Before editing (resume post):
Spoiler:
Come for news:
First, for the survey: we will not base our entirely convention on 100 answers. It is too small, it would be biased; I only said that I will give the statistics at each 100 answers. It is there to first, receive comment from other convention (a Swiss convention contact us by it) and have people opinion on the project. It also give us idea and make us accept special resquest.
Second: We already talked to a bunch of convention centers, including Luxembourg. For the moment, we have three interesting offers:
-Libramon, Belgium (1250 euros for 4 days and 5000m^2. IT COST NOTHING.)
-Somewhere in Flanders (They propose us 20% of discount for the first edition, but we don't have the price yet)
-Mitsubishi Electric HALLE in Germany (3000m^2, but we would have a partnership with another convention and the emplacement is really advantageous).
We know that the Touhou community in is not enough developed to create an only-Touhou convention, so we though that we could make a Japanese Culture Summer-Festival-Like convention (not about manga or anime, but Japanese historic, gastronomic, religious culture, etc).
It's really resumed, but I have to go in English class now. I complete this post later.
Note: NightLunya will be at the Senyu for this weekend, so you will not be able to talk to him until March 2th.
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Note: The post will be update tomorrow due to some important things to do on my Facebook's community.
Also personally I am extremely merciless whenever a survey is being used to conduct a research. N = 100 is not a valid or presentable number of opinions for a Europe wide survey or convention. Neither is every +100 on top of that. There is absolutely no value in presenting charts, graphs and other information when it means nothing. A survey on its own means nothing. The results also mean nothing. People make a meaning out of it for no reason. That isn't how you carry out a research.
No, I agree with you. Anyway, the survey was not made for giving us exact result, and it is, in part, biaised, because to much of Frech respond to it, but we try to reach others country community. It is just there to giving us ideas of want we can do fort the convention + have opinions on the project. It's not really a research but a part of our ''encouragments''.
For the 100 answers, I only said before that I'll give you the statistics to each 100 answers. We also can't know how many Touhou fan we have in Europe, so the survey is not here to be ''serious''. It is just for support.
Anyway, I don't need to echo what is said here but I personally think you're taking this too lightly. Judging from your replies I am not convinced about anything actually.
This isn't to discourage, but to create some extreme realism. Ambitions are nice, but at the end: Money is what makes things happen for conventions in general.
No, you are right, nothing is really official until we rent an hall. We consult organisers and he told us that, for a convention in Libramont, he bought ~10000 euros. If fact, we already have this money... But for personnal purpose. Touhou-Online have only ~4000 euros in bank.
If we have no money, we stop there. That's it.
Obiously, if we can't get money, we can't get convention! When our Website will be finished, we'll begin to search for sponsor and sell some stuff (goodies or games, if we can get some). We already have a Swiss convention that would be willing to support us.
We are discussing the price for stands already, because our location is almost taken. We'll try to be the less expensive possible to all our stands and visitor (something like 15 euros for 2 days for 3m^2).
Note: I'm not an orgniser, tough, I just contribute. Night is the real organiser.
Lastly, I don't think Touhou is that well known in Luxembourg (I myself only know two other people), so it would be a pretty big risk organising it here, in my opinion. I'm pretty sure that if people were to see the announce in the local newspapers over here, they'll just go "what? Why?" and not care afterwards. In my opinion, the purpose of such a convention is to attract fans and/or people who are completely new to the series.
We thought it would be nice to held a convention in Luxembourg, because it is small, central and connected to three important courntries: France, Germany, Belgium, but anyways, we already discuss with all convention center and it is too expensive. Maybe another year.
We also have planned that our convention will not exactly only Touhou. It would be also a Summer Festival on traditional Japanese culture to attract people who don't know Touhou.
Even if 1000 people claim they want a European Con, maybe 100 will show up eventually? Traveling to a Con, especially if it is outside your country means you need to take a break from school/work/life in general. It also means you need to come up with a plan.
We planned to make the convention happen in August or early september. There are low cost flights in Europ for 42 euros, but don't ask me about this; I'm not an expert about such things since I live in Canada. For the number, we obviously can predict... Only press would help us. When the Website will be complete, we'll try to get press attention. Spread the word is the best thing to do at this step.
You should more ask Night about this because I don't really know much on this subject, but Night does.
I'll give a real life persona example. Let's say I want to go to Reitaisai 2015 this year in Tokyo at Big Sight. I need to fly for 11 hours forth and 11 hours back. That's 1 day of travelling at minimum. 1 day of Reitaisai and considering I fly back the next day. That's a 2 night hotel/place to stay. Avg prices in Tokyo (unless you stay extreme cheap) is around 60 euro a night.
- Airplane ticket: 700 euro
- Hotel/lodging: 120 euro
- Food/drinks/survival: 100 euro (you restrict to simple meals and kombini food)
That's almost 1000 euros spend for just 2 days of fun. The number of people who can afford this are either rich students or working people with a decent job. Nobody is going to spend randomly 1000 euro to attend 1 Con unless you're heavy addicted. Hence I said out of 1000 people only few will show up.
Wow. We don't expect to have some visitors from other continent, but if we have the, we can first do nothing for the flights, probably. The only thing I knowv is that, in three years, it will be possible to take a Flight New York-London for 42 euros (I don't remember wich company will do this, but I know that Night read an article on the subject. He should know. That statment suprise me a lot...).
Hotels: We try to avoid big cities so the cost will be reduced, but we are giving us some choice, in case that we need more big cities. Our choice are Libramont (Belgium - 10,602 inhabitants), Kortrijk (don't have the price yet - Belgium - 75,219 inhabitants) and D?sseldorf (don't have the price yet - 3,000 m^2 - Germany - 593,682 inhabitant).
For food, again, we can't do nothing (event if we avoid, again, Islands), but if we can give free a free meal offer by one of our sponsor, why not? GAnime does it (I went to), so why not do this?
Also, make an entierly Touhou-only convention would be dangerous. So, to attrack more visitors, like said before, it would be also a summer festival in the same time.
You've mentioned that you have been running stands/booths at several cons over the past w/e events. That is all nice but what is actually your major first attempt on hosting something bigger than just running a stand? Like a mini-convention? How many people attended? What was their response/experience?
A Dutch forum I know is running a in-house fun-get-together con called 'Yuyucon'. They are about to hold their 5th soon and their average number of guests is ~50 or maybe slightly more. If popularity of their con gets larger, they might expand to bigger locations (even though it is not their ambition). This is just to show that things need to be build up slowly. Nobody is going to attend an unknown Touhou Con somewhere in Europe without even knowing what it is all about. I could ask the dutch community what they think of a European level con. Because I highly doubt they even know about this idea.
In fact, we never really made a mini-convention, but we are always considered like major guest and attrack ~170 peoples per years in each convention. We do tournament, a 15-computers-stand (and later we will have an arcade for PC-98 games - the stand make 30^m2 minimum), PV projection and a conference. Ask NightLunya for details.
I don't remember if we contact the Dutch, but with all the knowledge I have, I think that yes. But I was not knowing about Yuyucon. Do you know where I can contact them?
If we didn't contact the Dutch community, we have to, but for now, we are contactign Scandinavian communities (we work on [url-=http://touhou.fi]touhou.fi[/url] for now). I know that we have to contact the Spanish community (there several ones that we have to contact) and we desperately try to reach Italian fans since their community is dead.
Second constraint is popularity of Touhou. Face it, Touhou isn't as popular anywhere else aside than the Asian countries. Correct me if wrong but even Anime Boston has a separate Touhou panel. Anime Boston itself is not a Touhou-con. Anime Boston's Touhou panel could evolve into a Touhou-only con if popularity rises but haven't seen it yet. (Neither sure if there is an ambition to do so). Not sure if you also read Cuc's news info about Taiwain's Reitaisai. They are organising their own "Reitaisai".
Well, they have TouhouCon in US. It's their 2th years and they are successful, so... (
source)
We try to base our convention on this one.
They have a lot of sponsor. Wev hope to get two or three sponsor the first years. Their entry fees are of $35 US, for three day. For us, it would be maximum 12.50 euros (it will be probably 8 to 10 euros for two days).
We already contact them, but I (and not Night, because he contact them before) will redo it because, after 1h of talking, they just stop for an unknow reason. So I'll try to get more informations (if it's possible).
Third, Reitaisai or Japan in general: Is a Doujin culture. Their dedication for hobby related work is extreme and unmatched. Yes, we got a lot of western artists who also make beautiful artwork or produce nice doujin CDs etc, but it isn't concentrated. And concentration is what Japan benefits from: It is all in their country and thus easier to achieve. This is also the same as previous point: Popularity. Gaming and events are nice but the main purpose of a Con is often presenting your work, selling them and having fun / interacting with the crowed. Tournaments are usually not seen at Reitaisai since the whole event revolves around selling Doujin material. It would also be too chaotic to organise, lol.
Mmm... I don't really know what to say about this, because it's clear that the most demanded thing is tournaments. It's the point that we need to do the most big efforts. Finding Touhou Doujin and Doujinshi: Outch, difficult. Games: We need more materials for sure. I know ssome people who have traduiced books and stuff, but that's it. We need to do research for this... The only sure thing is: We have 15 computers, space for stand, goodies section will not be an only-Touhou section (more Touhou we have, more it's better) and spae for comminity and convention stands.
We have do got support for this and a lot of research. It's why we would need community abassadors and volunters soon.
It's one of the things we are unsure: How can we get pertinent guess, events ansd exhibitors?
You just ring a bell, Helepolis
This makes me think that the Luxexpo may be too big, since during the big fairs, there are at least 10000 (maybe even 100000) visitors per day. However, I found another place for Luxembourg (should it ever happen to be here) that's far smaller (and probably more appropriate): the Centre Drosbach. However, it's at a pretty remote place of Luxembourg (Gasperich, Cloche d'Or)....and the average charge for a full day of rental(?) of their "salle trap?zo?dale" is already €4500, which is a fair amount of money.
I think Libramont price is better, but I will think about this one for the next years (we would change of location each years), because it is less expensive that the average (~5000 euros per day).
I think it would absolutly be a good idea if I begin to contact eventual sponsors or exhibitors.
