I’m hoping that this is something that the new venue can solve (what can’t it solve?) given that, with the extra room, there’s hopefully the ability to run a bunch of events that we’d otherwise have a hard time justifying.

If you have any ideas for things you think could help shake things up, we’ve created a special website for them! Pop on over to http://ideas.smash.org.au/ and do our work for us!

The issue I (and alot of people I know) have with conventions right now is they are always the same. Apart from the Evangelion guests this year, there wasn’t anything really new. There was a cosplay comp, there was art, there were stalls, there were some arcade games and there was a maid cafe, pretty much everything that was there the year before.

As for the Part 2 of the Survival Guide, we ended up spending too much time preparing and setting up for the convention for me to write it up :p

Thanks for the feedback. I’m sorry you didn’t find the convention had that much new. Was there stuff you were hoping would be there that wasn’t? Or was it something else? Any ideas on things that we could bring in? We’re thinking about next year now so we’re pretty open to any suggestions.

I would just like to say about Town Hall that, while we were aware the venue had a maximum capacity when we booked it, we a) didn’t think we’d get there in the first year and b) didn’t feel there were a lot of alternatives. As you’d probably be aware as someone that organises events, there’s just not really anywhere in between the Roundhouse and ATP or the Convention Centre. Going to either of those venues wasn’t really possible this year and so Town Hall it was.

Knowing what we know now, we would have liked to have given people more warning that the event might sell out. The problem is that it’s really hard to tell. Personally, I honestly believed that in 2009 we’d sell out and yet we were nowhere close. This time around, I just wasn’t sure.

I’m sorry to all the people who were turned around and I hope they’ll give us another chance next year. Hopefully in the new space we’ll have something for everyone