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Archive for October, 2010
The Exposition Experience: Starting an Anime Convention in the shadow of Anime Expo®
12 years ago
by Tom
in Conventions
I have been getting questions regarding the challenges that the team at Wasabi Anime recently ran into regarding coming up with a name for our new 2011 anime convention in Florida. You see, I’ve always been VERY vocal about showing respect to the others in the fan convention community who have been doing this longer than myself and, through their work, set the groundwork for many of today’s fandom events. So when we were working on a new name for our convention, we wanted something that would effectively brand our show without infringing on other local convention names.
It would be an anime convention.
It would be in Florida.
Thus we knew we wanted Florida Anime in the title.
Florida (and nearby in Georgia) had already saturated the market with a variety of event titles, so finding one unique to our region was going to be a challenge. There are dozens of “cons”; there’s a nearby “Festival”; there’s a “Weekend” up the road; for years there was a “Show”; Thus we found ourselves limited. The only two labels that seemed untouched (that we liked) in the Florida region were “Expo” and “Experience.” We never expected the first one to stick… but it never hurts to ask. Here are the facts, in order, of what happened:
- We contacted the SPJA (Society for Promotion of Japanese Animation) in April of this year via email asking permission to use the name “The Florida Anime Expo”
- After not hearing back (and after getting a couple of bounced emails) we tried to resend the email again via alternate email addresses… in case our first one was getting blocked as “spam” from an unusual domain (greenmustard.com)
- After still not hearing back, we contacted Brian Raker from the SPJA asking for help getting our request sent. We found his email address via the ACML (the anime convention managers) mailing list. Brian stated he passed the information along to the SPJA/Anime Expo marketing department.
- A month later (the end of May) we still had not heard anything back. We emailed Brain requesting follow up… and didn’t hear back from him again, either.
- After the summer, we began production work on the new convention. Since we had not heard back via email, we sent a letter via Fedex (with signature confirmation) to the SPJA stating that if we didn’t hear back from them, we were going to assume that they were giving their consent on the name.
- A few days later, I receive an email from Robert Retana, a named partner at Oliver, Sabec & Retana P.C. The attachment in the email was a Cease & Desist stating that Green Mustard Entertainment, Inc. could not use the name “The Florida Anime Expo.”
- I replied back the next day stating we would not use the name and would instead use the name “The Florida Anime Experience.”
- Soon after, I received (via email) ANOTHER Cease & Desist stating that Green Mustard Entertainment, Inc. could not use the name “The Florida Anime Experience” because is was “confusingly similar” to the names and trademarks held by the SPJA.
- I found this somewhat confusing since the Erie Anime Experience has been running successfully since 2007 without (to my knowledge) any protest from the SPJA. I emailed the ACML asking if my perception was off and if anyone else felt that the two names would be in conflict.
- It is interesting to note that one of the replies to my email to the ACML was from Jacqueline Miller, the con chair at Erie Anime Experience. She stated she saw no conflict the “The Florida Anime Experience” and “Erie Anime Experience” both existing. She also stated that when the Erie Anime Experience changed their name in 2007 (from ErieCon), they also tried the name “Erie Anime Expo.” The SPJA contacted them and asked them not to use “Expo” – so they instead used “Experience” and have done so for the past three years.
- Immediately after sending the initial email to the ACML, I emailed Marc Perez, the acting CEO of the SPJA and Chairman of the Board of Directors conveying what his representation was stating about using “The Florida Anime Experience.” In the email, I included my cell phone number.
- That night, I got a call from Marc. He came off as a really nice guy and we discussed anime conventions and fandom for a bit. At the end of the call, Marc said he felt that there wasn’t really a conflict with the names “Anime Expo” and “The Florida Anime Experience”. Since it was Friday night, he planned to talk to the SPJA board over the weekend and he’d try to get an answer back to me in a couple of days. His expectation was that it would be okay, but I would have to sign something from the SPJA’s attorney agreeing to a couple of terms when using the name.
- As of end of business on Monday, I had not heard anything back from Marc – so I contacted him again seeking some follow up.
- On Tuesday morning, I got an email from Marc stating that we could go ahead and use “The Florida Anime Experience” as the event’s name. He would have his attorney send a document for me to sign with three stipulations. I emailed him stating concern with one of the stipulations and the fact that I was under a time constraint to reply to his attorney by the end of the day (per the earlier Cease & Desist).
- I got a voice mail (I missed the call) soon after from Marc. In it he pointed out that I shouldn’t worry about the time constraint with replying to the attorney since he had copied the attorney on the email that he (Marc) had sent me. I went back to look at my inbox and, sure enough, Mr. Retana was cc’d. Marc also stated (in the message) that he would call me later that day to talk about it more.
- The phone call never came… instead, I received an email from the attorney stating that I should not have contacted Marc directly and that he was reviewing the emails he and I had exchanged. The email from Mr. Retana also stated I had another 48 hours to reply to the Cease & Desist.
- A couple of days later, I received the third Cease & Desist. This one made it abundantly clear that Mr. Retana and the SPJA still felt that “The Florida Anime Experience” was “confusingly similar” to “Anime Expo”. Thus, we were suddenly NOT allowed to use it again.
- I replied back stating that we did not agree with the alleged “confusing similarity” in names, but we would comply in good faith and not use “The Florida Anime Experience.” We also stated in the letter that we would be watching events with similar names to ours that we proposed with interest. The intent of doing this was to see how consistent the firm would be in the application of its enforcement.
- Thus the event was dubbed “Florida Anime” – not our favorite choice for a name, but a viable one just the same.
- A week later, an email showed up in my inbox via the ACML from Jacqueline Miller from the Erie Anime Experience. Immediately, I thought of the something I conveyed to Marc in one of our emails…
The PR issue you’re dealing with is the fact that Anime Expo has stepped into a slippery slope. If I/Green Mustard Entertainment, Inc. have to sign a document stating we can use a name with your consent based on stipulations, are you going to do this to ALL the other similarly named events?
- It seemed that the SJPA’s law firm had touched their skis to the slope, and things were sliding fast. A number of anime convention chairs, managers and owners were now being very vocal about the situation – some to the point of belligerence. A story about it even showed up on The Convention Fans blog.
- With the pressure building, cooler heads began to prevail. A couple of days later, another email from Jacqueline showed up stating that she had spoken to Marc and the SPJA’s attorney’s stating they could continue to use their name: Erie Anime Experience.
- I can only assume that Marc had spoken to the SPJA’s law firm and conveyed that the good of aggressively projecting AX’s name was being outweighed by the negative effects on the the SPJA/AX’s relationships with the other fan conventions and the anime fan community as a whole.
The final result? I got an email late Friday night from Brooke Oliver, the senior named parter at Oliver, Sabec & Retana P.C. In the letter, the firm conceded that they “may have been overly restrictive with respect to use of the term EXPERIENCE.” Thus, our event will be known as (again) The Florida Anime Experience.
Are the lawyers “evil” for sending all of the C&D letters? I don’t think so. I tend to be a “glass if half full” kind of guy. Their actions, though, reminded me a quote from Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. I’ve paraphrased it a bit to apply to this circumstance:
[A Lawyer, when representing us,] is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we eventually get sicker.
In closing: I’d like it known that there is NO ILL WILL towards the firm, the SJPA, Anime Expo and Marc Perez. My friend Joey Snackpants regularly reminds me that everyone can make a mistake… but it’s the intent behind the mistake that defines the people making them. I feel safe in saying that Marc and the AX staff didn’t intend make things more difficult for other anime conventions and the folks who run them; and their actions in the end have (in my eyes) proven that they really want to help “promote Japanese animation.”
‘Nuff said.
Flickr Friday: Remember the Alamo!
1
I occasionally update new photos (and old ones that I scan) on my Flickr account. In doing so, I get to revisit a lot of photos I’ve taken while travelling. Each Friday, I plan on posting a photo that I think is interesting. Maybe you’ll think so, too.
On our cross country trip for our Honeymoon, Shannon and I did stop in San Antonio to see the Alamo. The had a Starbucks nearby, but they did not have Peewee’s bike in the basement.
(Nor did they have a basement.)
My Grandfather, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mickey Mantle, the NY Yankees, the Washington Senators & some cool photos!
4This blog post has been a couple weeks in the making.
When I started the project of scanning old photos around the house, I came across a stack that were loaned to me by a local relative. The photos are old black and whites from the late 1960s and were in good, but slightly decayed, condition. The content and people in them, though, were nothing short of amazing. I called my dad and got the full story behind them. Here it is…
In the spring of 1968, my grandfather (William P. Croom) took his two boys to a local ball game. You see, Bill Croom was the Executive Director of the Northern Virginia Builders Association and he always went to the opening day baseball game of the Washington Senators to take pictures of association members. It seems it was tradition for many of the members to skip work in order to go to that game each year. My grandfather would publish photos of them there in NVBA’s monthly magazine for fun.
Bill took my father, my uncle and two of their friends to the game. The four kids skipped school (with parental, but not school, consent) to see the Washington Senators play the New York Yankees. As in previous years, my grandfather always bought his tickets at the gate the day of the game. When they got there that day, though, the ticket booth guy was very reluctant to sell him the tickets he had available. You see, Bill Croom insisted that he had to have five seats together and the game was packed. The man selling the tickets sold him the last block of seats that size that he had and swore my grandfather to secrecy not to tell anyone what gate he purchased them at. This seemed a little odd to Bill, but he complied.
The five of them went in and gave the tickets to an usher who promptly seated the group in the “Presidential Box”… four rows behind Lyndon B. Johnson.
My grandfather went ballistic snapping photos. He told my dad to take a cab to his friend’s store, Capital Camera, and purchase more film (since he still needed to get photos of association members.) You see, back in the “before time” people had a finite number of photos they could take based on how much film he or she had brought along. Film wasn’t cheap, either, so pictures were taken sparingly based on the chance of a good photo. Today, you can take a thousand digital photos for almost no cost and just select the ones you like. Ah, the age before digital…
My father bolted to the store and made it back in no time. When Bill Croom finally got up to go take pictures of his association friends/members, he was cornered by the Secret Service. They asked him for identification and how he got the tickets. My grandfather explained the situation behind his good luck of getting the seats and his true reason (the association) for being there. The agents asked him if they could take his film and develop it for him to make sure that there were no unflattering pictures of the President among them (i.e. drinking a beer, picking his nose, etc.) Bill declined to surrender the film. The Secret Service requested (insisted?) that when he developed the film that he bring proof sets to the White House for the Press Secretary to review.
(It was obviously a much different world then. I can’t even fathom how this would have gone done in today’s post 9/11 age.)
Bill Croom agreed and made arrangements to do so at a later date. He made the proof sets and enlargements of the best pictures he had taken that day of President Johnson. On the agreed upon day, my grandfather asked my dad if they could trade cars for the afternoon. This seemed an odd request, and my father had to think a long time about letting his Bill take his 1950 Chevy and driving my grandfather’s brand new Buick Riviera.
With the strange trade completed, my grandfather pulled up to the gate at the White House in his son’s old car. The guard came out and asked him if his vehicle had broken down. Amused, my grandfather said the car was fine. He introduced himself as Bill Croom and explained that he had an appointment with the Press Secretary. The guard checked his list and then invited my grandfather in, but requested that he park his car out of view of the front of the White House so visitors wouldn’t see it.
In true “Croom” fashion, Bill parked the car right out front. His plan was to take a picture of his son’s car parked in front of the White House… and it succeeded. I don’t have a copy of the picture, but it is allegedly in my dad’s photo album.
The Press Secretary was impressed with the pictures of the President and found no issues with any of them. Before he left, though, Bill asked if it would be possible to get LBJ to sign one of the photos. After a moment’s thought, the Press Secretary agreed. The two men walked into the oval office, and here is the result:
Life Magazine heard about the picture and tried to purchase it from my grandfather, but he refused. It seems that there had been (at that point) no pictures of a President with “sports action” in the background. The other reason Life was so interested? The “sports action” in the picture just happened to be No. 6 of the New York Yankees: Mickey Mantle.
The aftermath: The day after the four boy attended the game, my grandmother wrote them the standard “please excuse the absence” note for being “sick.” The boys all turned in their notes and went about their day in class. A couple of hours later, though, they were all called to the principal’s office. It seemed that their story of being sick didn’t fly.
As you can see from the photos below, Bill Croom and the boys were sitting directly behind the President.
Well, a local newspaper had scored a shot of LBJ throwing out the first ball of the season from the front and ran it in the morning’s edition. The principal pointed out that you could see the boys in the background of the newspaper’s photo and none of them seemed to look ill. BUSTED.
You can click on the photos below for large versions. I have, on my computer, 300 dpi duplicates that I restored (thanks Photoshop!) to be printable. Good stuff.
Another mistake from Froggy’s Photos at #DragonCon goes viral.
32 years ago
by Tom
in Conventions
I paid $120 at this year’s Dragon*Con to get my photo taken with the guys from Quantum Leap. Why did I spend that much? First, you should know that the photo package offered three things:
- An 8×10 photo to be picked up at the show.
- Another 8×10 photo to be picked up at the show.
- A digital copy so I can print other copies myself.
You see, I wanted the second copy because my mom is also a fan of Quantum Leap. I have really great childhood memories of watching the show with her and the excitement we shared during each episode. We had bona fide “family TV nights” in my home when I was growing up.
Thus, a photo of her “little boy” with Sam and Al would mean just as much to her as my meeting them in person would mean to me.
The money spent ($120) is to create a memory, albeit a short one, that is captured and remembered for a lifetime. You are paying for a private moment to enjoy being “a fan” of someone and/or something.
Some of us like being public with our enthusiasm… hence me posting the photo for all to see: http://www.tomcroom.com/?p=6779
Others, though, cherish the moments as something private. The choice, though, should be left to the consumer (fan) who paid the money.
Instead of emailing copies of the digital photo copies to the paying customers, it seems the folks at Froggy’s photos took the easy way out and just uploaded them onto a Flickr account. This was NOT disclosed before buying the photos, by the way.
(Note: as I typed this post, I went to the Flickr account and found that the photos are gone and the message “This member is no longer active on Flickr” appears instead.)
Well – the account is gone, but the damage is already done.
It seems that a number of comedy/news sites including Funny or Die, Jezebel, Buzzfeed, and dlisted have all taken select photos that Froggy’s photos took at Dragon*Con featuring Luke Perry… and reposted them with less than good intentions.
WHICH LEADS ME TO ASK THIS SIMPLE QUESTION: WHY HAS NO ONE ELSE STEPPED UP TO TAKE OVER DOING WHAT FROGGY DOES?
The reason I paid for the photo through Froggy’s is NOT because of Froggy’s reputation… it was because it was the ONLY choice for getting the photo. With all the horror stories and nightmares I hear with communication issues and other problems (like the one cited in this post) you have to wonder how he keeps returning to conventions.
In short: there’s an obvious business opportunity out there for a talented photographer with some organization skills. With today’s economy as tight as it is, someone should build the “better mousetrap” for convention photography.
Flickr Friday: The OTHER beach.
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I occasionally update new photos (and old ones that I scan) on my Flickr account. In doing so, I get to revisit a lot of photos I’ve taken while travelling. Each Friday, I plan on posting a photo that I think is interesting. Maybe you’ll think so, too.
I love living in Florida for the obvious reason: I love the beach. When Shannon and I went to California a couple of years ago, we took the time to see the Pacific ocean. It looks just like the Atlantic ocean beaches… but with more rocks.
GQ Magazine makes me feel dirty for liking Glee…
12 years ago
by Tom
in Television
Um…
The rest of the photos are here: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201011/glee-photos-rachel-quinn-finn?mbid=synd_cnn#slide=7
How long have YOU been a GEEK? (Old Star Trek Convention Photos)
62 years ago
by Tom
in Conventions
So I recently scanned in some OLD photos from yesteryear of me at my very first Star Trek convention. It was an event called Trekfest that took place (I think) in West Palm Beach, Florida. My friends John and Eric went with me. Eric drove (John and I didn’t have licenses yet) and John dressed up in the costume contest with me.
(Back then, no one called it “cosplay.” It was just “wearing a costume.”)
We won the costume contest as “The 5th Guys”: the security officers who always beamed down with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty only to die some horrible death. Our AWESOME prize for winning? A Dick Tracy movie poster and $20 in cash.
That’s big money for teenagers in 1990. We spent it well in the dealer’s room. (You can see a couple more photos here.)
The guest at that convention was George Takei. Years later, I’d tell him about meeting him at “my first con” over drinks:
