AC Programming - Not as Interesting as it Could Be?
I had lots of fun this year, but I'd like to post this while the con is still fresh in everyone's memory.
Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the panels and events this year. It was all general, usual furry affairs and nothing very interesting. I'm not trying to insult or attack the staff or the panelists, but I know that a lot of my friends really didn't go to any panels at all.
Am I alone in this? And: How can we fix this? I'd like to open discussion about what fresh and interesting events and panels we can start to make things more exciting next year.
As a lesson learned from Anime Boston, my proposal focuses on game panels. Furry conversions of game shows or contests where furries compete against each other and can win prizes. Here are some of the ideas I sketched down:
Furry Jeopardy - furry-related catagories like Wildlife, Cartoons, Furry History, etc. Instead of winning money, they'd win points, and the winner at the end would get some big prize - maybe art, dvds or comics, a voucher for commissions or fursuits.
The Dating Game - This one, with one person behind a wall and three contestant on the other side, quizzing them. Might be hard to do, as you'd need to find some furries good whit improv.
History of the Fandom - not a game, Btu still and idea I had. Think we can find someone who's respected and learned enough to outline the origin and history of the furry fandom?
I'm having a hard time thinking of other game shows that could work, but I'm sure there are plenty. I'd love to have an open discussion with anyone who has ideas for how to energize the AC programming.
Not yet. I'd like to start a thread about it first, to see what other people can come up with, and to see if anyone thinks these are awful ideas.
When I've got some good feed back, I'm certainly going to do so. I'll host something myself, if I have to.
These sorts of panels are a great idea, and they're definitely something that could be a lot of fun. The problem is any sort of game or quiz show requires a tremendous amount of work to orchestrate. I know most staff don't have the time to put something together like that, so it would have to be a volunteer panel. You're welcome to submit the idea and run the panel yourself next year.
I think there's a fairly good amount of exciting programming, but the game show idea sounds like it'd be a nice idea.
FurFright usually has a a game show setup. I am not exactly sure who usually organizes it, but it's been on FurFright's schedule for last few years. Whoever runs it can probably provide some useful comments on what problems they ran into so you can run more smoothly.
....History of the Fandom - not a game, But still an idea I had. Think we can find someone who's respected and learned enough to outline the origin and history of the furry fandom?...
You must have missed the Fursuiting Retrospective panel that was held on Sunday morning.
While, as the name suggests, it focused on fursuiting, only one section of the entire furry fandom. It still is a fascinating enough subject to cover, whether you are a fursuiter or not. (And it was revealed in the panel where the term "fursuit" originated from too.)
In fact, there was TOO MUCH to cover. One hour simply wasn't enough to cover every aspect of fursuiting and its history. And when it wrapped up, I still left with questions on the many things the panelists touched upon during the session.
Still they offered a wealth of infomation on fursuiting's early years, and I'm happy they did it. I'd recommened doing it again (and expanding it) next time around. Thank-you K.P., YappyFox, Yippie Coyote, Robert King, and Roxikat.
Two more quick notes: They recorded the panel on Sunday for archive purposes, you might eventually see it somewhere in the future. And I know there was a retrospective panel that covered the fandom's history in more general terms at Further Confusion one year. Don't know if anyone got video of that.
Well, what sort of history did it cover?
In my mind, I suppose a panel about the furry history would more be... its origins. A tongue-in-cheek look at Egyptians and Japanese kemono before talking about the first appearances of furry on the internet.
As an example, this panel gave the origin of the word "FURSUIT" (it's not what you may think it is), and covered how many people pre-year 2000 had to communicate, build fursuits when there were only a few select mascot companies around, and how the techniques evolved. The origin of the fursuit parade was discussed, as were some of the early pioneers of fursuit building.
Stories were shared by people who have been fursuiting in the fandom for at least 10 years.
So what IS the origin?
I can agree there need to be more fun things involved, but I have been to a couple cons where the games thing sorta fails for a couple reasons. If its too long wiht might belong in the video gaming or games room. If it doesn't have a hook to it like a prize, a really funny premise, or a dynamic personality (Uncle Kage, Two, Guest of Honor, etc...) it may not get enough people. Focus too much on just those aspects and it becomes just another entertainment show instead of something to involve others. Who's lion is it anyway and some of the others mentioned did some of this, but it could be expanded.
As for the other panels there were a few issues, mine included. I was happy with some of the informational panels, the how tos and al that. The social networking ones needed a bit of work however.
Can't have a game show without a charismatic host, but I think people like Kage are already pretty busy. Still, if someone like him or 2 are interested, of course it'd make things a lot more successful, but I'm hoping the premise itself will be enough to get people interested.
Did you attend "Anthropoly"? That's Anthrocon's Game Show and was held in the main ballroom at 6:30pm on Friday. It had 2, The Gneech, JR, Yippee Coyote, Fizz Otter, and Jim and Crystal Martin (the GoH's) as the star panelists, and I hosted it. I'd have to say that for those that were in attendance, there was much fun and laughter to be had...and Jim Martin's response "Varmint Panties" will go down as one of those "we gotta stop laughing" moments.
Anthropoly is a combination of Match Game and Pyramid...so it was full of jokes and fast quips.
I didn't attend but wish I did. Was it a success?
I think we could use a few more events like this.
I didn't get to go this year (work work work work work work work work work), but it's been happening for some years now, with plenty of success.
I still fondly remember 2 years ago, when the fill-in-the-blank was "When asked about the new ballroom, Kage said, 'It's great! I can even fit my [blank] inside!'". As i recall, every single panelist gave the exact same answer. 
clever, but no. 
I feel evil saying it...but as i recall, the shared answer among the panelists was "ego". And each successive time the same response turned up, the crowd laughed harder.
I've always considered it a mark of a really great organization that its central organizers know how to laugh at themselves and each other.
I don't remember its being every panelist, but it was at least two of them, and they both prefaced their answers with "I worked with/for him so I can get away with saying this" 
On the other hand, I thought The Sandstone Club could have have been a lot less interesting. With its limited hours of operation and eclectic programming it never achieved the level of "chill out" that its predecessor, "The Capsule" had.
We learned a lot from the Sandstone Club this year, but I can agree with you that it wound up a little bit of a disappointment despite the best efforts of the performers.
I have a questionnaire up on the anthrocon livejournal community regarding the dances and the sandstone club, and I'll be discussing a few issues with this year's event with the programming staff. In regards to the eclectic programming, I think I tried to do too much in there, and shoehorned in a few things that might not have been as appropriate for the event space but that I still wanted to try out at the con. The feedback from some of those attempts was positive, and the feedback from some of them was more negative, and I think that some things will be going away while others will be coming back in force next year.
If you have specific suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I know there's some things that -I- am aware of that need to change for the room to be a success, and I'm going to work on those this year.
Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the panels and events this year. It was all general, usual furry affairs and nothing very interesting. I'm not trying to insult or attack the staff or the panelists, but I know that a lot of my friends really didn't go to any panels at all.
Am I alone in this? And: How can we fix this? I'd like to open discussion about what fresh and interesting events and panels we can start to make things more exciting next year.
This is an issue that we, as Programming Staff, face every year. What is the "correct" balance of panels and events? What do Anthrocon attendees *really* want? How can we make this Anthrocon the best for the largest number of people?
The major problem we face when trying to create the "perfect" balance is that we, as Anthrocon Staff, do not create the vast majority of panels or events. We rely on input from the community and on attendees, such as yourself, to volunteer to host panels and events at the convention. We do our best to find ways to make new events work (like the "Sandstone Club"), but we do not always have the people or resources to bring every idea to life.
Furry Jeopardy - furry-related catagories like Wildlife, Cartoons, Furry History, etc. Instead of winning money, they'd win points, and the winner at the end would get some big prize - maybe art, dvds or comics, a voucher for commissions or fursuits.
I think this sounds like an excellent idea and I will add it to the list of suggestions for next year.
The Dating Game - This one, with one person behind a wall and three contestant on the other side, quizzing them. Might be hard to do, as you'd need to find some furries good whit improv.
This one is a bit harder to do, but is certainly something we can look into.
History of the Fandom - not a game, Btu still and idea I had. Think we can find someone who's respected and learned enough to outline the origin and history of the furry fandom?
This may be doable, but we would definitely need to find the right people to host such a panel.
I'm having a hard time thinking of other game shows that could work, but I'm sure there are plenty. I'd love to have an open discussion with anyone who has ideas for how to energize the AC programming.
We definitely appreciate your input. We are always looking for ways improve Anthrocon Programming.
-RB
Assistant Director of Programming, Anthrocon 2010
i loved Anthropoly and I have to leave once it got to the point with the highest two scores go up at the end. It was great expecially when u said keep it PG and I immeditally went R rated in my head expically when he got his black stuck in the door. Hope to see it again next year along with vermet panties again. Too much to see and not enough time to do it all this is coming from a 1st year at AC attende
I would like to start out by congratulating the programming staff and all the other volunteers who ran panels to keep us all entertained. In order to have good programming, you must have people who are willing to put in the time and effort to run the panels as well as feedback like this on what they want to see.
Your suggestion to have more game type programming does nothing for me, so is it wrong? Of course not, you and I just have different tastes, and it just demonstates the old saying that you can't please everybody. There is no such thing as a perfect program schedule for everybody, but having a wide variety of events to choose from is the next best thing and I think this year met that goal admirably, if anything, there were too many different things to choose from ( a GOOD problem to have)! Now that you have made your suggestion here, follow up on it, you may not want to run a panel yourself, but you may link up with others who collectively will give it a go.
I did attend the retrospective panel and found it quite informative, and I seem to recall that there was a history of Anthrocon presented at the 10th AC. I would certainly enjoy a "history of furry" panel.
Did you fill in the Programming Request Form and suggest panelists for us?