Annie's experiences of starting and organizing CoTiCon! This is a subject I have been wanting to discuss for quite some time. Now in light of me announcing that CoTiCon is no longer happening due to life not allowing it, and the online discussion about the disaster that was 'Tanacon', it seems like an opportune time to discuss just how much goes into organizing a convention. For those unaware, in 2014 I was part of a program called "Summer company", where students would submit detailed business plans and if accepted would be given funding from the government to learn and run a business. I decided I wanted to bring a geek convention to Cornwall Ontario, even if I was only 16 years old at the time I started it. Was this a bad idea? No, I would not say it was even if others thought so. I learnt so much and it led me to noticing so many things about the way conventions are organized.
Target Audience: The first thing I had to do to plan out CoTiCon was figure out my target audience. A lot of people would over look this and say "well my target audience is anyone who is nerdy!" , but that doesn't necessarily work. It is very difficult to please everyone, especially on a first run. My target audience were people between 15 years to 25 years old. Cornwall had a large enough population in this age group, and not enough events for them to justify this decision. Of course any age could and did attend, it is not just this age group that the event attracted. But having that target allowed me to research what that population was interested in, or wanted, and plan from there. I realized that from what I had seen that there had a lot of interest in anime and gaming, so I decided most of my events, panels, ect would cater to that. This worked well as most attendees in the first year were in fact fans of anime and video games. Having a basis of what audience I was catering to made it easier for myself to plan as I then had a focus of what to plan around. Target Size and Venue: Once target audience was figured out it was onto target SIZE. I knew that as an anxious 17 year old I would not be able to run an event that was for thousands of people, and as a first con it would be next to impossible, so I had to think realistically. With my budget, small town and target audience in mind I decided to aim for a small but fun event at 100 people, with a 200 people maximum. This was helpful when it came to renting my venue, The Cornwall Civic Complex. Having a number in mind helped me decide how much of the space to rent so I would not go over budget but still have enough space. I was able to rent the largest room, the hall and one of the smaller rooms and this was perfect for my ideas for main events, panels and gaming tournaments. During the first year I had a lot less time than I would have wanted to plan the event (3 months), but this was due to the time frame of Summer Company, so I was limited on picking a date that the Complex was available. This time frame was fine considering the small scale of my event but it caused a lot of issues I could have avoided without the time constraints. That particular year CoTiCon was the same weekend as FanExpo, which I would have wanted to avoid but due to target audience, but avoiding Otakuthon weekend was far more important as it was hardly two weekends before, and it took place in city closer to Cornwall. Usually the date would be set a year in advance and away from other convention weekends. When selecting a date organizers should be very aware of what conventions are going on in nearby cities, and if that will take away from your potential attendees. Keep in mind how similar events are (who are they catered to) and if another event may take away from yours if it's at the same time. Preferably, to run an event that is as smooth as possible, you want to start planning as SOON as possible. You want at LEAST a year for planning and several months for daily planning at least. CoTiCon was at the end of the summer every year so I could use my summers off to spend more time organizing. During school months I would still be focusing on the event and figuring out details. It was a lot of work. As mentioned in the intro you do not want to be like "Tanacon", an event by a youtuber where she decided to run an event on the same weekend as Vidcon, and only had two months to plan a 5,000 attendee convention. If you've read my advice prior you can see why I am mentioning this. The time frame was too small for such a large event and caused a lot of issues during, such as securing a venue that was big enough, and so many other things. I am sure many of you have heard of this before but if interested in the details, you can read about this event HERE or watch Shane Dawson's Video covering the suject with the Tanacon creators , and remember some of it's downfalls if you ever consider running your own event. Please note that I genuinely feel bad for the Tanacon organizers as they are individuals who are my age, but also with their time frame and attitudes this was very likely to happen. Moral of the story; don't take on more than you can handle if running an event. Keep attendees and venue sizes in mind and think realistically. Naming: Once this was established and researched I finally named the convention. This step can be harder than you'd think, and most people jump into this as the first step for their event, but you really should not! The name should be thought about while planning but not set in stone until after the target audience and such is figured out. I wanted to make sure it was something UNIQUE, CLEVER and would get the aim of the event across, which was a small event for geeky individuals. While brainstorming some ideas a friend of mine suggested "CoTiCon" since it could represent "Cornwall's Tiny Con", it sounded catchy and memorable, but it was also unique while also echoing small events like Quinte Mini Con. Naming an event is important as you don't want to name it something too generic as it may get lost among other convention advertisements, or a name can be off putting to people that could potentially be attendees. I felt CoTiCon fit and went with that! From there my mother and I designed the logo, which is just as important as this would be the image associated with the event and all advertising. The colours are fun and bright but also reflect the City of Cornwall logo colours. We also decided to create two cute mascots similar to anime convention mascots. CoTiCon's were a forest elf girl and a bird, both in the colours mentioned previously and both to represent the forestry industry that existed in Cornwall in the past because of Domtar. The bird mascot, Coco, sits on our logo to help make it more memorable. Vendors and Attendees: Before you can start advertising for attendees and vendors you must figure out how much it costs for them to be there. This is usually decided from looking at the venue and other costs as well as your target size. How many vendors can you fit into your space comfortably? How many people do you think will attend? What is a cost that is worthwhile for vendors compared to the projected amount of attendees? Vendors will not buy a booth space if they don't think they will either break even or make more than the booth cost, which is important to keep in mind. During the first year we had about 10, and for a fair price as we could not grantee sales due to a small crowd (the final CoTiCon had about 40 vendors, for an even fair-er price and most vendors made much better sales with the larger crowd). The same goes for attendees, they will not buy an expensive ticket for a low quality event, so everything has to be well balanced. Unfortunately for the first year CoTicon's tickets were more expensive than hoped due to the venue cost and expecting 100 people versus the 155 we had, our tickets were about $25 even for such a small event. Due to that we were able to lower attendee prices for the following years especially since it doubled the following year. For the size of our event in future years, the most ideal price was $15 per attendee and vendor prices varied depending on the amount of vendors we allowed. Figuring out fair but also realistic prices for tickets and vendors can be tricky. You don't want unfair prices that will scare people away, but as a business one has to break even and preferably make money to run future events. Guests, Panels, Events: Once everything else was established I was left with planning the rest of the convention. I had quite a bit of my budget remaining after venue so that is where I decided on guests and panels, in that order. As a con i wanted to bring in guests that would add value to my event, preferably to do panels and perhaps attract people to the event. During my first year I had a VERY small budget for guests but luckily knew of some cosplayers who would gladly guest without guest fees, and very little for travel so I was very lucky. Cosplay guests are what i focused on for CoTiCon as cosplay was a subject I covered a lot at the event (as cosplay is popular in all geek mediums and was gaining popularity in Cornwall area). We would occasionally have other guests as well, like in 2015 we had voice actor Geoff Allan attend and teach attendees about voice acting and even did some REALLY neat demonstrations and games during his panel. Guests and panels can be one and the same while in planning stages. As a convention I wanted it to have neat things going on so bringing in guests who could host neat panels and cover cool topics was key. Once guests were decided upon and contacted we would plan out what panels they would cover (often a Q&A style panel was in the line up) and for cosplayers, if they would judge our masquerade. Left over spaces were then opened up to the public if they wanted to host panels in the left over time slots. The convention was always one day and had at LEAST 6 panels depending on the year. One of our panel highlights over the years was with our guest MNC Prop's amazing interactive Armor Making Workshop, where attendees paid a small fee to take part in making some armor pieces with the master himself and they would have pieces to take home. Those who participated loved the chance to learn hands on. Some photos of former guests/masquerade judges taken at CoTiCon events, final photo by CoTiCon staff Other things hosted at former CoTiCon events were also quite important as well. As mentioned before, the masquerade was a great way to get Cosplay Guests involved in a bigger way and also attract cosplayers and cool costumes. We were lucky enough in the last few CoTicons to have Saso from Montreal run a proper ICG Masquerade for us, with all divisions and the point system. He ran some amazing masquerades and was honestly such a key piece of the staff. A masquerade is great because it gives cosplayers something to be excited and motivated for, helps convince them to bring fancier costumes and is also a show for those who just want to watch. Due to us having the ICG system in place it was also great practice for those who were scared of larger masquerades and also a way to get VERY good feedback from judge's one-on-one. Other popular events included our gaming room. Luckily in my case I knew some EXPERTS in Super Smash Brother's tournaments...okay it was maybe a best friend of mine from high school. My friend Eric ran daily tournaments during high school so one year I approached him to see if he would volunteer to run a few tournaments for CoTiCon events. He happily accepted and not only ran tournaments AT the convention in the gaming room but also helped me run a mini event during Christmas Break one year. This was how he acquired some of his mandatory high school volunteer hours and I also may have given him a surprise cash thank-you as well due to his efforts. Both the individuals mentioned who ran these events added so much more value to such a small event. Which is also a point to say that staff and choosing staff can be very important. Some attendees would show up only for the tournament or only for the masquerade. Events like these can be important to running a very interactive event, which was my aim for CoTiCon. Other events I ran at coTiCon over the years included fun themed games (Pokemon hunt, Zelda game in "Amazing Race Style" ect) and also would do my best to bring in people to do small performances. I got a local talent to perform a geeky piano medley for everyone during the final year and he was quite the hit due to his abilities on the piano. Convention events can be very creative and can add so much unique-ness to a convention. Some snapshots from CoTiCon 2016's Masquerade The final thing I would like to discuss is just how much went on besides all of the before mentioned topics. As mentioned before this was basically my full time job for one summer and part time for the rest (although I was still spending full-time-job-time on it when not working a regular job). Every day there would be e-mails, social media and other inquiries to work with. New questions being asked, new vendors to list, more information to share and add onto spreadsheets and such. Kinks were being ironed out all the time. Newspapers were contacted, banking was done and budgets were constantly being worked around for advertising. There was so much daily problem solving and interactions taking place. This entire experience of running CoTiCon and even it's mini events helped me learn SO MUCH. So if you are considering running a convention in the future, maybe my experiences that I have shared above can help you out. Perhaps it will instead teach you how much goes into a convention, even a small one that had about 400+ attendees in it's largest year.
In the end I am thankful for everything I learnt, and everyone who supported me and the convention. There were so many ups and downs and harder times involved, but having a supportive cosplay community helped me to put on something fun for people every year, which was the goal in the end anyways. The event evolved so much year to year, even with the catering to cosplayers more than anything. I am just glad people enjoyed it as much as they did. Big thank you to Henrickson for allowing me use of his photos. almost all the photos used in this blog were taken by him over the past few years
1 Comment
Mic Bilodeau
7/10/2018 10:39:07 am
Thank you for this, it was very informative and helpful and I will keep all of this in mind while planning my events :) who knows maybe one of these years I could have you as a guest star!!
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