><
Well, it's Tuesday and I'm at home recuperating from a four day long con weekend. I had a wonderful time at the convention, but I was really really disappointed with Gaia. Gaia's greatest thing at Fanime has always seemed to be their big friendly dealers booth in the dealers hall which usually had a variety of well-known and well-loved names and faces circulating in and out of it over the course of the four days of the convention.
In 2005 and 2006, I helped out at the dealers booth for them, greeting people, helping to sell things, helping run the wheel, and many other things. This year, since I'm not a moderator anymore, there wasn't even an opportunity for me to help with the booth, unlike previous years when even non-moderators were welcome to come hang out and help out for a while.
I've honestly been so unhappy with the way Gaia has been going, that I wanted to just avoid going to the Gaia booth at all this year. However, I've still got a few friends who are moderators and such, so eventually I got dragged over to the booth. I'm standing around talking to one of the mods I know who had volunteered to help with the booth this year, when a paid Gaia staff member comes up and berates them, and tells them, "Hey, get back over here and pay attention to the booth, remember you're representing the company."
I was so embarrassed and annoyed at that moment, that I didn't get a good look at who it was on Gaia staff that did that, though I know it wasn't anyone that I knew from having met them in previous years at the booth.
But after that wild horses could not have dragged me any closer than about 100 feet distant to the Gaia booth. I just want to say... though I know whoever it was will probably not ever see this journal entry... y'know, before you dragged that mod off to 'represent your company', he was representing your community.
Gaia is an online social hangout. Fanime, as a 'by fans for fans' anime convention is the real-life analog of this. I don't know who came up with the briliant idea of turning the Gaia booth at the con into an Industry thing where people were not welcome to hang out unless they were either buying something or working the booth, but you killed the social aspect of it entirely. The booth was simply not a fun place to be.
Oh, the booth was pretty. It was the most professional looking booth at the con. Unfortunately, perhaps someone didn't realize that Fanime is not an Industry convention, but a fan convention. The booth failed at being socially friendly in any way. When I did walk by from a distance, I saw no one that I knew from previous years. No Lanzer, no L0cke, no Kaia or Darknrgy. No Ling. I saw Dri, once.
Looking at the booth, the way they had blocked themselves in with walls, you couldn't even see from one side of the booth to the other. Pretty much whatever angle you looked at, there'd be at least two sides of the booth entirely hidden from you. The 'wheel' was apparently on the backside of the booth. I know someone mentioned it to me, so I know it was there, but it was so well hidden amongst all the walls that I never actually saw it when I was looking at the booth.
There were no signs announcing the time and location of either the panel or the social so far as I could see either. They had those in previous years. There was no table with paper laid out for fans to stop by and doodle art while they hung out. They had that in previous years too.
Since my encounter at the booth was on Friday, the first day of the convention, I bought -nothing- from the booth this year, even though I had originally planned to get probably a plushie and a hat, and was hoping for keychains. I also heard that they didn't even bring keychains or buttons to the con???? Just about any dealer worth their salt brings keychains or buttons to conventions. They sell better than anything else because they're not expensive, and are smaller to tote around and store at the booths.
I was on duty for constaff during both the Gaia panel and the Gaia social. So, since the dealers booth turned out to be such a corporate entity, at least two of the people from Gaia that I -know- were here this last weekend and wanted to see, I never managed to meet up with.
What's my point other than griping? My point I think, is that conventions have been one of the big ways that the Gaia community has been melding together and bonding, and one of the major sources of word of mouth advertising... which was what originally created this community back before they spent even a penny on actual advertising. I've been noting for a while that they've been ignoring their community online and seeming to place priority only on issues that involve profit. Now, this attitude seems to have infected their setup for conventions as well.
No one I talked to at Fanime had anything positive to say about the Gaia booth this year. I saw a few people with grunnie plushies or gwee plushies or ORLY hats, but in previous years I could hardly go two feet without running into someone with a Gaia hat or plushie or tee. Of course, I also didn't see any merchandise actually on display at the booth... whereas previously one of each item was set out front for passers-by to see and even non-Gaians would buy some just because it was cute.
I'll be interested to see if their numbers for attendance at the panel and social still managed to grow this year. I think that this year they're off to a very poor start of promoting their 'social community' in the social atmosphere of a fan convention by making their dealers booth a very unsocial place.
If they HAD to have the big pretty segregating booth, they could have used it much more effectively by bringing the right merchandise, hanging some of the merchandise on the outer walls of their sanctum where it was visible to passers-by, having large signs to announce the times of their panel and social on all FOUR sides of the booth, since you couldn't see around to other sides due to the walls in the middle, and by ditching all but maybe 2 or 3 of the computers sitting around waiting for 'new members only' and instead using some of that space for a fan art/hangout area where people who were already users could sit around and draw fan art, socialize, and generally promote Gaia simply by being there. Oh yes, and putting the wheel somewhere it would actually be seen would have been good too.
Better, I think, would have been to take down two of those segregating walls so that you could see from one side of the booth to the other sides, and use the single remaining wall to put up the display merchandise and signs and things.
But then again... what do I know? I don't have a degree. I'm just a fan who works for conventions. :'D That's it from me. I'll post my non-Gaia fanime stuff elswhere and link it from here once I've got it up. ~Kava
Edit on 7/31 @ 7am: I haven't found the energy to get my pictures and other stories from Fanime up yet... but I did find this post in an SF thread yesterday. paraparaprincess and I seem to have similar points about the Gaia booth.
I'm wondering how many other people share these opinions, but are so disgusted with Gaia that they're not bothering to say anything, and they're just quietly drifting away.
View User's Journal
Kava's Ramblings
Insights, Observations, Scenes, Thoughts, and other miscellenous and etcetera from the mind of an online nut...
 |
Kava
Community Member |
Grawr?Rwrz!
User Comments: [9] [add]
|
Kava Community Member 
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
rayinte
Community Member 
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Breyer Community Member 
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Kender
Community Member 
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Harbinger of Pandamonium Community Member 
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Rejoices
Community Member 
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Linary Community Member 
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Daruvachek
Community Member 
|
|
|||||||||||||||
User Comments: [9] [add]
Community Member