Convention Panels

Conventions and other events, fandom, stores, manga-ka, animators, and other people, etc
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Guyver I
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Convention Panels

Post by Guyver I »

Hello all,

I was interested (and I realize this is largely dependent on geographical dispersions of forum members) if anyone here would be interested in helping to set up, run or be on a panel discussing topics prevalent here - classic anime, history of anime fandom, etc. - at a convention in the not too distant future. I have no convention in mind at the moment; I usually speak on comic, pulp, and science fiction history, but if anyone would be interested in creating and participating in an anime-centric panel from here, do let me know!

I'm based in Richmond, Virginia, so I'd be largely able to do conventions on the east coast (and we have a great deal in Virginia, anime and not), and possibly mid west, as far as Texas; farthest I've been so far was to Ohio (I wasn't speaking at San Diego).

But, just thought I'd see if there was any interest in such a venture!
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usamimi
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Re: Convention Panels

Post by usamimi »

I've had a few people ask me why I've never done a panel at A-kon (if not for old anime then for my podcast), and while I wouldn't be against doing it someday...I don't think I really have the right equipment to do one justice at the moment. Also, when I'm at a convention, it's usually to help a friend or work on staff, so timing's problematic. I think there's some people on here who've got experience with stuff like that, like davemerill? I say go for it if you have the time and the materials! Conventions lately have a lack of older stuff sometimes, so I know I for one am always glad to see them when they're available!
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davemerrill
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Re: Convention Panels

Post by davemerrill »

I usually do at least a couple of panels at Anime North and AWA. This past year I did panels on Candy Candy and the Least Essential OVAs Of The 80s, and I was part of a general 1970s anime/tokusatsu panel, and I was supposed to be on a panel about Yoshikazu Yasuhiko but it was at 9am and that's not happening. In the past I've done panels on shows like Space Battleship Yamato, overviews of things like super robot cartoons or sports anime or Leiji Matsumoto anime or whatever topic interests me enough that I could spend an hour talking about it and an audience might find it interesting.
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: Convention Panels

Post by Drew_Sutton »

usamimi wrote:I don't think I really have the right equipment to do one justice at the moment.
I find from the technology side of things, a laptop is usually good enough for running visual aides. What makes for a quality panel, from a panelist's perspective, is the time to gather the info needed to present and a personality to present the material in an engaging manner. When I started running panels back in 2008, I was worried that I didn't know enough and my co-panelist and I were going to get eaten alive. Once we got through, everything came up great and was a really rewarding way to contribute to the convention and connect with others in fandom.

To Guyver's question, I am happy to contribute information or review stuff but I've been getting burned out on conventioneering the last couple years, so I'm thinking of cutting back drastically on my participation.
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Guyver I
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Re: Convention Panels

Post by Guyver I »

I can say I've never run into an equipment problem; I always have Powerpoints for my panels/presentations, and projectors have always been so readily available, in my experience, that it seems they must be standard issue now when a group rents out a conference hall/panel room.

And I agree, that the success of a panel is really dependent on the knowledge base of the folks speaking. It's interesting, when I'm talking about pulp and science fiction history, I really do have to put a disclaimer at the beginning, that while I have researched these topics extensively, there are likely one or two individuals in the audience who not only grew up reading the source material in the 50s and 60s, but have also spent the last 60 years studying it, writing fanzine articles about it, etc.

And I think that is something unique to anime fandom, at the moment at least; there isn't really a fan community and history that goes back to close to the turn of the century, as organized anime fandom goes back to, what, the mid-1970s, roughly? And I think that helps in organizing panels in that resources, whether professional publications, fan recollections, business histories, or whatever is being discussed, are all fairly recent in existence, and allows for better research, and therefore better panels.
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DKop
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Re: Convention Panels

Post by DKop »

I actually have some experience in doing panels at cons. I do panels at a local con in South Carolina called Banzaicon, which seems to help me hone my craft better with a smaller audience, all the while giving the con more content and me a free ticket in. This year will be my 4th year in doing my 18+ panel there which seems to draw in a decent crowd late at night (like the death schedule of 12am to 2am during the raves, oh well.)

I have a few ideas of panels I would like to do down the road, so my ideas to share things I know isn't going anywhere. If your based out of Richmond, have you considered Animazement? From what I know you would have to submit your panel in months in advance so you have a good spot and time to present, and there are still older anime fans that attend every year. And I wouldn't be afraid of thinking you don't know enough, because having a panel like this would be a great thing to have crowd interaction with others who want to share their stories with the crowd and you the speaker, so then every can take away something from it. If you can get something like that to be stable you are in the right direction.

I see im probably really late in responding to this, so my bad.
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