Daisho Con

Kinda surprised there isn't one already since there are a bunch NBers going but anyway. Who's gonna be there?

I will. Allow me to be the first to welcome everyone to my hood this weekend. If anyone gets into town thursday night PM me. Also, if anyone is having cell phone problems on I-94 stop off at the Verizon store in Hudson and say hi!

-Jason

I DONT KNOW i will think about it.

i am posting this from the hotel btw.

OK, it was a good time. Was my first 'bigger' con, Daisho is the only other one I've ever been to. I'll probably hit up other cons at some point in the (near?) future, too.

If you are in/near the area, btw, the Eagle Street Grill is awesome. Absolutely awesome. A pound of kielbasa with peppers and mashed taters is just incredible in so many ways.

*POST-EMPTIVE STRIKE*

Just got home from Detour a few hours ago. I've been going to Detour for the last 4 years, and this honestly was by -far- the worst year for Detour since I've started going there. They switched to a new, bigger, hotel that was plagued by a poorly designed setup; only 3 elevators (with one constantly breaking) and small narrow stairs for a 22 floor building....... bad idea. Plus almost all of the interesting panels were very poorly scheduled in my opinion, basically anything and everything I was interested in always ended up conflicting with another thing I was interested in.

Personally... I wish Detour would go back to the old Thunderbird hotel. Yeah it was smaller, however the hotel allowed for very easy accessibility and everything wasn't crammed into small rooms.

Basically Detour '09 in my opinion can be a good example of trading in quality for quantity.

Congestion in the halls was probably my biggest problem with it, yeah. Especially those elevators. And the people that don't realize that you should let others off before you get on.

Hmmm that's too bad. I know that a good or bad hotel venue/setup can make all the difference sometimes.

Sephiroth X wrote:*POST-EMPTIVE STRIKE*

Just got home from Detour a few hours ago. I've been going to Detour for the last 4 years, and this honestly was by -far- the worst year for Detour since I've started going there. They switched to a new, bigger, hotel that was plagued by a poorly designed setup; only 3 elevators (with one constantly breaking) and small narrow stairs for a 22 floor building....... bad idea. Plus almost all of the interesting panels were very poorly scheduled in my opinion, basically anything and everything I was interested in always ended up conflicting with another thing I was interested in.

Personally... I wish Detour would go back to the old Thunderbird hotel. Yeah it was smaller, however the hotel allowed for very easy accessibility and everything wasn't crammed into small rooms.

Basically Detour '09 in my opinion can be a good example of trading in quality for quantity.

This was the feeling in my stomach I shouldn't go.....so I stayed home this year...and I'm glad I did

Also, the game room was rather disappointing, to say the least. I think Daisho having one of the board game vendors set up in the board/card game room was an excellent idea. Their video game selection was also weaker than Daisho's selection, but they did have an NES set up. Did Daisho have one?

if not, that does give me a good idea -- but we'll talk about those ideas soon

MrMoose, did you see the size of the main programming room that they used for the dance floor at Detour 09?

DaishoCon's game room alone is roughly 1/2 that size, and is the largest room at DaishoCon equal only to the dealer room. Much bigger than Detour provided, though the 22nd floor was nice to look at the scenery at night. There were game systems that neither Anime Detour or KakkoiCon had there, including a couple NES systems, numerous X360s, PS3, PSX, PS2, N64, Wii, GameCube, Dreamcast, and I think I saw a Saturn there... don't remember.

Don't like the game choice? just go give your driver's liscense or other form of photo ID to act as collateral while you choose from the huge stock of games behind the counter.

Sephiroth X wrote:*POST-EMPTIVE STRIKE*

Just got home from Detour a few hours ago. I've been going to Detour for the last 4 years, and this honestly was by -far- the worst year for Detour since I've started going there. They switched to a new, bigger, hotel that was plagued by a poorly designed setup; only 3 elevators (with one constantly breaking) and small narrow stairs for a 22 floor building....... bad idea. Plus almost all of the interesting panels were very poorly scheduled in my opinion, basically anything and everything I was interested in always ended up conflicting with another thing I was interested in.

Personally... I wish Detour would go back to the old Thunderbird hotel. Yeah it was smaller, however the hotel allowed for very easy accessibility and everything wasn't crammed into small rooms.

Basically Detour '09 in my opinion can be a good example of trading in quality for quantity.

Very accurate account. Also something to be said about the staff, at some points they were right down mean and rude to the congoers.
Also the dealers room was insane, so crowded you could hardly look.
I too also had issues with scheduling, I missed the AMV contest which I was in cause they scheduled the Ranger panel the same time. Plus I couldn't be in the cosplay contest because I was uninformed that the registration was Friday night.

If you want the full account read Adam's recap that he will be posting in the next few days.

Cheesus wrote:

Sephiroth X wrote:*POST-EMPTIVE STRIKE*

Just got home from Detour a few hours ago. I've been going to Detour for the last 4 years, and this honestly was by -far- the worst year for Detour since I've started going there. They switched to a new, bigger, hotel that was plagued by a poorly designed setup; only 3 elevators (with one constantly breaking) and small narrow stairs for a 22 floor building....... bad idea. Plus almost all of the interesting panels were very poorly scheduled in my opinion, basically anything and everything I was interested in always ended up conflicting with another thing I was interested in.

Personally... I wish Detour would go back to the old Thunderbird hotel. Yeah it was smaller, however the hotel allowed for very easy accessibility and everything wasn't crammed into small rooms.

Basically Detour '09 in my opinion can be a good example of trading in quality for quantity.

This was the feeling in my stomach I shouldn't go.....so I stayed home this year...and I'm glad I did

In all honesty Cheesus, you really didnt miss much. It really was a C-grade Detour and there were alot of things that ticked me off about the con. Like seriously, Detour '06 was the first con i've ever gone to so the con holds a special place for me, but this con has made me almost consider not going to Detour again next year. It was really a lackluster con.

Plus it doesnt help that I personally like smaller anime cons, its more social and what not, and Detour the last couple years has really started to push away from that.

Sephiroth X wrote:In all honesty Cheesus, you really didnt miss much. It really was a C-grade Detour and there were alot of things that ticked me off about the con. Like seriously, Detour '06 was the first con i've ever gone to so the con holds a special place for me, but this con has made me almost consider not going to Detour again next year. It was really a lackluster con.

Plus it doesnt help that I personally like smaller anime cons, its more social and what not, and Detour the last couple years has really started to push away from that.

This was my first Detour and it gets an Incomplete from me. They were definitely hamstrung by an awful location, and even the staff realized it immediately. A better hotel, which they are moving to next year, solves half of their problems. There were a lot of plus marks that many conventions don't have- great registration processing (which ACen lacks), excellent AMV contest (which No Brand and Iowa lack), good room party support (which Daisho lacks), many surrounding food options (which No Brand and ACen lack) and the efficiency of their tech team was nothing short of inspirational (which everybody lacks). It was up there with No Brand as being one of the best-run conventions I've attended, so if they solve their location issues and work to improve their reputation of bad staff/congoer rapport, they'll be fine.

The full recap will probably be up Saturday.

1stAgent wrote:This was my first Detour and it gets an Incomplete from me. They were definitely hamstrung by an awful location, and even the staff realized it immediately. A better hotel, which they are moving to next year, solves half of their problems. There were a lot of plus marks that many conventions don't have- great registration processing (which ACen lacks), excellent AMV contest (which No Brand and Iowa lack), good room party support (which Daisho lacks), many surrounding food options (which No Brand and ACen lack) and the efficiency of their tech team was nothing short of inspirational (which everybody lacks). It was up there with No Brand as being one of the best-run conventions I've attended, so if they solve their location issues and work to improve their reputation of bad staff/congoer rapport, they'll be fine.

The full recap will probably be up Saturday.

You sir, hit the nail on the head pretty much. Yeah, I dont want to sound too negative on Detour because you did point out that it has an ideal registration process and their AMV competition is bar none the best. But yeah, they need to fix the location and bring up the reputation of their staff. Also, I dont know if other cons do this, but am I the only person who thinks its poopy for them to charge you 60 bucks if your con badge is lost or stolen?

60 bucks?!