Sakuracon entrance fee.

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Armblessed
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Sakuracon entrance fee.

Post by Armblessed »

So I may be wrong, but from all I can figure, it costs $60 damn bucks to get into Sakuracon. You can't buy a one day pass, you can only buy the $60 dollar thing and that can get you into the con as much as you want. This seems really dumb to me. I confess I dont know much about cons, but is this typical? Whats the logic here? Are they not offering single day passes and then charging that much because they can? I guess if you went multiple days it would be worth it but, sheesh. I don't like feeling that I HAVE to go multiple days just to get my money's worth. It occurred to me that that would drive away a lot of people, but maybe thats the goal? Discourage the casual fans and folks who just want a place to hang out? Pure speculation on my part. Mostly just wanted to complain.
davemerrill
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Re: Sakuracon entrance fee.

Post by davemerrill »

Looks to me like they've maxed out their space and are instituting a membership cap.

Notice to all returning members: ANCEA/Sakura-Con is no longer offering pro-rated single day memberships. It is not a mistake that they are not listed on our registration page. Full memberships are available at a discounted rate until our pre-registration cut off at the end of February. Please note this decision is based on several factors, including space constraints at the venue and tax compliance. Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to seeing you at Sakura-Con 2012!


That's good news for Sakura-Con's bottom line, I guess, but not so good for people who just want to come down for a day and check things out. $60 and a weekend's worth of time is a pretty steep investment for casual fans.
isaacada1
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Re: Sakuracon entrance fee.

Post by isaacada1 »

As a former staff member of Sakura-Con from 99-04, this new pricing email has quite a few issues not so obvious that I'll try to address. I have not been on staff since 04, and have only attended since 04 the 2006 convention as an attendee only. I have no inside knowledge from a current staffer. This is just speculation and an educated guess on my part.

1. This probably has to do mostly with Fire Codes. Sakura-Con is one of the most attended events at the Washington State Convention Center. Sakura-Con rents I believe 100% of the venue space. State/City laws state that you can only have so many people in a venue at a time. Sakura-Con made the decision that it could more easily track everyone and put a cap on the total amount of people if they only sold full weekend passes.

2. Also a factor to move away from single day pricing could be tax purposes from the government. Filing tax returns for non-profits when you get to a certain size is NOT FUN. By eliminating one of the options for selling, it makes it simpler to "fiddle" with the numbers when filing.

I think it's unfortunate that this has happened. That being said, I actually applaud the convention for doing this. Running a convention over 10,000 attendees(they had 18,000+ in 2011) is DRASTICALLY different the running say a 5,000 person con.

The good news is that if you live in the Seattle area and don't want to pay for the full weekend of Sakura-Con, you can attend Aki-Con in Bellevue during the fall. I'm sure their full weekend pass is cheaper and they'll be selling one day passes.

When you're choosing to attend any event, you just got to do your own cost/analysis to determine how to get the best "bang for the buck".

I do know that Sakura-Con used to offer FULL weekend passes for a reduced rate for the next years con at the current con. Say at Sakura-Con 2011, you could purchase a full weekend pass for Sakura-Con 2012 for say $30. That deal though would only be good during Sakura-Con 2011. I don't know if they're still doing that. I'd go on the Sakura-Con forums to their registration section and ask.
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