Complaints regarding Anime Los Angeles Masquerade

If you read (on any forum) complaints about or allegations of cheating in the Anime Los Angeles 2007 Masquerade, please ask the poster to send their complaint and any supporting evidence to masq@animelosangeles.org.

Thank you.

Maybe I'm just a jerk...

...but there are two sides to the whole animelosangeles "security" complaint.

Chaz has addressed the question of how the security department handled this issue of hidden badges on convention members and of people without convention badges. He's the chair, and taking responsibility is the right thing to do.

However...

Anime conventions take money, and paying members providing that money, to run. Anime Los Angeles is a non-profit operation, and unlike Comic-Con International or AnimeExpo, it doesn't get tens of thousands of dollars of sponsor money (or the attached strings). Nobody is getting rich off of this, and many convention volunteers (myself included) paid for the vast majority of our con expenses, including big things like our hotel room and transportation from home to Los Angeles and small things like award certificate paper and printer ink, out of our own pockets.

As Chaz said, Anime Los Angeles also had space concerns this year. When last year's membership exceeded the number of badges printed, the con's hotel people started phoning other hotels they work with to see if Anime Los Angeles could move to a bigger space. It's not easy, though, getting a hotel that will deal gracefully with an anime convention, much less a 2,000 person anime convention. Try doing that barely a year out without changing to drastically different dates. It wasn't possible, but it was plenty of time to book the Burbank Marriott for January 2008 (although they still had to move three weeks earlier). There was already an agreement with the Airtel, but that meant making sure the convention didn't become so crowded that the fire marshals would shut it down. There's a fire station near the Airtel (because it's right next to the airport) and the fire marshals came through the con. They didn't shut the con down, and that's a good thing.

So, if you were a paying member and you're unhappy with how security was working, you have some right to be upset.

If you were not a paying member, if you "just came to hall cosplay" or "hang out with your friends" you need to think about those statements. If it were not for the paying members, there would be no hotel, no space, no hall cosplay, no friends getting together in a hotel, no convention. "I wasn't messing with anything that belonged to the con" only stands up if there is no con.

If you're ghosting, you're stealing from the people who provided their time and money to help make the con happen, whether they're organizers or paying members.

Friends don't let friends ghost cons.

Entry number 40, "The Idolm@ster" has been disqualified from the Anime Los Angeles 2007 masquerade

Equal enforcement of the masquerade rules is the cornerstone of fair competition.

Entry number 40, "The Idolm@ster" has been disqualified from the Anime Los Angeles 2007 masquerade competition for violating the rules, and their award for "Best Choreography" has been revoked.

Rule #1 of the masquerade is "All contestants must be attending members of Anime Los Angeles. If the maker and presenter are different people, both must be attending members. Purchased and rented costumes may not be entered." One of the presenters in the entry was not a member of the convention.

Earlier today, maryssa commented in lionboogy's livejournal that she lied to the masquerade green room staff about having a convention membership when signing in and signing the release forms. We confirmed that the release form, signed at green-room check-in rather than at masquerade registration or the contestant meeting, did not include a badge number.

So much of masquerade operations relies on the honor system. The green-room staff is not convention security. They're present to keep the entrants safe and to help entrants stay calm and ready to go to the stage. The bad weather, leaky roof and failure of the hotel to provide heaters made their job even more difficult. Lying to them is just inexcusable.

I have exchanged messages with lumie and babysnowleopard. They have assured us that this fraud was as big a surprise to them as it was to us.

This information will be referred to next year's masquerade director. Whether or not this situation results in rules or procedures changes is at the discretion of the director.

	Official photograph of Entry # 40, maryssa
	confession Screen-capture from livejournal Transcription: Hahah wow. I didn't even buy a badge and thus I now shove that fact in the face of all staff if this is how it went down. I must have lucked out coming in the side door or something, because no one ever asked for my badge. When we were lining up backstage (IN THE DAMN FREEZING RAIN) i told them my badge was in my room =p

Some parts of this job I hate.

We had to disqualify an entry in the Anime Los Angeles 2007 Masquerade because one of the presenters lied to the green-room staff about having a membership.

Rapture.