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Answerman - Being A Member of a Production Committee


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roxybudgy



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 129
Location: Western Australia
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 9:58 am Reply with quote
About convention attendee numbers, out of curiosity, how is it measured?

I've only been to a small local anime convention, and have been a volunteer at the convention for several years. They had volunteers standing at the main entrance using those little clickers to count each person walking through the main entrance.

But people were allowed to leave and re-enter as they please once they buy their entry ticket and put on the wristband. So at it's peak, our little local anime convention boasted over 5000 attendees, but I suspect some people got counted twice, maybe even three, four or five times as they walked in and out of the convention space.

It certainly is a huge leap from 10 years ago where there was an estimated 400 attendees. Not bad for the world's most isolated city?
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:08 am Reply with quote
In the unlikely event that I should get Anime on a DVD-R it will most definitely be treated with Kid Gloves, no sunny dashboards, no Siree!

I've noticed a few of the smaller cons here in Florida have been either delayed or canceled this year, I wonder if it was because of too fast growth? Still there are more than there were just a few years ago and the attendance is noticeably more.

Mark Gosdin
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2333
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:32 am Reply with quote
DVD-R's on demand? I pulled that shit back in college with Netflix and I didn't make a dime on it. Because of a soul and whatnot.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:40 am Reply with quote
Between DVD-R and no disc? I'll take no disc since I'm not wasting my money of pure shit quality. Single layer, in the time of dual layer BDs? Get real, mpeg2 needs as much bitrate as it can possibly get.
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WashuTakahashi



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 415
Location: Chicago, IL
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:46 am Reply with quote
As someone who has been attending Anime Central without fail for 9 years (and many other conventions that I've watched grow from 1k attendees to 10k attendees) I can speak on the conventions a bit.

When I first started going as an itty bitty 15 year old, most of the crowd was in their mid, possibly late-twenties as far as I could tell. I was definitely the young one. By the time I was in the 18-20 range, it seemed like the average age had fell to about 18-20. Now, as a 23 year old, I constantly meet people at conventions who are years younger than me. I'd have to guess the biggest age group is right around 17 now.

In regards to what people are willing to spend money on, I'd say it's true. Plenty of these younger kids (heck, even a good chunk of the 20-somethings) come to the con with literally no money to spend. They have enough to cover the con, food, hotel, and maybe a small souvenir or two (and sometimes work staff specifically to cover 1 or 2 of those). They go to every single convention they can (and in the Midwest near Chicago, that's about 7 a year) and spend very VERY little on stuff. And MOST of what they spend is likely to be in artist alley, not in the dealer hall on expensive merchandise. Personally, I wouldn't go to a con without at LEAST 200 dollars to spend on stuff (even as a 15 year old, I had a job and saved every last penny I could to spend at Acen) I've got a lot of younger friends now, some of which don't own a single anime or manga and get everything online, whether it's legal or not. (Most HATE ads and are more likely to use illegal sites, sadly)

The age demographics at conventions have changed drastically. There are still older people there, of course, but not as many. Cosplay is another big factor. When I first started going to cons cosplaying was fun and lots of people did it, but still maybe only 40% or so of attendees. Now it feels like 60% are in cosplay, if not more. I've had people tell me they "can't" go to conventions because they don't have a cosplay.

I feel like I'm getting off topic now so I'll wrap it up xD Younger ages, less spending money, a bigger focus on cosplay, and things in the media being all "cosplay is cool!"/"conventions are nerd havens!" Word of mouth is also a huge factor, with people getting their friends into going.
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:48 am Reply with quote
roxybudgy wrote:
About convention attendee numbers, out of curiosity, how is it measured?


Depends on the con. What you are talking about is turnstile numbers. Which counts every time someone comes in.

I personally think these are kind of stupid for cons where it is likely for people to go to all the days of a con. Works well for something like a flower show where someone might go one day. But these numbers sound good because it creates the largest number.

Cons like Otakon go by badge sales. Which is a much more realistic number.

Now, the think the difference is a con like Otakon is actually a non-profit so they don't have to inflate their numbers. Where is AX is a for profit con and if they want that ad revenue larger numbers mean more eyeballs and more eyeballs mean a better chance of getting supporting advertisers.
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Guspaz



Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:49 am Reply with quote
roxybudgy wrote:
About convention attendee numbers, out of curiosity, how is it measured?

I've only been to a small local anime convention, and have been a volunteer at the convention for several years. They had volunteers standing at the main entrance using those little clickers to count each person walking through the main entrance.

But people were allowed to leave and re-enter as they please once they buy their entry ticket and put on the wristband. So at it's peak, our little local anime convention boasted over 5000 attendees, but I suspect some people got counted twice, maybe even three, four or five times as they walked in and out of the convention space.

It certainly is a huge leap from 10 years ago where there was an estimated 400 attendees. Not bad for the world's most isolated city?

What you describe is called turnstile attendance, and anime conventions almost never use this as their primary attendance metric. Comic cons, on the other hand, normally do.

Anime conventions normally report on warm body count (total distinct people attending, including staff and dealers and guests and such) or paid attendees (just what it sounds like).

Personally, we don't place much value in our turnstile numbers (which we calculate as the total number of attendee-days sold), but we often report it as a secondary number if only so that people don't think our local comic con is three times our size when they are in fact only slightly larger.

Our experience (and we use warm bodies) has been on average roughly two thousand more attendees every year, and we're about to do our tenth year, so... you can guess our expected attendance.


Last edited by Guspaz on Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:51 am; edited 1 time in total
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:51 am Reply with quote
Turnstyle also doesn't account for people leaving and returning for food, perhaps twice a day? That's definitely thousands of extra counts per day.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:51 am Reply with quote
Code:
Netflix is a gigantic mystery.


Made for Streaming programs is just puzzling right now--It's got all the makings of a gold-rush bubble, where anyone with a new show who doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the broadcast or cable networks thinks it's the new frontier to explore, until the bills come in at the end and someone forgot to ask, "Where exactly is our money supposed to come from?" Which is what sank the last time we had a boom in new online opportunities. (And which Dreamworks is about to find out every time they use Netflix as an excuse to announce their "exclusive deal" for every movie they want to pimp into a cartoon series.)
Cable went with original programming, as mentioned, to save on license fees and produce shows they could own and market themselves, but they still sold advertising time to sponsors and had parent companies that made money on the disks and merchandise. Just what source of money Netflix expects to make giving us the whole season of Daredevil or House of Cards at once, so greedy viewers can binge it in a week and be done with it, seems like it hasn't been quite thought out, unless there's something they're not telling us.

(Or maybe I'm just annoyed that Netflix Original's actually going ahead with that "new" CGI Danger Mouse reboot for next season anyway, but at least they put the complete 80's original back up for a new generation.
One of the few Western series that is required viewing for cartoon cultural-IQ. Cool )
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Guspaz



Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:53 am Reply with quote
It depends on how you count it. Some cons just calculate it such that it represents total attendee-days, others literally sum the counters on physical turnstiles.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5407
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:57 am Reply with quote
Justin wrote:
Joining these committees was a way to beat their competitors to a new show before the bidding process could actually begin, and the license fees had risen to a rate that being a committee member wasn't THAT much more expensive. Based on what I've heard, it means the same thing today.

I don't know that nobody is making money today, but I do know that from what I'm hearing, spending is out of control, bidding wars are as intense as ever, and the cost of doing business has gotten outright stupid.

This is worrisome to me. I am sure I am not alone in hoping that we do not see NA companies fold like it happened with the mid-aughts anime bubble.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:08 am Reply with quote
The production committee question is yet another one where Justin could have thrown in a "go watch Shirobako!" exhortation. The production committee meeting episode was some comic gold, even though I wanted to strangle half those guys. I can easily imagine dealing with people like that in real life.
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Wingbeats



Joined: 23 Feb 2015
Posts: 272
Location: Boise, Idaho
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:11 am Reply with quote
I know my local con reports the number of badges sold each year, and that's their primary metric for "number of attendees." I imagine the number of people who bought a badge but didn't actually come is evened out by those who snuck in to browse artist alley or something, haha.
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CaptainAvatar



Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 381
Location: Saint Louis, MO
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:16 am Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
Justin wrote:
Joining these committees was a way to beat their competitors to a new show before the bidding process could actually begin, and the license fees had risen to a rate that being a committee member wasn't THAT much more expensive. Based on what I've heard, it means the same thing today.

I don't know that nobody is making money today, but I do know that from what I'm hearing, spending is out of control, bidding wars are as intense as ever, and the cost of doing business has gotten outright stupid.

This is worrisome to me. I am sure I am not alone in hoping that we do not see NA companies fold like it happened with the mid-aughts anime bubble.


I could be wrong, but I am guessing this is due to Funi's push to take over everything - they likely figure they have deep enough pockets to outlast everyone else. If I am right, I would be very unhappy as monopolies are always bad for the consumer.
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Zoneflare



Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 521
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:17 am Reply with quote
I was interested in buying a series from Media Blasters but after reading this I've changed my mind.
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