So it’s the first day of Genki 2009 and most of us [organizers] have been here since early morning or even the day before, since we were setting up for today. As something a bit different from other cons, we’ve chosen to open relatively early, at 10.00 AM, as opposed to late afternoon. This was in order to avoid a massive line forming in front of the building and adding a lot of stress in front of the reception and to the pashiri (gophers) and organizers having reception duty (which was me and two pashiri at the time). So this way, people could just drop by whenever they had time and be registered immediately. People seemed pretty fond of this, so we’ll probably try doing it again next year. Of course, we had made sure that the manga lounge, gameroom, cinema, and artist alley were all up an running by then, so that they would have something to do when they arrived. By around 02:30 PM, 32.5% of all participants had arrived.

The opening ceremony started at 04:00 PM, and while we were having some technical difficulties with the microphones not working, which was lé suck, people seemed to enjoy the show. Next year, we really should remember testing this kind of crap properly ^^’

Immediaetly afterwards was the music presentation by my lovely little kouhai, Hopy (who by the way got a 10 in oral Japanese, the second highest grade, so yaaaaay Hopy =D). I unfortunately didn’t have time to see the presentation myself, since I still had reception duty and people were starting to come in quite frequently, so I only had time to wish her luck and then hurry on back to pull my weight. From what I hear though, it was a smashing success and people really loved it so I think I did the right thing in scouting her for the job *pride* Hopefully, we can get her back for another presentation next year.

After the presentation, things started getting kind of hectic, and it was also time for me to get out of the reception since I had gotten so tired that I had started seeing weird creatures asking me for honey and a “Piglet”. My sanity might be starting to take damage O.o. Anywho, we had a concert with the Lillith, the currently only Danish J-rock band, and our sound-technician had been gone for a while because he had to shop for some stuff that were missing. We were however able to get it up with minimal delay (30 minutes), which then carried over to the auction and game tournament. However, people didn’t seem to mind, which was lucky. It was also at this point we started using the white board by the reception to write the next planned events and the schedule changes. Next year, we should have a bigger board though…

The auction and game tourney (Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection) seemed to be pretty successful. Dion Sørensen appeared as a contender, and from that point on, we were all pretty sure of who would win, since he’s one of the few people in Denmark who play at an elite level (at least compared to the rest of us). There was a time where Dion and I were pretty evenly matched in Tekken 5, but he kept playing while I didn’t, so the difference in experience really showed during practice matches. While I could win rounds, I never won a match. So I figured I would just enter as Mokujin and hope for the best. I got my ass whooped in the first round though, as the level was actually surprisingly high, which was pretty cool. I look forward to a Tekken 6 tourney next year! >:3

I had to leave not long after however, but by the time I left, 88.1% percent of all participants had arrived, so today seemed pretty successful. What do the participants say?

I had hoped to get a full night’s rest at home, but had no such luck, so I showed up pretty tired early Saturday morning having slept only perhaps 1½ hours. I had reception duty today as well, but switched responsibilities with Jill, my partner in crime, since she had to work on the computer and prepare for her quizzes, so I was the one doing rounds today.

Last night, we had Otaku Hour, which is only for the real hardcore. Being at home, I obviously didn’t witness it, but it consisted of having to drink 1½ litres of Coca Cola as quickly as possible. The guy who won felt preeeeetty sick afterwards and threw up XD Mission successful.

Today was the “traditional” day for the cosplay competition (as set by J-Popcon, which people have now grown accustomed to), so the theatre hall was a beehive of Genksters buzzing around trying to get everything ready for the show. Before that, however, there was a discussion panel about Genki. Kurikku was meant to be the host, but since his replacement at the supermarket fell ill, he had to go to work, so the job fell on me, Jill, and J-Walk, our cashier. As luck would have it, just when the panel was about to start, Nemu came by to see me because she is leaving for Japan in a few days. It sucked so bad that I had asked her to come, and then when she showed up, I had no time for her; made me feel like such a bastard D= I should take her out to dinner and apologize when she gets back… Anywho, I digress. The Genki panel turned out to be a good idea, since it let us get in touch with the participants and get precious feedback on what they though was good and not so good, so that will help with the planning for next year.

After the panel was over, I hurried down so that at the very least I could walk Nemu to the station. I just hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, since another guy seemed to have gotten the same idea ^^’ Anywho, after that, I helped setting up for the cosplay contest, but didn’t stick around to watch it, since “a Genki-Man’s job is never done! >:3” I heard it was awesome though, and as soon as we finish editing the video, I’ll add it to this post. As something remarkable though is that the cosplay show started on time, which marks Genki 2009 as the first Danish con to have ever managed that.

After the cosplay contest, we had an array of events, only few of which I witnessed. The ones I saw were
•the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm tourney won by Chrissy’s younger brother (I participated as well, but had only learned how to play like half an hour before the contest started)
•the Karamelldans marathon which you can see a video of here (only the first round, the winner endured 11 rounds)
•and finally, the Street Fighter IV tourney which I won, but had to pass on the prize since I was an organizer. This was essentially fine with me, but I wish that I could’ve been the one actually giving him the prize then >_<
I think we recorded the SFIV tourney, so I'll add the video eventually, if we did.

All in all, another long, exhausting, yet awesome day. Tonight, I have a night shift as well, so let’s hope the first casualty won’t be me dying from fatigue O.o

Wuuuw, final day of Genki 2009 and people seemed to have loved it thus far. I was up all night on reception duty, but made a MickeyD’s run with Kurikku, Heavy, Miv, and… Embirk, I think was the last one in the car. Anywho, with nothing better to do all night, I ended up doing rounds and taking pictures of all the pashiri who had fallen asleep in the various rooms. I’d upload the images, but they’d kill me XD

I don’t remember much of the early morning though, other than sleeping on J-Walk’s air-madrass and talking with Heavy. When I woke up an hour later I was freezing like hell, so I went back down to the reception were I got pampered by Jill and the other girls, so that was nice ^^ I gave them all big hearts ♥ (pic by Jill) I also finally got around to talking to 海砂 (read: kaisa, lit. “sea sand”, as in the sand collected at the bottom of the ocean) who has awesomecolours in her hair! (pic by Zarsu) =D And who hopefully won’t kill me for adding a pic of her ^^’ But she’s cool; she likes purple, is perverted, has an odd sense of humour, what’s not to love? XD And the colouuuuurs, uwaaaa O.o

Anywho, after getting warmed up and having a three-way with Heavy and Yoshi (lulwat? O.o) (pic by Jill), I went with Kurikku to make the presentation on the Japanese language. It… didn’t not go so well, we should’ve prepared better. Actually, we should’ve prepared, period. We sucked =_=; FORGIVE US, PEOPLE WHO HAD TO LISTEN TO US!! ;_;

After that it was time for the closing ceremony were the last of the prizes were handed out, a few speeches given, and I got pulled on stage for sheer awesomeness, but looked like a totalt doofus XD Well, I got pulled up because I had helped lots and done a lot of work for the con, so they pulled me up to show me of and gave me three, I repeat, three, not one, not two, but THREEEEEEE kilograms of candy! I lubz you guys and gals ♥ *tear* But it was kind of odd getting applause from the audience, when only maybe 10 people (of the 200-ish that were there) knew who I was, and probably no one knew that I was the one answering the inquiries sent to the info mail, or that I added the news to the website or translated everything used on the English website, or helped organize and plan the con, or kept tabs and in touch with all the groups, etc. :/ But thanks all the same ^^ I just wish all the other organizers could’ve been pulled on stage as well, since they have also put a BUCKLOAD of effort into helping make the con totally awesome by organizing their parts of the con, being responsible and confident about it, not to mention doing footwork and making deals and whatnot. It was fun working with all you gals and guys ♥

Aaanywho, after the closing ceremony, we had one more discussion type panel where we also looked at anonymous feedback and a more concentrated audience (in the sense that there were fewer with more direct input). So we are definitely gonna take all this feedback into consideration when planning next years con, which we started doing only a few minutes after we had closed the con at 5 PM and finished cleaning up. Many of the pashiri and organizers stayed behind for celebratory pizza and soda and we then went our separate ways. I went home with the lovely Swedes, Heavy and 海砂 since I take the same train. While waiting for the train, I managed to impress them by picking 海砂’s combination lock, since Heavy thought I was bluffing when I said I could do it XD

All in all, it was a faaaantastic con, and if some of the testimonials are to be believed, the best con Denmark has had so far (not bad for our début, huh? XP), despite a few flaws that we hope to correct for next year. I’ll eventually add a conclusion/analysis as well as a video and image gallery post. Look forward to it ;)

Genki 2009 was, in the eyes of the organizer group (which I’ll refer to as “Genksters“, since the group doesn’t have a name yet), a beta-con, and while we planned it to the best of our abilities within the only two months we had, we did expect that a few things would go wrong. However, we went into this hoping to make a con that would let 200 people have an awesome weekend and to learn from the experience so that Genki 2010 could become even more enjoyable, and in our own opinions, and from the feedback we got from the guests, we seem to have done a pretty damn good job. But without further ado, here comes the analysis of the con.

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Website

•The Good: The design was pleasant, the website was updated regularly, and it contained all the necessary information about the con.

•The Bad: Had too many pages making it difficult to find a specific piece of information. Also, due to lack of judgement, we made the posts inaccessible, i.e. they could only be read from the front page, which was just stupid since there was so much written in each post.

•Lesson learned: Less pages and better layout of where the information is. Make section links so we can link to a specific important section (instead of just the page it is on) when referring to information within that section. Also, make post accessible as single posts so they can be linked to, e.g. if friends go “Hey, have you seen this: [link to post] ?” on Messenger or something.

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Schedule and room overview

•The Good: We were able to stick to the schedule. Our longest delay at any point during the con was 30 minutes. Also, all event information (time, location, and delay, if any) was posted on a whiteboard by the reception desk, which was updated after every two events or when there was a confirmed delay.

•The Bad: Room overview was essentially non-existant, except on the website. Whiteboard was small and could be missed.

•Lesson learned: Print out the room overviews and tape it to the doors on each floor. Same with the schedule. This way, people don’t have to check with the reception on the ground floor. Also, get a bigger whiteboard.

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Budget

•The Good: We had a budget of only 16.000 DKK, made a friggin’ awesome con, and still stayed in the green =D

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: You don’t need half of a million DKK to make an awesome con; all you have to do is not squander tons of money on pointless stuff you can get for free, buy cheaper elsewhere, or get sponsored/borrow (lesson directed at J-Popkai who could have saved 50.000-100.000 DKK in 2008, had they put in a little extra effort and not been so spending crazy).

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Pashiri

•The Good: They were a friendly, helping, well-mannered bunch of lovely people. I heart you all!! Much lubz ♥

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: Maybe there’s still some hope for the world… Also, get those people back, even if we have to bribe them!! O.o

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Gameroom

•The Good: Lots of good games and fun tournaments. Was aired out regularly, so it was never super hot in the room, despite it being early summer.

•The Bad: We had neglected to darken the gameroom, so from about 2 PM and until about 6 PM, you couldn’t see half the screen (on any of the TVs) because of the sun. We didn’t realise until Saturday, because all day Thursday and Friday was cloudy, but by then, we couldn’t put up the ladder to get to the windows since all the tables were in the way.

•Lesson learned: Block off the sun going into the room as much as possible (which was kind of duuuur, but we managed to not notice anyway). Playing a game without being able to see what goes on in certain parts of the screen sucks. We should probably add more consoles for next year, if we can get the TVs, so we don’t have people waiting in line.

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Café

•The Good: Compared to J-Popcon 2008, there were a LOT more things to choose from as well as vegan options. We also had Japanese pop and rock music going in the background.

•The Bad: Prices were still a bit steep, but we unfortunately have no control of that. The café is independent from Genki and we won’t intrude by telling them what prices to set. Also, the music took us like a day-and-a-half too set up, which kinda sucks. We should have that shiz running from day one, but we ran into some problems on Friday with the laptop, which was my fault for being an idiot, and on Saturday, we were busy with setting up for the cosplay show.

•Lesson learned: Communication with the café helps them know what dishes to put on the menu and gives participants a better experience of the con (lesson directed at J-Popkai).

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Events/tourneys

•The Good: There were many of them, they were totally fun, and they were all well spread out on the schedule with little to no delays on any of them.

•The Bad: Because of the lack of a floor plan, not all people were completely aware of where the events would take place, until we started with the whiteboard system.

•Lesson learned: We rule, but remember the damn floor plan next year! >_<

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Anime cinema

•The Good: Had many different series, so there was something for everyone. The contests in the cinema were a lot of fun, and some said they would like for them to be longer next year.

•The Bad: Because a minor misunderstanding with Valby Kulturhus, some unions actually booked the room we used for the cinema, meaning we had to close it down TWICE during the con. This issue has already been addressed though, and we have the entire place for ourselves next year for sure. Other than that, apparently not many people visited because they hadn’t heard about many of the series before, thus didn’t know anything about them, and felt they could have more fun at other parts of the con rather than chance an hour on a random anime they had never heard about.

•Lesson learned: Write a little bit of information about the anime on the programme next year so people have more to go on than just the title. Have 2-minute breaks between each episode so that people have a chance to leave if they find out that the series isn’t to their liking, so they don’t think they are forced to stay for the rest of the duration. Finally, decrease the number of series and increase the number of feature-length anime as MADAO (the guy in charge of the cinema) noticed an increase in cinema visitors when showing those.

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Cosplay show

•The Good: Started on time (wuuuuuw, first con in Denmark to have that happen). Everything seem to go smoothly with no technical difficulties.

•The Bad: Not enough chairs :/ The building just didn’t have 200 chairs, so some people unfortunately had to stand.

•Lesson learned: Start on time again; people seem to like when you don’t delay the show by like hours! =D As for the chairs, we’ve rented a building for next year especially for the cosplay show and other stuff, and there should be enough seats for all 800 potential participants, despite the fact that probably 100 are gonna stay behind because they don’t really care about cosplay.

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Focus

•The Good: We focused on a loooot of shiz, such as Japanese music, cosplay, manga, anime, art, the language, etc. which was really good, since it meant that there was always stuff to do that would cater to at least one of your interests. This is in contrast with other Danish cons which seem to have become more and more focused on cosplay alone and have started neglecting all the other stuff.

•The Bad: -

•Lesson learned: Giving everything equal importance instead of just focusing on one thing means that people get a much better impression of the con, so we should try to stay on that path and not let cosplay take over Genki.

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And that would be it. There are some parts of the con I haven’t addressed which is simply because they seemed fine just the way there were, e.g. the Manga Lounge. If people, who were at the con, disagree with some parts I have written or would like to add something I have forgotten to mention (be it good, bad, or advise for next year’s con), feel free to write it in the comment section and we Genksters will address it during one of our meetings. That having been said, all things considered, I still think we did a pretty friggin’ sweet job of organizing the con. Genksters rule!! Pashiri were also of immense value to us, and we probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without their help during the convention. Pashiri rule!! And of course, Genki-Man filled us all with the proper Genki spirit and let our wonderful guests have a great time. Genki-Man rules!!

Finally, I would like to personally thank the people who showed up at our Genki panels. Your great feedback has helped in making this analysis and we will address all your suggestions and notes at our next meeting on July 4th, when planning Genki 2010 begins. So hearts to you all ♥