Anime Banzai was a blast. I'd only volunteered to help out with on event that started at 10:30 AM. I showed up a little later than I hoped (right around 10:10) which gave me very little time to register for the convention. My first surprise came when I found out my badge had been comped. That was pretty sweet. I didn't have to pay to get in.
The event I helped was called "Otaku Have Talent," which was basically an excuse for people at the convention to get up on stage and make fools of themselves. We got some terrible, terrible stand-up comics (not a single one was funny), we got some dancers, some contortionists, and some singers. We originally planned to give each person 2:30 minutes, but that quickly got knocked down to 1:00 minute.
The most fun of that was getting to comment as a judge throughout each of the acts, crack jokes, and help keep the whole thing flowing. I think the whole thing was much funnier with me there commenting on each performance. I even made some of the really bad people look okay. =P We were surprised, though, by most of the singers. They were people who could actually sing well. Finally, there was a 4-person band that got up and sang a song about how they wanted their fifth member, their drummer, to come back to them. During the bridge, they used their bodies for percussion, and it turned out pretty sweet. It was the very last performance of Otaku Have Talent, and it was a great finale for the event.
After that panel, I hopped in a car with one guy who went out to pick up some last-minute electronic cords needed to wire a sound system. He hadn't expected to have someone else in the car, and I wound up helping him pick up lunch for a couple people as well. We chatted about anime and D&D while in the car.
After we got back and ate, there was a small crisis with the computer not playing the music that it was supposed to. They called on a guy to come and play his keyboard, but he was sitting on the Anime...
Anime Banzai was a blast. I'd only volunteered to help out with on event that started at 10:30 AM. I showed up a little later than I hoped (right around 10:10) which gave me very little time to register for the convention. My first surprise came when I found out my badge had been comped. That was pretty sweet. I didn't have to pay to get in.
The event I helped was called "Otaku Have Talent," which was basically an excuse for people at the convention to get up on stage and make fools of themselves. We got some terrible, terrible stand-up comics (not a single one was funny), we got some dancers, some contortionists, and some singers. We originally planned to give each person 2:30 minutes, but that quickly got knocked down to 1:00 minute.
The most fun of that was getting to comment as a judge throughout each of the acts, crack jokes, and help keep the whole thing flowing. I think the whole thing was much funnier with me there commenting on each performance. I even made some of the really bad people look okay. =P We were surprised, though, by most of the singers. They were people who could actually sing well. Finally, there was a 4-person band that got up and sang a song about how they wanted their fifth member, their drummer, to come back to them. During the bridge, they used their bodies for percussion, and it turned out pretty sweet. It was the very last performance of Otaku Have Talent, and it was a great finale for the event.
After that panel, I hopped in a car with one guy who went out to pick up some last-minute electronic cords needed to wire a sound system. He hadn't expected to have someone else in the car, and I wound up helping him pick up lunch for a couple people as well. We chatted about anime and D&D while in the car.
After we got back and ate, there was a small crisis with the computer not playing the music that it was supposed to. They called on a guy to come and play his keyboard, but he was sitting on the Anime Idol audition panel. I volunteered to take his place, and so he came over and played music while I went over and listened to people sing. The audition process was sort of a mess and went really slowly. We only got through about 8 of the 20 people we were supposed to audition, so we had to schedule them in for later.
I kicked it around the convention for a couple hours. I watched the AMV contest. Some of the AMVs were pretty damn good. Overall, there was something like 30 AMVs. That's a LOT of music videos. There were some technical difficulties, as there had been all day.
Around 6 PM, I headed back over to help finish the Anime Idol auditions. It turned out that the guy I was subbing for wasn't coming back, so my temporary fill-in turned into a permanent fill-in, and so I was expected to finish with the auditions (along with the other two judges) and then go on stage for the final round with the last 6 contestants. It was pretty gnarly. I started to get a really nasty headache, despite all the water I drank and plenty of food I ate, so I went onstage at around 9 PM with a bad-nasty headache buzz. Thankfully, the bright stage lights hurt enough that I was able to concentrate on not making a fool of myself.
The crowd for Anime Idol was probably 200-300 people, at least. I don't actually know how many were out there because the lights were too bright. I was supposed to be playing the part of "Simon" from American Idol, but I've never seen the show, and I got a bunch of comments that I wasn't being mean enough. I thought "to hell with mean," because anime conventions are supposed to be fun. Besides, there's no way I can pull off mean without some rehearsal or something.
I made the audience laugh a bunch of times. Thank goodness I have so much freaking stage-improvisation experience by this point! Not only was I able to improvise my freaking part on the stage, but I was able to work with a couple of other goofy nuts who I'd know for only a few hours. I even sang the Star-Spangled Banner onstage with 8 other people at the beginning of Anime Idol.
It was a fucking spectacular weekend.
The event I helped was called "Otaku Have Talent," which was basically an excuse for people at the convention to get up on stage and make fools of themselves. We got some terrible, terrible stand-up comics (not a single one was funny), we got some dancers, some contortionists, and some singers. We originally planned to give each person 2:30 minutes, but that quickly got knocked down to 1:00 minute.
The most fun of that was getting to comment as a judge throughout each of the acts, crack jokes, and help keep the whole thing flowing. I think the whole thing was much funnier with me there commenting on each performance. I even made some of the really bad people look okay. =P We were surprised, though, by most of the singers. They were people who could actually sing well. Finally, there was a 4-person band that got up and sang a song about how they wanted their fifth member, their drummer, to come back to them. During the bridge, they used their bodies for percussion, and it turned out pretty sweet. It was the very last performance of Otaku Have Talent, and it was a great finale for the event.
After that panel, I hopped in a car with one guy who went out to pick up some last-minute electronic cords needed to wire a sound system. He hadn't expected to have someone else in the car, and I wound up helping him pick up lunch for a couple people as well. We chatted about anime and D&D while in the car.
After we got back and ate, there was a small crisis with the computer not playing the music that it was supposed to. They called on a guy to come and play his keyboard, but he was sitting on the Anime...