether Northeast Florida will support a convention and if people will
show up and spend money – enough money to make it worth their while. Many of these
vendors are coming from South Florida. They will spend over $100 in gas to get here, plus
hotel, plus the cost of their space, and plus any other overhead they have. They need to
make a profit to return. Thankfully, they did this year. Many of them made record profits
and are excited about returning.
They made profits because our attendees showed up and spent money at their booths and
because we kept our prices low on them and our attendees. We believe that the
convention’s price points are one of the factors (if not the PRIMARY factor) in determining
whether or not exhibitors make a profit. Had we charged these exhibitors a couple hundred
dollars for their space, they may not have made a profit. Had we charged more at the door
for attendees, people may not have spent as much money with our exhibitors/artists because
they wouldn’t have as much to spend. If our exhibitors and artists don’t make money, they
aren’t going to come back. And, if they don’t come back, they’ll tell other exhibitors/artists
why they aren’t coming back. And, eventually, we wouldn’t have Amelia Con. So, the best
thing we can do is keep Amelia Con affordable to as many of the parties involved while
keeping it lucrative enough for us to continue hosting it. We believe this is where some
conventions fall short. We’ve listened to a lot of feedback from artists and exhibitors. And,
given that we are artist/exhibitors at other conventions throughout the Southeast, we know
what the common complaints are and what makes these people happy. All they want is to
make a profit and have as stress-free of a time as possible. We feel that we can offer them
that type of experience, even without being in a major convention center or plush hotel.
11
All of that aside, we received very positive feedback from our vendors. We are raising
prices a little and they are fine with that. Many of them are talking up Amelia Con to
other vendors throughout the Southeast and abroad. We were already a very
exclusive exhibit hall, even without the positive buzz. We already had to turn away
over 20 vendors (artists included) this year. Thankfully, we are expanding our exhibit
hall a little by reducing some of our Special Guest space that, based on our currently
line up for 2016, won’t be needed. Some guests do not require tables, thankfully. So,
on those years, we can offer more exhibit spaces. 2016 should be one of those years.
12
We aren’t going to go into detail with this because there’s still a lot of work that we
have to do to figure out what could work better for 2016.
What we learned was that we need to be more organized from the start and we need
to advertise this more.
Most of the people who took the survey who were interested in participating but did
not participate were left out because they either couldn’t figure out how to sign up or
they didn’t know that this event was happening. We had a lot of interested people
who did not know they could have signed up in advance and expressed that they
would have rather done this. People who did participate indicated that they would
have preferred to sign up online as well. Some people didn’t care either way.
We expect participation to be higher in 2016 and want to find a better way to
manage it without pre-judging. Attendees don’t like pre-judging because it takes up a
lot of their time. They are left standing around for hours, waiting for their turn to be
judged. This is time that they could spend doing something else at the convention.
We can understand doing this for a huge multi-day show like Megacon, Dragoncon,
etc. Especially because the prize pool is so much higher and the reputation of these
awards precede themselves. But Amelia Con isn’t that type of event. If we have a
little over 100 participants, we feel that we can manage this without pre-judging.
Sure, we will still operate on the honor system regarding fully handmade or store
bought. But, ultimately, that comes down to the judges and a little administrative
work that can be handled by a capable volunteer prior to and during the convention.
13
The organizational issues of this year’s event are entirely our fault. We have event
management experience, but not experience with this aspect of a convention. We
learned a lot and have a lot to review.
What we know right now is that we need very capable volunteers to help plan this
portion of the convention in advance. These are volunteers who would be willing to
help us write rules, format the information online, and be there to help attendees
sign up and then help us operate the show. We had excellent volunteers helping us
this year and they really kept us on track. We really appreciated their help and that
they showed up. Because we couldn’t have done this without them.
All of that being said… we want time to think about this and will have a meeting with
anyone interested in helping or just providing specific feedback about this event
during a get together. That will happen sometime in early 2015.
We do know that we want to have designated volunteer (or two) helping people sign
up for the competition at the convention through a separate entry point than
Registration. We also know that we want this information captured digitally and
input by the volunteers so that it is easier to read and understand. We will also push
online registration harder. If you’re interested in helping with this aspect of the
convention, please contact us. We want to get started on this early.
14
There were requests to increase the perks and quantity of the VIP Passes.
Based on the survey responses that most people were interested in the early exhibit
hall entry and express lanes to special guests rather than the priority seating (which
remained empty most of the time), we will be increasing the quantity by 20 for 2016.
This brings the total up to 45.
We are evaluating whether we can afford to increase VIP Perks. These passes help
cover the cost of flights and hotel for our special guests in exchange for perks at the
convention. If we start adding more perks, we have a harder time covering some of
our overhead costs. We’d like to do more, but we might not be able to without
jacking up the price. Lifetime passes provide VIP Perks as well and a few are still
available.
15
Amelia Con will have a booth at the 2016 convention. This is in response to feedback.
People apparently want to buy merchandise from us. But we want to keep the costs
low so we need to find good 3rd party vendors who can make shirts and other
merchandise for us.
We wanted to have T-Shirts for 2014. We really did. But we just couldn’t because we
didn’t know what the attendance would be and we didn’t want to end up with
hundreds of shirts. Additionally, ordering a small quantity would be financially
compromising because it would cost more just to eliminate the extra merchandise.
There were just too many variables, so we opted to play it safe and invest the money
in guests instead. We feel that this was a good decision. Had we gone with T-Shirts
for 2014, we could have spent over a thousand dollars and only made around $200
back, given the number people who said they were interested and the price points on
shirts. This money was spent to bring Ayu Sakata instead. We’re glad we brought her
along.
In 2016, we will have shirts, custom dice, and other merchandise like lanyards that
were requested. Lifetime Passholders will get a free shirt and a custom die. We’re
also talking to exhibitors about having a discount system for Lifetime and maybe VIP
passholders. Exhibitors and Artists seem pretty interested because this would drive
business to their booths for very little cost on their part. We also want to have presigned promo materials for Lifetime Passholders next year. This was something that
we wanted to do this year but with the low volunteer attendance, we were unable to
do this.
16
We received a lot of responses in the survey asking us to “find a bigger venue” –
literally. “Find” a bigger venue.
We knew this would be a popular theme in the feedback (namely because we feel the
same way) so we did a lot of homework.
Most of this research was done in 2010 when we started looking at venues large
enough to accommodate our 80 - 120 person wedding. We did further exploring in
2012 when we started giving serious consideration to running a convention. And we
also explored options in Jacksonville as well.
Regarding Jacksonville – we felt that Jacksonville had enough conventions so we
didn’t want to pursue having an event there. We were strongly encouraged by Sonny
Strait and Micah Solusod to host a con on Amelia Island and we had always wanted to
do something for our community. After a lot of thought and planning, we felt Amelia
Island was the right choice, even if the venues were less accommodating.
17
These are the largest venues on Amelia Island that are “willing” to work with Amelia
Con. We say “willing” because some are more willing than others and willing doesn’t
necessarily imply that they are accommodating or welcoming. We’ve even left off a
few because they just don’t want us at all.
The (numbers) indicate maximum capacity inside the full venue.
Many local islanders are familiar with most of these venues because they are popular
locations for events, aside from Centre Street which hosts the Sounds of Amelia, the
Shrimp Festival, and other notable outdoor events including art walks and car shows.
The Concours Hangar is huge but does not subdivide, has only 2 toilets (yes, actual
toilets, not restrooms), and no climate control. There’s also a lot of red tape with the
city (with which we’d be willing to comply). The biggest issues are the bathrooms and
lack of subdivision. Without being able to divide the space, the sound issues that we
had in the Main Events Hall in 2014 would be even worse because all of the main
events, panels, gaming, and exhibits would all be in the same area and amplified by
metal walls. For this reason, we’ve excluded this venue as a potential host for 2016
and 2017. We are in touch with them and have confirmation that they are adding
private space that could be rented through those parties. Once that space is added,
we’ll give them a call and see if that venue would be a viable option at that point in
time. For now, given the amount of planning and advanced booking that we have to
entertain, we cannot risk booking them for even as early as 2017.
18
Many will know the Amelia Island Conference Center as the Omni Resort, formerly
known (and still known by many) as the Plantation. It and the Ritz Carlton are housed
on the South End of Amelia Island. Centre Street, The Days Inn & Suites, and our
other current venues are located on the North and Middle areas of the island.
Without moving off of the island, these are the venues we have available. If Amelia
Con isn’t on Amelia Island, it isn’t really Amelia Con and it’s not really about the
community at that point. Granted, exploring options in Yulee (the area between I-95
and Amelia Island) is something that we have considered, should the right place
present itself and we had the community’s support. But there aren’t any options so
we have not invested time in doing further research or outreach. We wouldn’t want
to move the convention off of Amelia Island unless we had a space in Yulee and it was
absolutely essential to continuing operations.
19
We’ve also looked at a few other alternative venues.
There are many successful conventions hosted out of gyms, schools, church multipurpose centers, etc. We are not excluding any of these venues and would be
interested in working with all of them aside from the outdoors. While outdoor space
is essential at our current venues in order to increase events and the attendance cap,
we do not want Amelia Con to be a 100% outdoor event.
Regarding Shopping Malls: There are a lot of vacant shopping plazas that we think
would provide more ample parking, better subdivision of space, and more room for
the event. They are affordable for the month that we would need them and we could
provide more load-in flexibility for our vendors. However, we would have to rent
these places for the years leading up to the convention or we would have to own the
building outright. That’s not a possibility right now because of finances. The
convention needs to first fund itself (which it is almost doing already) before we can
explore committing to more overhead expenses. Should we run the risk of
scheduling a convention and couldn’t secure the space until the month prior, the
convention just wouldn’t happen. We don’t want to operate it with the very high risk
of not having a place to hold it should someone start renting it before the convention.
20
There are a lot of pros to moving to a hotel – especially one like the Omni Resort and
the Ritz Carlton. But there are a lot of strings attached.
We’re going to talk about some of the financial hurdles that we’d be facing if we were
to move Amelia Con to one of the resorts on the south end of the island and what
that would mean for attendees, exhibitors, and artists.
Unfortunately, we have had a difficult time getting solid figures from the Omni
Resort. Every time we talk to them, the numbers change a little. So, these figures are
the median of what we’ve been told to expect should we book the Omni.
The Omni also does not want us to take up their full conference center because of
the amount of catering overhead that we would incur and what it means for them
hosting other events there that would have more of a need for catering and hotel
room nights (like weddings). More on that in a second. So, these numbers only
represent a convention space that would be – in total – less than the total square
footage of the Fernandina Beach Recreation Center. It does subdivide into 3 separate
rooms. But the entire exhibit hall, gaming spaces, and main events would have to fit
into this one, sub-dividable area that’s less than our current Exhibit Hall.
This means that we couldn’t have as many exhibitors or artists. That translates to less
revenue from selling those spaces and a lesser experience for attendees.
21
Amelia Con also couldn’t have as large of a main events hall. Main events would
accommodate about 20 – 30 people. In 2014, we could accommodate about 250,
even with the gaming areas taking up nearly half of the hall.
This also means that we would lose all of the outdoor space and ability to do the fun
photoshoots and such. Yes, we could move these to the beach, but that’s much
farther than you’d expect for a resort that’s on the beach.
The catering is the biggest issue with the resort hotels.
Catering is exactly what it sounds like – food and beverage service like what you’d
expect if you went to a wedding. Do you want chicken or steak?
Comic Con Style events like Amelia Con do not have a purpose for catering,
traditionally. The Omni does not care if we need it or not. Most hotels do not care.
The bottom line is that they make a lot of money on catering and, if they can’t make
that money on catering for an event that would pay the same price as an event that
would require catering, then there is no reason for them to host the event without
catering.
22
Many hotels charge a fee for their patrons to use an outside caterer. We learned
about that when we were planning our wedding which was done on a tight budget.
Again: Amelia Con has no need for catering. We aren’t serving food, we aren’t
hosting a wedding, we aren’t selling tickets to a 5-course meal with a guest speaker
or some concert. We also don’t want to pass these expenses on to our attendees (or
our exhibitors and artists) through individually ticketed events.
There are some conventions (like Anime Festival Orlando) who are able to work with
their hotel (the Wyndham) and arrange for the hotel to sell food and beverage to
their attendees as a way of getting some catering money that they otherwise would
not get had that convention not booked and assuming that no one else who was
willing to pay for the rooms and the catering booked the convention center’s space.
They have an agreement that the hotel can set the prices, select the food, etc. And
the conventions are happy with this. Just like how we were happy to allow food truck
vendors to come up and sell to our attendees. We didn’t charge them for the space
(even though we could have) and they made good profits. We want to have this
arrangement with our host hotel, if we were to move our venue.
The Omni is not interested in this. According to them, they do not have a way to set
up a service line (either self serve or administered) and charge attendees. (We’ve see
this done at other functions at their hotel, by the way. So we don’t really buy into
this.)
23
According to the Omni, each of the rooms comes with a price for the rooms (we
always get quoted something different) as well as the catering price. For the smallest
collection of rooms that can subdivide (again, this is smaller than the Recreation
Center), we’re looking at $20,000 in catering alone. And we’ve heard everything from
$1,500 to $15,000 for the price of the rooms themselves. This space would
accommodate maybe 650 people – including artists, staff, volunteers, exhibitors,
guests, and attendees. Given the location of this room, there would be more
bottlenecking with registration and exit/entry points as well.
There’s also the nightly room charges that would exceed $200 per night for hotel
guests as well as the $20 hotel parking for guests and $10 event parking for non-hotel
guests.
We don’t like these numbers at all. Amelia Con would not work here with the current
price points.
24
The Ritz Carlton is a similar story to the Omni Resort. However, they are more willing
to talk to us and work with us.
The Ritz Carlton will let us have more space than what the Omni will let us have and
that is comparable to what we have at the Recreation Center, Women’s Club, Day’s
Inn, and Amelia Hotel at the Sea, but excluding the outdoor space that we are adding
in 2016. Unlike the Omni and our current venues, the rooms subdivide better. This is
a big pro for the convention and makes the Ritz much more appealing to us.
The Ritz Carlton is also willing to sell food to our attendees in lieu of the catering
minimum of $50,000. However, if they do not make $50,000 profit (this is after all of
their overhead: employees, food costs, labor, prep time, facilities, etc.), they will pass
the difference along to the convention. That is a variable we do not want to entertain
as a risk. If it were a few hundred dollars, we could probably swing it and we think it
would be worth it. But tens of thousands of dollars is just too steep.
The rooms we’d need would total $75,000. Again, this is all assuming that we have
comparable total square footage, but with more subdivision. This is a larger space
than the Omni – nearly triple the space. Thus, triple the cost, minus the catering of
course.
There’s still the $200+ per night room charge for hotel guests and the $20 parking.
And also the $10 parking for those who attend and do not stay at the hotel.
This is very – very – expensive.
25
Here’s what some of the math looks like.
Keep in mind the following:
1. The Omni is smaller than the Fernandina Beach Recreation Center
2. The Omni costs only include overhead and the catering charge of $50,000
because the actual room cost is undeterminable based on the information
we were provided
3. All of these figures assume that Amelia Con can sell at least 10 Exhibit
Spaces and 12 Artist spaces. That wouldn’t be the case for the Omni
because the space would be too small.
4. All of these figures assume that the same number of attendees who
attended in 2014 are willing to pay the Advance and On-Site ticket prices
listed above.
5. All of these figures assume that the venue could hold at least 1500 people,
which isn’t the case for the Omni.
6. All of these are quotes for single day events – not 3 day events
7. Megacon, Supercon, Tampa Bay Comic Con, Anime Weekend Atlanta,
Dragoncon, etc. have prices comparable to what’s listed under the Omni
and Ritz
26
There are also additional fees and requirements that Amelia Con would have to meet
to move to one of the resort hotels. Many of these costs would also be passed on to
attendees, artists, and exhibitors either directly or indirectly.
We also don’t believe that increasing the cost of the convention increases actual or
perceived value.
For example, take Megacon. This is one of the largest and most reputable
conventions held in the Southeastern United States. It is one of the largest
conventions in the country. In 2014, they hosted over 90,000 attendees, hundreds of
celebrity guests, hundreds of artists, and hundreds of exhibitors. They had several
thousands of hours of event programming ranging from fan to industry panels,
gaming tournaments and demonstrations, Q&A sessions with panels of celebrity
guests from popular and iconic shows and comic books, and fan panel after fan panel
covering just about every fandom under the sun and moon. They book the Orange
County Convention Center, one of the largest venues in Florida with nearly ample
parking and hundreds of thousands of square footage inside and outside of the
venue. It’s a 3-day event with tons of after parties, huge celebrity names, and
thousands of volunteers who make it all work. They have paid staff who answer tons
of emails and they pay for huge advertisements along I-4, on TV, and on the radio.
Megacon charged $65 for a 3-day pass to their 2014 show.
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In our opinion, a little show like Amelia Con, regardless of how well-operated it is or which
handful of guests are attending, has no business charging what Megacon charges: especially
if it is a one day convention. Even if it were a 3-day convention, charging the same amount is
ridiculous. That’s our personal opinion and our take on how we want to run Amelia Con.
Other conventions can operate however they want. If it works for them, that’s great. But
that type of pricing model isn’t something that we believe in. It’s not a part of our business
ethics.
We want Amelia Con to be a community oriented event. Yes, we want it to fund itself, but it
needs to be about the community first and foremost. Without the support of the
community, the artists, the exhibitors, the guests, the volunteers, Amelia Con wouldn’t
happen. It’s our belief that, if we offer affordable pricing for our artists, exhibitors, and
attendees and they have a good time (because we pay attention to what they want and we
do our best to deliver on it), that they will want to come back time and time again: as long as
we keep listening and making good on our promises.
We can’t offer you what you get at Megacon. Because we aren’t Megacon. But we can offer
you Amelia Con at a reasonable price. And, by attending, you’ll be able to help us pay for
another Amelia Con. Amelia Con is a small show. It always will be. We can’t have an extra
94,000 people on Amelia Island anyways. It would sink! But we can have a fun event that
gives you what you want, in time, for a price that won’t break the bank. But that means that
we may not be able to be in the nicest venue the island has to offer. Otherwise, the prices
start looking like Megacon’s. And for Megacon, those prices are perfect. Because it’s
Megacon and look at everything it has to offer. But for Amelia Con, those prices don’t and
won’t work. So, until the prices change, we’re doing the best with what we’ve got and we’re
making sure that you get a lot of value out of the very low ticket cost.
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Celebrities do not attend conventions for free.
Yes, they may enjoy going to conventions and they might genuinely think that it’s one
of the best parts about their “job”. But, it is their job and they expect to be
compensated for their time, just like we all do when we go to work. We don’t go to
work for the sheer fun of it (assuming that we like our jobs). We go because we get
paid. For some celebrities, that might be the only reason they attend conventions.
We would love to bring the biggest names in the industry to Amelia Con. It’s one of
our goals, actually. But celebrity guests are not cheap.
We were very fortunate to have Micah, Sonny, Ayu, and John working with us in our
first year. They were all very committed to Amelia Con and did not break the bank.
Caitlin was an unexpected pick-up early on and we spent more of our budget than we
had originally anticipated in order to bring her. We knew it would be a risk.
According to the feedback we received, our gamble paid off.
Now that we have historical data, attendance numbers, concrete feedback, etc. we
are in a better position to start planning our guest line ups for future Amelia Cons.
But we have to be smart about our “investments”.
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We can budget about $6,000 per year to cover all of our guests. This part of the
budget covers appearance fees, per diem (which is separate from an appearance fee),
meals, transportation, flights, hotel, and other expenses. In 2014, this part of the
budget was almost entirely privately funded by Woodruff Enterprises, LLC, the
company that runs the production Amelia Con.
So, if George Perez (a notable Comic Book artist) costs $2,000, that’s ¼ of our guest
budget. He leaves us $4,000 to use on any remaining guests.
Some guests have more control over their prices than others. Right now, we’re
working with agents for a few potential 2017 guests. When you have to use an agent,
the price is usually much higher because the agent has to be paid too. Sometimes
this means extra flight and hotel expenses (for the agent or on-site liaison who will
interface with convention staff for the celebrity). The agent knows that, by lowering
his/her fee to accommodate the convention means that the agent will get paid less –
not the celebrity.
Sometimes finding a point of contact for these guests is a challenge in its own. We
spent several months trying to find contact information for Wil Wheaton. We’re still
trying to find out how to contact Jason David Frank.
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We consider the following when we look at guests:
1. Who attendees want. This is, by far, the most important.
We listen to feedback in surveys. We also pay attention to your
requests on our social media. We research everyone you recommend.
2. What’s going to be popular in the months leading up to and during the
convention. This helps us advertise and gets ticket sales rolling. We need
relevant guests.
Guardians of The Galaxy will be ramping up for a sequel in 2016.
Guardians illustrators might be more appealing than Thor or Spiderman
illustrators, even if those titles are typically more popular.
3. What fandoms a certain guest will represent. (The more, the better.)
Sonny Strait represents Comics, Games, and Anime.
4. If we can’t bring “the big name”, is there someone else from the same
show, series, books, etc. that we could bring who would be interesting,
unique, and evoke a similar enthusiasm.
For example, we couldn’t afford Matt Smith, but we managed Caitlin
Blackwood.
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We also consider:
1. What it could mean for the convention.
Booking someone who has massive pop-culture appeal is very risky if the
venue cannot accommodate the demand. The ticket prices would also have to
cover the steep appearance fees.
2. Cost: Bottom line, this person has to fit into the Amelia Con Guest budget. If the
budget is blown and the attendance numbers don’t produce the necessary
revenue, it could actually hurt Amelia Con to book huge guests.
3. Photo/Autograph fees.
We were very happy to have Caitlin this year and we would gladly welcome
her back. However, we do not like having a photobooth that charges and we
don’t like passing on more fees to our attendees. We will do our best to skirt
these costs, when we can. But, as we bring bigger guests, this will probably be
less and less avoidable.
What we want to do is generate revenue through affordable pricing and by providing value at
the convention. We want to invest any “profits” that the convention earns in future
guests, when the time comes to book bigger names. For now, the convention needs a
contingency fund: something to cover unexpected expenses and additional booking fees
for our expansion. Once we have a comfortable amount saved, we can start entertaining
the notion of bringing a bigger guest every year or so. Through this type of organic
growth, we’d like to continue funding Amelia Con. We don’t have the “go big or go
home” mentality because that won’t work on Amelia Island. It won’t work with the
venues we have available and it won’t work for the size of the convention.
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We always want Amelia Con to be about community. It’s an event that caters to a
unique crowd in Nassau County, Florida – a crowd that doesn’t have an event like this
or local places to hang out. We want Amelia Con to be a place where friends and
family can go and feel accepted and among others who share a love for similar
fandoms and interests.
We want to help grow this community in our area. With that comes change.
Amelia Con is full of love and passion. We have a unique way of looking at operating
a convention and we feel that by implementing strategies and ethics that might be a
little different than what other conventions have tried, that Amelia Con can offer
value, even though it’s small.
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Woodruff Enterprises, LLC will continue investing in Amelia Con and the nerd
community in Nassau, Duval, and Camden Counties through Community Events in
addition to Amelia Con. We aim to continue providing value and investing in Amelia
Con so that it may have calculated growth and bring about change in the community.
We want Amelia Con to be a stable, staple event.
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Question: What do you get with the Lifetime Pass?
Answer: VIP Admission every year, additional perks (more on that later), and you can sell
your Lifetime Pass for whatever you want. Once they sell out, they are gone.
Question: Why would you want to sell your Lifetime Pass?
Answer: Let’s say that you’re moving to California and you no longer have a reason to have
an Amelia Con Lifetime Pass. But the passes are sold out. You could sell that pass for
whatever price you could sell it for (and you will make some money on your Year 1 investment
of $150), OR, if you were really nice, you could give it to a friend at no charge. Just let us
know and we’ll transfer the ownership. But, once you sell or transfer, that’s it.
Question: Will there be space to game at these hotels during Saturday for TableTop and
video gamers?
Answer: We’d love to do that. But someone has to be here to watch the room – namely so
things don’t get stolen. The Days Inn & Suites and the Amelia Hotel by The Sea will need
someone here who is allowed to have access to the room. That person would be responsible
for everything that is happening inside of it. Given our small staff and the large number of noshow volunteers in 2014, we aren’t sure if it’s something that we could pull off at this time.
But we are VERY interested in doing something like that. If you know someone who is willing
to volunteer and help us out and that person is responsible and committed, we would love to
include them in the planning stages of that part of the event. We had a great reception to
TableTop and Video Gaming in 2014 and it’s something we would like to expand on but we
have to have reliable volunteers first.
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Question: You mentioned that you’re adding space at the Recreation Center. Will the
space for the meetups be different next time or will they still be on the concrete slab
outside the Women’s Club (Main Events)?
Answer: Yes. We are adding a lot more space. And yes, we will still have the meetup space,
but will be relocating it to the large field located behind the Recreation Center. We didn’t
“officially” book it this year, so we couldn’t advertise it or encourage people to go into that
area. We’re glad that people did end up making use of it. We’ll be using that field for
meetups, LARPing, and foam sword fighting – assuming that we can find a vendor who’s
willing to be outdoors. We’ll be setting up a tent out there with some type of seating for
people to use for their meetups as well. We’ll also be able to advertise the Playground for
cosplay photoshoots. We didn’t know if that space would be available this year because it
was under construction for the past 6 months or so. It was really cute and would be perfect
for photoshoots and meetups. So, we think there will be a lot more room to accommodate
larger cosplay groups in 2016 with that and the field being added.
Question: You mentioned the Cosplay Photoshoots. What was the attendance like for the
Attack on Titan one on Friday and will you have more photoshoots at the convention in
2016 rather than off-site?
Answer: The attendance for that photoshoot was low. After reading the responses to the
surveys, we feel that we could have advertised it a little better and we plan to improve on that
next year. We think about 5 people showed up and that’s much lower than we hoped for. We
learned on Friday from attendees that there was some confusion regarding whether or not a
wristband was needed/required to participate. So, many people came to the Days Inn &
Suites first or just didn’t participate. Several people were late because of that type of
confusion. We’ll do a better job communicating that next time. We will definitely do more
official photoshoots at the convention on Saturday in 2016 and maybe less downtown during
the convention. We’d like to do some type of Cosplay photoshoot, given we can find the right
photographer, prior to the convention – maybe even months before.
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Question: Have you seen any of the pictures from the Attack on Titan Photoshoot?
Or from the Official Amelia Con Photobooth? Because I haven’t seen any and I’d
like to see them.
Answer: We have not. Got Image? Photography was our official photo vendor this
year. We were supposed to receive digital copies of the pictures that were taken at
the Got Image? Booth but we have yet to receive them. We are giving her some time
to get them together and will be following up with her soon. These pictures were
supposed to be provided at no cost to Amelia Con so that we could use them to
promote future events. We have yet to see the pictures on Got Image?’s social media.
We have, however, had the privilege of seeing photos from Jacksonville.com, the
Times Union, the Newsleader, and Wr3ckless Productions among the countless that
we’ve seen online on Facebook and Tumblr feeds.
We weren’t happy with this entire official photobooth situation because we really
didn’t want to have to provide photos at a cost to our attendees. This was part of
Caitlin’s contract and it was something that we couldn’t get out of. We were
supposed to have a different photographer, someone we personally knew and who
has done cosplay photography professionally but he was recently drafted back into
the army and is in active duty. It was very unfortunate for him and we didn’t want
him to have to worry about committing to us after we heard about that.
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Going forward, we want to avoid having this type of experience at Amelia Con. We don’t like
charging you for pictures. Amelia Con and Woodruff Enterprises, LLC did not receive or want
compensation from the photographer or guests from this booth. We did this to lower the
costs for our attendees because we’d rather have you spending money at our exhibitors and
artists so that they want to come back.
On a related note, we are not especially happy with the services that Got Image? Provided.
We learned a lot about photobooth operations and we do not plan to use them in future
events. We learned that our guests (Sonny, Micah, Ayu, John, and Caitlin) did not necessarily
receive full compensation from Got Image? Photography. We used a ticketing system that
we’ll admit was a bit confusing, but things didn’t add up in the end. After the convention, the
photobooth had only provided a handful of tickets to Caitlin. These tickets did not remotely
compare in quantity to the number that we sold and that Caitlin took at the convention. We
doubly compensated her for this out of our pockets because we felt that wasn’t fair to her.
Sonny, Micah, and Ayu never received compensation from the photobooth. They flat out told
us that they didn’t care and that they didn’t want to charge or work with a photobooth in the
first place.
Going forward, we plan to work with CosCon TV. They were the booth located in the back of
the Exhibit Hall in 2014. They provide free cosplay and event photography and they readily
post their pictures online. They don’t offer post editing touchups or green screens like some
booths do, but we feel that for the quality and services they provide, they are worth it.
In regard to guests charging for photos… there are some guests who will require this as part
of their contracts. We will do our best to talk them out of it – probably by providing them
more compensation up front or as part of their per diem. They don’t attend conventions for
free and many of them make lots and lots of money by selling autographs and photos. There
will be many who we cannot talk out of it – but we will try our hardest. If we have to offer
this service, it will be better organized and will be coordinated through CosCon TV to further
lower the cost to attendees.
Sorry for the long answer… there were just lots of issues with this aspect of the convention
this year and it’s something we hope to eliminate because we really don’t like it at all.
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Question: Will there be a separate costume and cosplay competition for children
and adults next time?
Answer: We aren’t sure. We’re going to talk to Staff and the Volunteers who want to
help coordinate this, gauge interest from the community, and then assess how to
move forward. We’d like to hold another Town Hall sometime in the spring of 2015 to
talk about the Costume and Cosplay Competitions so we can present some ideas to
the community and work through these challenges with people who are either
attending the convention or hopefully will be participating in the competitions. While
we do want to celebrate all forms of cosplay and costume creation, we understand
that there are pros and cons to including children and adults in the same competition.
What it will probably boil down to is how many people such a decision would affect,
how many people would be participating in all of the cosplay and costume
competition events, and what we feel our ability as Staff and Volunteers would be to
manage those events.
That being said, we are trying to avoid making too many drastic changes to the
structure of the convention in the second and third years. We want to get a firm
grasp on operating Amelia Con, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and then
start making more prominent changes. If something is completely amiss, we’ll
definitely fix it for the next year – like how we have already fixed the audio issues and
are already addressing the Costume and Cosplay Competions’ organizational issues.
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