AX tables are now about $600 and there are like... 700 artists or something?? so they make over $400,000 off of artist registration

and they still have AA in that stupid unventilated parking lot in a weird location in the con center

and in ALA's case I understand that they wanted to provide more spaces (which is its own issue; suddenly doubling the number of artists makes the con more money but does not guarantee increased profits for us)

(in fact it almost guarantees we'll make LESS on average because even with normal foot traffic, a lot of regular congoers are there just to look, not to buy, and people who are there to buy have to choose between more artists)

but no matter how much reassuring they try to do, they cut us off from the main con center and have to put a lot of effort into redirecting attendees to a temp structure

when most people are going to expect that AA is in the same place or at least very close to exhibitors

so we're going to lose foot traffic and lose sales

it's sad because they really did try to do better, I know AA has come up at a lot of staff meetings on 'how can we do well' and giving more space and tables seemed to be a good idea but most people don't do AA who are on con staff (how would they have time lol) and just.. it doesn't occur to them about the traffic issue

yeah :< I feel like it's kind of common for decisions like this one to be made in genuinely good faith but with just no foresight

and I don't necessarily disagree on principle with adding more tables-- 230 is still a very manageable number imo

(as opposed to AX's cast of thousands)

but the decision wasn't made lightly and it was bad communication they're trying deeply to damage control now ugh
and trying really hard to be like, 'what can we do best in the future" too trying to fix what they can and improve for next year

(I talked to staff yesterday more than just twitter DMs who is personally invested in making sure next year is even better because of all this especially and has a lot of AA firends c:

yeah, like I'm not even really mad about everything from yesterday, I'm content giving feedback afterward to help guide toward better processes for next year

and if it turns out the conditions in the pavilion ARE weird then we can talk about that too, I'm just exasperated in general because this kind of thing keeps happening

artists spend a lot of money, adhere to strict guidelines and rules in AAs, but we tend not to really get consulted about changes made 'for our benefit' which like, I get isn't really feasible on a large scale, you can't just like quiz every attending artist about what they liked and didn't like, but with stuff like this

where we're all like "no this is harmful to us" it feels a lot like there's no meaningful reception

most of the time, sometimes there is, which is v nice

and I'm reeeeeally mad about this stuff in context of artists ending up doing quality control for vendors and always being the ones who report bootlegs because there just aren't vetting processes in place

we follow a lot of rules and pay a lot of money and then companies a lot bigger than us just kinda do whatever and get the nice big spaces

(also so much of what artists pay is out of pocket so)

lmfao you know my feelings haha

im still pissed to all hell (also there might not be bathrooms in the pavillion and i'm an livid over that because of health issues)

I mean... as long as it's not like a ten minute walk to the nearest bathroom it's really not that big of a deal

it can be? who knows because we're outside lol

it's not like it's a tent in a remote parking lot, dude

BUT you have points about aa following strict rules and vendors kind of doing willy nilly :\

it's not going to be that far, I wouldn't imagine it being any farther than bathrooms outside a proper exhibit hall

but yeah, my big problem is how strictly managed and regulated AAs are for what we get, when vendors get to do whatever they want with very few restrictions and nobody checks to see if someone is a legit proxy seller or just a bootlegger

haha i guess the bathroom thing.. it's kinda just. my last straw. lmfao;

oh ya at ax a friend of a friend had her art bootlegged in the dealers hall

she literally had her prints at her table

and ax demanded that she show them the psd file

yeah I'm friends with one of the people whose mousepads were bootlegged at holmat

omg same

(that actually scared me because we share a lot of the same manus lmfao)

I just wish there was more we could do but vendor staff just does not fucking listen to us

guess I'll put all my psds on a usb and carry it around with me

the booth I reported at sac took down the one image I could provide a pixiv link for but the unofficial reprints of the official love live art and other stolen pixiv work that we couldn't source immediately stayed up all weekend

that sucks :\

(also its shit that you should have to keep your actual psds on you :\ )

there are quite a few plush bootleg vendors at sac too but

idk im not in vendors and i can't 1000% prove it so

shrug

yeah, like I can understand wanting to make sure that it's the actual artist who's complaining but if you look at it in context, why would an independent artist be the dishonest one in that situation

seriously :\

and ax only made the vendor take down the one item and they were able to keep all their other bootleg stuff

it's usually pretty easy to corroborate the proper source on something and especially if a vendor booth has a LOT of different styles of art up, if an artist says they aren't an authorized proxy seller, why not just believe them lol

why not be as suspicious of vendors' integrity as artists'?

seriously :\