Any more guests?

[tsukeru]

I love how off topic this thread got, along without staff answering my question. >>

[vrmlbasic]

I didn't yet receive my DVD.

I did see that matsuricon 2012 made a few underpublished guest announcements, like Cherami Leigh and Brina Palencia.

[Crazy Packers Fan]

I love Cherami, so good to have her back! If only they'd bring back Clarine Harp too...

[vrmlbasic]

I agree, harp was awesome. I'm a bit surprised that she isn't hitting the con circuit hard this year as she's in at least one pending show as a main char.

Her industry insight is great, and I find it satisfying to see her (metaphorically) beat the misguided fans over the head with the truth that a dub is not "bad" when the dub doesn't match the subs, that in fact the dub and sub rarely match verbatim.

[vrmlbasic]

When did you guys announce Ian Sinclair on here?!

Seriously, the stealth and scattered guest announcements that are occurring often this year are brutal. This is at least the 4th one. If I weren't monitoring the anime network forum, I might not have known about Sinclair.

New guests are being announced but the main page is still stuck.in the past at the ff7 announcement and the twitter is only.restating the old guests.  Why are other sites getting the scoop before matsuricon's own??!

[Zyvernia]

When did you guys announce Ian Sinclair on here?!

Seriously, the stealth and scattered guest announcements that are occurring often this year are brutal. This is at least the 4th one. If I weren't monitoring the anime network forum, I might not have known about Sinclair.

New guests are being announced but the main page is still stuck.in the past at the ff7 announcement and the twitter is only.restating the old guests.  Why are other sites getting the scoop before matsuricon's own??!

We announced Ian Sinclair a while ago XD  We just didn't get a bio until now.

[Zyvernia]

Also, to be fair, you got an announcement by accident -- Cherami wasn't suppose to be revealed until now.  Coding snafu.

Surprise!

[vrmlbasic]

When did you guys announce Ian Sinclair on here?!

Seriously, the stealth and scattered guest announcements that are occurring often this year are brutal. This is at least the 4th one. If I weren't monitoring the anime network forum, I might not have known about Sinclair.

New guests are being announced but the main page is still stuck.in the past at the ff7 announcement and the twitter is only.restating the old guests.  Why are other sites getting the scoop before matsuricon's own??!

We announced Ian Sinclair a while ago XD  We just didn't get a bio until now.

The main page for matsuricon goes back until mid May, and Ian Sinclair isn't mentioned there. I didn't see him mentioned on these forums, and I have gone back to January on the twitter feed and haven't seen any mention of him.

He isn't the only guest whose announcement had gone unheralded.

I didn't get a Cherami announcement per se, I just happened to click on the guests page and saw her name.

[Zyvernia]

When did you guys announce Ian Sinclair on here?!

Seriously, the stealth and scattered guest announcements that are occurring often this year are brutal. This is at least the 4th one. If I weren't monitoring the anime network forum, I might not have known about Sinclair.

New guests are being announced but the main page is still stuck.in the past at the ff7 announcement and the twitter is only.restating the old guests.  Why are other sites getting the scoop before matsuricon's own??!

We announced Ian Sinclair a while ago XD  We just didn't get a bio until now.

The main page for matsuricon goes back until mid May, and Ian Sinclair isn't mentioned there. I didn't see him mentioned on these forums, and I have gone back to January on the twitter feed and haven't seen any mention of him.

He isn't the only guest whose announcement had gone unheralded.

I didn't get a Cherami announcement per se, I just happened to click on the guests page and saw her name.

Cherami's (and Brina's) page was suppose to be time-lapse'd for release, hence why we have silly one liners in the bios.  Apparently SAVE and PUBLISH are not the same - imagine that! LOL  Lesson learned -- don't do updates at 2AM.

As for Ian's - not sure on that one, puzzling, I know we announced him back in May.....well, he is announced now, and everyone updated will be part of press release at the end of the week.

[vrmlbasic]

...and knowing is half the battle 

Say, did that talked about email go out yet?

[Tornadocon Doctor]

I love how off topic this thread got, along without staff answering my question. >>

The guests that are coming are those who have been announced. Thus your question was already answered. 

Perhaps the staff had issue seeing your question amidst all the sarcasm and rudeness.  Honestly.  The guest list is pretty damn good this year, especially with the con partnering with Distant Worlds.  Your personal and individual opinion does not reflect that of the masses, as others obviously seem intensely pleased with things as well.  If you can't say something nice, best to keep it to yourself.

Perhaps your negative comments about the guests and/or convention itself would be better suited for a personal blog.

[KyThalice Strayte]

After last year's guest list, this year's kind of blows. The only person that I'm excited about meeting is Scott McNeil, but I will be already meeting him at TFCon this July. Will we be getting any more guests at all? Otherwise, this guest list is a big disappointment.

Our Relations Director works very hard to secure a large guest list every year.  I know for a fact that it pretty much consumes all of her free time.  She coordinates with every member of the Board of Directors and a multitude of staffers to be sure that she gets talents that will appeal to the largest amount of our attendees possible.  It is not an easy job, and bringing in guests does not come cheap.

While we do hope to be able to bring in someone that will make every fan smile, it's a tough thing to do when you're dealing with hundreds (or even thousands) of people coming to your event.  The only thing we can ask you all, as attendees, to do for us is to make your suggestions for talent you would like to see--which I can see by our guest suggestion thread that you have done.  From the list you provided, let me just state that a lot of those guests are hard to get.  They work frequently, which means scheduling is an issue, and many of them are top-dollar names.  Peter Cullen and Frank Welker both provided voices for blockbuster films.  Their appearance fees alone are probably terrifying.  Plus, we have to have a way to contact them before we can even consider it.  Many actors have agents which must be contacted in order to book them for an appearance, and without the agent's information we're in the dark.  Additionally, many of those guests do not have a large number of anime credits and would be better served at an American pop culture convention.

All of that aside, I am sorry we have yet to provide a guest list more to your liking.  We really are trying to accommodate everyone that we can.  In the future, might I suggest that you approach this issue in a more polite manner?  You catch more flies with honey, after all.

On a personal note from someone who attends a LOT of conventions, if the guests are the only thing you're worried about at a con, I fear you're missing out on some of the best parts of the experience.  Yes, they're awesome and we all admire them for the work they do, but they're just people like everyone else.  Some of my most memorable experiences at a convention have happened at ones where I didn't even know what guests were there, much less been so concerned about it as to get upset four months before the show.

[KnuxieChan]

Not to mention guests enjoy seeing their fans at multiple cons. Who cares if you're already meeting him at another con? You only like meeting guests once and never seeing them again? Nice. I've met Scott previously and am super excited to see him again. Maybe you should try doing that too.

[vrmlbasic]

Not to mention guests enjoy seeing their fans at multiple cons. Who cares if you're already meeting him at another con? You only like meeting guests once and never seeing them again? Nice. I've met Scott previously and am super excited to see him again. Maybe you should try doing that too.

Unless a guest does something "ZOMG SUPER AWESOME" at a con, or you still have more autographs to acquire, I can see why the OP wouldn't want to see the same guest in such rapid succession.  Twice in 2 months would be too frequent for me with most guests.  I can understand the OP's frustration as the mega-hyped virtual "flagship" guest of Matsuricon 2012 is one he was already planning to see.  I can't empathize with it (though if I think about my crushed dreams of the entire ocean group being here I can come close) but I can understand it.  

On a related note, I wish that more guests would do actual panels to help prevent the problem of over-saturation. Whether it be a panel of their own design, or simply partaking in another guest's panel, guests doing more than the "rote" q&a session and autographs helps ensure that all attendees can interact with the guest.  If I haven't heard of the guest, or have run out of things to get signed (If your pile of stuff that a guest signs doesn't include at least one relevant DVD/blu-ray then you're doin' it wrong), then I cannot interact with the guest, which is a tragedy.

Matsuricon 2011 was as close to this ideal as I have ever seen.  Between their own panels, Voice Actors Uncensored (aka Open Season on legend Vic Mignogna), and Kyle Hebert's Anime Radio Show, every VA guest seemed involved, and was more engaging.  Other panels fitting this theme would be the old anime panel with Micah Solusod, Scott Freeman, and later even the esteemed Matsuricon chair (iirc), and the Harp/Vale industry panel.

That was the "secret" as to what made Matsuricon 2011 so awesome, IMO.

EDIT: Before reading the bio, I had no idea what this Distant Worlds thingy was.  FF7 is one of the few things that can "derail the Nostalgia Express" for me...I thought FF:TSW was a decent film, to sum it up

[Zyvernia]

Speaking of some of the panels, I know that we are working with Chris Sabat for an unique experience for the attendees.  We're working out the details, and for this year, we are announcing alot of the Guest Events in advance.

We do try to talk to the guests before hand and see what they want to do, and try to get them into special events that attendees haven't seen.  Some of our past guests usually have 3-4 panels they want to do, and that's all they want -- don't ask them to do anything else, they won't do it.  It's nothing bad on them, they're accustomed to doing the events they have already lined up.

Alot of our guests this year are game for some new ideas -- so we are trying a few new things for our attendees, because you're right -- a standard Q/A panel is boring.  Chris Cason's panel is going to be quite interesting for everyone.

If you have any ideas, let us know here or on Facebook -- we don't know everything (we just like to think so)