Warning: Wall of text ahead.
Hey guys, I realize that this might not be the best place to ask this, but since I know the Escapist is full of rather intelligent folk, I figured I might get some really 'out there' ideas here.
So my problem is, I live in Israel. Where the anime and manga community is young and still growing. And as in all countries where anime and manga has become a sub-culture, we have been holding cons for the past 5 years or so. The main organization that's currently responsible for holding most community related events is called Amai. But since it's basically run by kids who's parents have too much money on their hands and not enough imagination on what to spend it on, there has been a lot of ego wars and drama revolving said organization. Now, as I've said before, our community is very small, and when everyone knows everyone, it makes a good environment for drama and delusional conspiracies to go down. In short, Amai doesn't have a very good reputation out there (just the biggest budget), which sparked a lot of other people's motivation to stand up and attempt to create their own organizations to host cons (most of them failing, naturally). Now, I'm part of the only currently successful organization that managed to set up a decent con last year, and the date for our next con is soon coming up. Last time we were mostly being sponsored by Amai themselves, but because of the reasons I've mentioned above, we want to step out from under their wing and find a more reliable source of sponsorship.
Now, I realize that the main problem -as with everything else in life- is the budget. A bigger budget means a bigger place to rent out and more unique activities we can throw. So my first question is: Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to raise more money? As I've said before(again), our community is rather small, and the biggest con of the year only manages to gather up about 2000 people. Amai barely manages to cover up the costs of renting the place with the entry fees. So it's really hard to make ends meet with just these kind of events alone.
Second, slightly less important question: Do you have any ideas for fun events that don't necessarily require a big budget? All our cons basically just hold cosplay competitions, some panels/lectures, a screening room, a tiny, tiny console section, and some workshop sessions, like fimo and voice acting and what not. These events have been repeating themselves for years now, and people are getting rather bored by now.
Third issue: As an organization dedicated to anime and manga, raising awareness about it is also a part of our goal. Because more people who are into anime and manga=more people who attend cons=more income=bigger budget=better cons. We literally have like 2 shops in the whole country that sell anime and manga related products, and it's not enough to go around or catch the interest of people who are new to the hobby (the amount and variety of the products themselves is also rather limited, I'm guessing because there isn't a high enough demand for the more hard to get stuff). So last question is, how would you go about raising awareness about anime and manga? We've had a few attempts before to get some interviews on TV and magazines, but none of them seemed to do very good for the already rather notorious reputation of "otakus". So I guess we gotta take a different approach or something.
That's about it I guess. I'd really appreciate any sort of advice or idea you guys are willing to give. Or even just experiences that made you enjoy a con you went to.
Hey guys, I realize that this might not be the best place to ask this, but since I know the Escapist is full of rather intelligent folk, I figured I might get some really 'out there' ideas here.
So my problem is, I live in Israel. Where the anime and manga community is young and still growing. And as in all countries where anime and manga has become a sub-culture, we have been holding cons for the past 5 years or so. The main organization that's currently responsible for holding most community related events is called Amai. But since it's basically run by kids who's parents have too much money on their hands and not enough imagination on what to spend it on, there has been a lot of ego wars and drama revolving said organization. Now, as I've said before, our community is very small, and when everyone knows everyone, it makes a good environment for drama and delusional conspiracies to go down. In short, Amai doesn't have a very good reputation out there (just the biggest budget), which sparked a lot of other people's motivation to stand up and attempt to create their own organizations to host cons (most of them failing, naturally). Now, I'm part of the only currently successful organization that managed to set up a decent con last year, and the date for our next con is soon coming up. Last time we were mostly being sponsored by Amai themselves, but because of the reasons I've mentioned above, we want to step out from under their wing and find a more reliable source of sponsorship.
Now, I realize that the main problem -as with everything else in life- is the budget. A bigger budget means a bigger place to rent out and more unique activities we can throw. So my first question is: Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to raise more money? As I've said before(again), our community is rather small, and the biggest con of the year only manages to gather up about 2000 people. Amai barely manages to cover up the costs of renting the place with the entry fees. So it's really hard to make ends meet with just these kind of events alone.
Second, slightly less important question: Do you have any ideas for fun events that don't necessarily require a big budget? All our cons basically just hold cosplay competitions, some panels/lectures, a screening room, a tiny, tiny console section, and some workshop sessions, like fimo and voice acting and what not. These events have been repeating themselves for years now, and people are getting rather bored by now.
Third issue: As an organization dedicated to anime and manga, raising awareness about it is also a part of our goal. Because more people who are into anime and manga=more people who attend cons=more income=bigger budget=better cons. We literally have like 2 shops in the whole country that sell anime and manga related products, and it's not enough to go around or catch the interest of people who are new to the hobby (the amount and variety of the products themselves is also rather limited, I'm guessing because there isn't a high enough demand for the more hard to get stuff). So last question is, how would you go about raising awareness about anime and manga? We've had a few attempts before to get some interviews on TV and magazines, but none of them seemed to do very good for the already rather notorious reputation of "otakus". So I guess we gotta take a different approach or something.
That's about it I guess. I'd really appreciate any sort of advice or idea you guys are willing to give. Or even just experiences that made you enjoy a con you went to.
