Feb 17 2009
Feedback: Katsucon Staff Responds to Complaints
I posted a giant entry worth of feedback about Katsucon earlier today. Cosplay.com member Colette (who is the chair of the con) actually posted a response to the giant 10+ pages worth of feedback over at that site. Here is the link to the thread, but I am also resposting her response here for you all to read, and judge for yourselves:
I’ve read through all 10 pages of the comments regarding Katsucon 15 in this thread, and before I start going back through and addressing individualized issues, I wanted to mention a few things that are common themes throughout the posts I’ve read:
1. The complaints about the time it took to pick up a pre-registered badge are completely correct and valid. We thought we had improved that process for this year, and obviously, we did not. I am so very very sorry for that hassle, confusion, and mess. Smoothing out and quickening that process will be our number one focus for next year, we should have had it fixed better this year, and it wasn’t.
2. I think it is now clear why we set the cap, and we did not exceed it over any single day (final numbers was about 6,400 badges sold, but that counts Friday, Saturday and Sunday only badges, which only counted against that day’s numbers). We worked with the Hyatt to keep under their Fire Marshal approved limits, and we did. We maybe should have gone smaller, but thankfully, with our new venue next year, we won’t have the size issues we had last year.
3. I apologize for the situation regarding the formal ball, it was far, far more popular than we thought, but I do want to mention that everyone who waited in line did get in. It took far to long for some, no doubt, due to the capacity in that room, but everyone did get in (I was down there, having enjoyed about 5 waking minutes in there with my husband in our finery before we got back to work!)
4. Please let us know when you are poorly treated by staff. As I have said in the Katsucon feedback forum, no Katsuson staffer I know comes to the con rip roaring and ready to go to berate attendees. While I will individually address the person who I feel is looking the wrong way at our Attendee Service Program (”Get Colette!”), we have it in place to learn about your concerns when we are able to do something to improve/fix them, it is incredibly difficult and disheartening to read things like “All Katsucon staff suck” after the convention and know that it is now virtually impossible to figure out who any of the problematic staffers were.
5. To dispel the rumors about why the Terrace was closed (the one you could exit onto from the 2nd floor that had the Maid Cafe’/Art Show on it), the hotel locked it down after seeing repeated folks out there climbing up onto and standing on the top of the 4 - 5′ wall that lines the side of the Terrace. The thought of someone falling off and the liability they would carry spooked them and they decided to lock it down. I can’t blame them for that. The repeated comments of stupid attendees doesn’t just affect you guys individually, it affects everyone.
Please keep giving us feedback, with as much specific information as you can, so we can see what to improve for next year (besides the obvious that I’ve gone over here). Thank you for taking the time to let us know what we can do better.
–Colette H. Fozard, Chairwoman, Katsucon 15 and 16
My husband is on the staff of Katsucon, although not one of the higher-ups.
Hopefully a bigger hotel and not having to cap attendance will be better. From what I have heard, the new hotel is REALLY looking forward to the con!
Collette is pretty cool, BTW.
I read Frank’s comments on the previous post on Katsu and he is right on. People who complain about security a lot are usually the troublemakers.
As for Cosplay - it never goes the way people who are in it want it to… everyone wants the event catered to their acting needs.