All I have to say is “wow” about our Otakon coverage two weeks ago. As the leader with four reporters, four photographers, producers, cameramen, and a few contributors; we had a total of over 3,000 photos and eight hours of video coverage! Otakon marks as the largest coverage that we’ve done with our “Con Goer” series; Con Goer is the most viewed series on Vidgle. The photos has been posted, and the video podcast episodes are coming in weekly since Otakon.
I would like to thank Jen, Sarah, I-hsiu, Kim, and especially Jon Ko who have taken pictures of Otakon like mad! Most of the pictures are up, but the ones missing are most of the masquerade photos. Those will be up very soon. You can take a look at our pictures here.
With the video podcast coverage, we are getting many hits with our current two episodes. We are planning to launch the Friday episode in a few days! There will also be a Saturday and Sunday Out and About coverage, and a wrap up report in the upcoming weeks. We will have videos of the Phoenix Wright Trail panel and JamProject’s press conference as well. Again, you can watch the videos here.
We did run into a mic issue when we were interviewing with a Mr. Game and Watch cosplayer (which will be on the next episode). It turns out that one of our reporter microphones died so we got stuck with one and prayed that the second one won’t die for the entire weekend. We normally bring extra microphones but the connector part from the microphone to the camera broke, so a microphone replacement won’t do and a trip to the Best Buy down the street won’t do either since the part is not found in stores.
We will be publishing a review of my Otakon experience in the upcoming week on the Vidgle blog and everyone else will be a writing a response as well.
Our next con coverage for the Con Goer is New York Anime Festival in September. The final con coverage for this year will be MangaNEXT, which will take place on Halloween weekend. We will then have the “Best of 2008″ in December as the reporters and crew sit down at our studios and discuss their favorite cons of this past year.
Two weekends ago, I’ve attended another fine Wicked Event called Totally Normal Event (TNE for short and sweet). The event was once again operated by “the” Jeff Mach and was also a charity event for the SPARC Summer program (www.sparcsummer.org). So far this year, the Jeff Mach events were ranked highest for WRAJ and Vidgle, (Wicked Faire being first, New York Comic Con second, TNE ranking third, beating Long Island’s based I-CON in forth).
Just like the Wicked Faire back in February which we reported from, TNE was a bit better with the hotel. The faire was a bit more spacious than at the Holiday Inn for the Wicked Faire. The crew who were on assignment, Jen, Fred, James (new), Fred, Kim (new), and myself; had a great time.
“Everyone should go to a Jeff Mach event,” which alot of interviewers said to us in front of a Vidgle camera. Jen and James were reporting and got a chance to interview with Voltaire and the band Freezepop (and the con-goers as well). We hope to the interviews up by Friday (or maybe even earlier). Fred will be having his own version of the Con Goer called “The Fred Show” which will be premiering on Vidgle, and the show will actually let the viewers see behind the scenes of Vidgle’s most popular show.
Complete coverage of the Totally Normal Event can be found on the Vidgle site by clicking here, which includes pictures, videos, and blog posts.
The next convention I might be attending is MetroCon in Tampa, FL. We will not be doing a video report from there but we will be taking pictures! But the next convention with reporting and nonstop pictures will be Otakon in Baltimore, MD. Jesse (aka Optimus Prime), Jon, Jen, Louis (aka Mega-Tron), and Fred will be reporting!
Wow, I did a lot of things last weekend. I first went to Baltimore for a conference, which is mainly about expanding my company Jenthony, which owns and operates WRAJ Internet Radio and Vidgle. After entering a new chapter earlier this year with podcasting, now it will be entering a new chapter later this year. It will be the launch of SavePointDesigns, which we will be designing and selling t-shirts online and at conventions we plan to attend. I hope to talk more about this exciting new chapter in a few weeks.
It was Jen’s birthday on Sunday. Jon, Chris, Jeff, Merideth, Fred, Mike, and Sarah was over to celebrate, and so was the rest of the family! Above is a picture of a cake Sarah made, it is suppose to be the Final Smash Ball from Super Smash Bros. Brawl (and yes, it can be the spinning pinwheel of death).
To see pictures from Jen’s birthday party, click here.
I-CON is over and this year it was a little different then the years past. Some of my friends were a little disappointed about this year’s I-CON than the other years we have gone. I’ve been going to I-CON for the past seven years and I was disappointed as well. The convention wasn’t a complete disaster, but the convention just needed better planning and organization.
Next year, I-CON will be at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, and it will also be its home hotel in Ronkonkoma, Holiday Inn by MacArthur Aiport, and it will also be at the Hyatt Hotel in Ronkonkoma on Motor Parkway. We heard rumors of a fourth location but it has not yet been confirmed.
So you might of looked at this for a link to the pictures. Well you can look at the pictures by clicking here. Videos from I-CON will be coming in on Vidgle in the upcoming days, you can watch the videos by clicking here from Vidgle.
The New York Anime Festival is over and what a great time it was. There was somethings I didn’t like about the con, but I still had a good time. This is the fifth and final con for the year, the next con is Katsucon in Washington D.C. this February. Each day, my sister and I took the train in, instead of staying near the city. That was because there is no good hotels near the convention center, the closet one was Hotel Pennsylvania, which is located near Penn Station. We stayed at the hotel in March 2007 for the IBS Radio convention; because of the poor quality, we are not planning to go back to hotel.Pictures of the con are already up, click here to see the pictures!
Of course, I can’t forget the friends who went to the con. If it wasn’t for them coming to the con, I would have left the con and never come back. I think its pretty much like that for most of the cons. Mostly everyone was there: Fred, Jon, Meredith, Louis, Jesse, Brian was there!
The Dealers Room was the place to be, actually, it was the only place to be. Luckily, there was a variety of different merchandise at different booths, which usually 1 out of 5 booths will have the same stuff as another one, especially at Otakon. I think there should have been more stuff going on, especially after 7:00pm. Most of the panels at the convention either did not draw me interest, or I wasn’t there at the time of a panel.
Compared to the Big Apple Anime Festival (BAAF) in 2002 and Anime Expo (2003) in New York City at Marriott Marquis, NYAF wasn’t as big and I believe that NYAF should be at the Marriott next year. (I compared it to BAAF and AE because it was the con in New York related to NYAF) Not only it was big, but there are other attractions outside of the hotel, which of course is Times Square. Of course, at the Javits Center where NYAF, there was nothing outside of the convention center, not even a variety of restaurants. The closest place to be near attractions is Times Square which is around a 10-15 block walk.
If there shall be another New York Anime Festival again next year, I won’t mind going again. However, I wish that the convention can be at the Marriott Marquis, which I mentioned, or at a different location near attractions; such as restaurants, hotels, and coffee shops where we can go to a place to sit down or hangout after the con is over.
Got back from MangaNEXT a few hours ago and what a great time I had.
Okay, here are the stuff. Pictures are here (click me)! And a video of the elevator shortcut to skip into front of the long line is here. If you went to the con or not, you will find this video hilarious.
As I mentioned a few days ago about a false alarm at Five Towns, there was a another fire alarm at MangaNEXT! Shortly after I posted in my blog on the first floor, the alarms started to go off on the floors above us. So floors 2-9 were evacuated to the first floor at around 4 in the morning and were sent back to their rooms a half hour later. It turned out that someone was smoking in the staircase, I guess he couldn’t wait any longer for the elevator line. In the upcoming days, I will be uploading the “MangaFIRE,” which I was able to catch during the false fire alarm.
I had a great time at this con and I found the ‘alot of people’ in the room thing more fun and I would do that again. Not many things were going, which made me feel more relaxed.
Well I’m off! Enjoy
The Screw Prom Day pictures are up on my site’s photo gallery. Click here to see the pictures.
I had a great time with everyone, who came. Angel, Jackie, Angela, Jenn, Sarah, Chris, Sam, Jeff, Dana and Fred! Jen and I are hoping to do something like this again later this summer because of the great time we had. Jen and I are also planning to make a trip to New York City!
It’s been nearly two months since the last photos were uploaded to the site’s photo gallery. We just purchased a new camera which is compatible for HD, however we are currently researching to discover a way to upload the images to our website in HD. wrajradio.com has been in HD since May using unique codes to identify a user using an HD monitor.
Well, I’ve been getting a lot of complaints, especially from friends, about the photo gallery on my site. Las week, I embedded new coding that prevents people from downloading the images posted on the gallery; and second I placed a wrajradio.com bug on top of the image incase if someone Print-Screens the image.
I’ve done this after weeks of discussing with several members at the station and legal department. And then after an agreement, we put the new coding.
And I after I posted the Anime Boston 2007 pictures on my site, many people started emailing me with the complaints. “Your just another faceless webguy to me now,” said a WRAJ Internet Radio staff member in a conversations a few minutes ago.
We also stated that if any image downloaded or captured any image in the photo gallery, we will take legal action. Which is true, even to people I know, so if you want to put any image up anywhere else (including MySpace, Facebook, Photobucket, etc.), you will need to have written permission (can be done in email) to use the image outside of the site. This rule has been with my site since the beginning (2003), and now we are beginning to enforce the rule.
And I want to let everyone know that this coding is final and will never be put down.
Yes, another con I went too! This time it was Anime Boston, in you know where… Boston! The convention was pretty cool, there were awesome people there and I think I might go again next year again, thats if someone wants to come with me lol.
And good news for lovers of the Photo Gallery! There is now a Con section on the WRAJ Internet Radio Photo Gallery, which has all pictures from our previous trips to anime conventions. You can see the new section at http://www.wrajradio.com/photogallery/index.php?cat=7
