New convention to be held in Cambridge

Ian Wolf

Ian Wolf

Mushi-shi
AUKN Staff
A brand new convention, CamCon, is to be held in Cambridge on 12th May, 2012. It will cover anime and manga, as well as comics, sci-fi and games.


The event, to be held at The Junction, Clifton Way, between 10am and 1am, is open to all ages. Prices for tickets are £10, going down to £8 for anyone between 13-16, and free for those under 12 and accompanied by an adult. Family tickets are available for £30. There is also an evening show costing £5.

Anime and Japanese culture-related guests include Sonia Leong, Emma Vieceli, Laura Watton-Davies and Akemi Solloway.

<a href="http://thecamcon.com/">Official website</a>
<a href="http://www.fb.com/groups/camcon/">Facebook</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/TheCamCon">Twitter</a>
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I remember hearing about this a while ago. Living just outside of Cambridge, it's cool to hear that someone is trying to get something started here.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be that much there to grab my attention at this stage. I do hope it it successful and does grow though.
 
Mike Towers again. It was a good sign that there was no blue haired people at the top of the page, but they're lurking in the side bar instead... and when you say "Anime and Japanese culture-related guests", well, there's one fitting the latter category but a bunch of "manga-style" artists is only very tangentially related to anime.
 
Can we just have an entire list of conventions that have Anime League sponsoring? We kinda need that to figure out what conventions to not go to. All I know so far is London Anime Con, Alcon, London Gaming Con, London Film and Comic Con, what else?
 
theirsbailiff said:
Can we just have an entire list of conventions that have Anime League sponsoring? We kinda need that to figure out what conventions to not go to. All I know so far is London Anime Con, Alcon, London Gaming Con, London Film and Comic Con, what else?
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I can tell you that the anime convention that I work for, Nemacon in Middlesbrough, isn't sponsored by the Anime League.
 
theirsbailiff said:
Can we just have an entire list of conventions that have Anime League sponsoring? We kinda need that to figure out what conventions to not go to. All I know so far is London Anime Con, Alcon, London Gaming Con, London Film and Comic Con, what else?
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I'm glad someone else feels the same way - I'm a student in Cambridge and was psyched to go until I saw that they were involved!
 
1. AnimeLeague is helping to run CamCon? First I've heard of it. I thought CamCon was a separate entity. And I know the person whose convention it is >.>

2. I'm not going to CamCon, just because it's too far and I can't get the time off, sadly :(

3. Nemacon WAS helped by AnimeLeague, until Nemacon decided to screw over AnimeLeague.
 
Because they are sheep, and hate everything that others hate?

Seriously, i've asked quite a few people why the hate animeleague amd no one will give me a decent answer.

They do cheap events. Some people actually have fun at them. Why hate unless they've done something bad towards you? If you don't like them, ignore and stfu?
 
TheHat said:
If you don't like them, ignore and stfu?
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I'm sensing a rather pro-AnimeLeague stance there. I'm all for balance (I posted because I too would like some concrete examples of their behaviour rather than rumours and hearsay) but surely if people hold a negative opinion they're entitled to express it?
 
TheHat said:
1. AnimeLeague is helping to run CamCon? First I've heard of it. I thought CamCon was a separate entity. And I know the person whose convention it is >.>.
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Anime League are one of the sponsors/partners.
Mike Towers is "Head of Publicity/PR/Industry".
Akemi Solloway is their top billed guest.
There's little evidence of anything actually directly related to anime on the site.

ayase said:
Remind me why people don't like AnimeLeague again?
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Never been to a con fullstop, but I've never seen anything good said about Mike Towers ( who has managed to get himself permabanned from the MCM Expos) or anything he is involved with.
 
ayase said:
Remind me why people don't like AnimeLeague again?
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Well I can only speak for myself but here are my reasons:

- As a member of the forums I disliked the way it was run and the highschool like hierarchy that was in place. If you weren't friends with anyone high up the ranks you were pretty much ignored.

- Their seems to be a large amount of members who have an elitist attitude to things. I did have abuse hurled at me on the forums quite a few times.

- Friends who were also on the forums had some VERY bad experiences with Anime League which I shan't go into here.

I haven't been to an Anime League event so I can't comment on that but I like to just avoid them. Also the fact that people within AL remain as some of the few who have been banned from the MCM Expo, doesn't bode well.

However, that is just my experience of the forums and if people wish to go to any of their events or be part of it, that's totally fine. I just like to stay away.
 
Hi guys, I'm head of Staff at Camcon, so I'll might give a bit of insight into this.

Anime League in itself is not running this. Mike Towers have been invited to do PR work for us and as I originally didn't know him before hand, I objected to his based on his reputation and because I know a few people who have strong bad feelings about the guy, and I was overruled. And then I went to Encyclopaedia Drammatica and saw Mike Towers entry there. In any case, his role as PR is restricted to getting fliers distributed and sending out email invitations, so hopefully, we won't have the same problems as Anime League events have. I'm sure we will have brand new problems though, as every event has to have it's stresses, after all, it's hardly something we can rehearse and as far as I know, there are no professional event organisers involved in the cons (there are in the "trade shows" though, like Hyper Japan, MCM Expo and LFCC).

On Anime League leagues defence, I can say that the ban on Expo was due to commercial reason - not because they were rowdy or something of the likes. They did the stupid move of promoting another event on Expo, which is something that doesn't bodes well with MCM.

This is not my first role in an event, as I have been stage manager at Heart Japan (one off event to raise money for the victims of the tsunami), runner at Brighton Japan, cosplay shepherd and translator at Hyper Japan. I know quite a few of the people involved in running the event and I volunteered, as I believe they've gathered enough serious people to run a fun con. Some of the events ran by the other volunteers include the Japanese Arts Festival, Bunkasai & The Grand Cosplay Ball, as well as the events I've mentioned above.
 
Hi chaos. Thanks for the information.

I don't know Mike Towers so I won't say anything against him personally. I've just had problems with Anime League in general so I just choose to stay away and only tell me story if people ask for an explanation.

I was aware of the MCM banning being more to do with a commercial dispute so it only added to the problems in my eyes.

However, the fact that you're having a huge say in everything and that it isn't solely an anime league event makes me reconsider it all. I'm currently studying in Cambridge so I would seriously like to come to this if it's looking like fun.

I appreciate every new convention has it's teething problems but from what you've said it sounds like fun - and it's only a walk away! :)
 
Not that I'm going anyway (why are there no decent cons in Wales?), but that is reassuring to hear Chaos.

chaos said:
On Anime League leagues defence, I can say that the ban on Expo was due to commercial reason - not because they were rowdy or something of the likes. They did the stupid move of promoting another event on Expo, which is something that doesn't bodes well with MCM.
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I'm not sure what went on actually at MCM, but Mike managed to get himself made an admin of the MCM facebook account and used it to mass message the whole group advertising a competing event...
 
Churchy99 said:
Hi chaos. Thanks for the information.

I don't know Mike Towers so I won't say anything against him personally. I've just had problems with Anime League in general so I just choose to stay away and only tell me story if people ask for an explanation.

I was aware of the MCM banning being more to do with a commercial dispute so it only added to the problems in my eyes.

However, the fact that you're having a huge say in everything and that it isn't solely an anime league event makes me reconsider it all. I'm currently studying in Cambridge so I would seriously like to come to this if it's looking like fun.

I appreciate every new convention has it's teething problems but from what you've said it sounds like fun - and it's only a walk away! :)
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You're welcome. Ok, if you had problems with Anime League in the past, I guess I understand why you want to stay clear of their events. In case you go to CamCon, do say hi, I love to associate a face to a forum nickname, although I might be running frantically up and down during the whole day though :)
Thanks for the faith in me. I wouldn't put much faith on the organisational skills of a guy who calls himself chaos on a forum ;)

In any case, I did put all these things everyone mentioned above on the table and although we cannot work on the "issue" points such as lack of more anime related event and themes other than the cosplay parade, we do hope that we can fix this up next year, hoping that we don't mess up too much this time ;)

Shiroi Hane said:
Not that I'm going anyway (why are there no decent cons in Wales?), but that is reassuring to hear Chaos.

chaos said:
On Anime League leagues defence, I can say that the ban on Expo was due to commercial reason - not because they were rowdy or something of the likes. They did the stupid move of promoting another event on Expo, which is something that doesn't bodes well with MCM.
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I'm not sure what went on actually at MCM, but Mike managed to get himself made an admin of the MCM facebook account and used it to mass message the whole group advertising a competing event...
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Well, why not start one yourself? I wouldn't mind travelling to help out =)
Also, yes apparently that is correct. Rumour has that he did that at one point, I wasn't on the Expo group at the time, so I didn't see the drama unfolds....
 
Shiroi Hane said:
I'm not sure what went on actually at MCM, but Mike managed to get himself made an admin of the MCM facebook account and used it to mass message the whole group advertising a competing event...
Click to expand...
loooooool this guy sounds amazing.
 
ilmaestro said:
Shiroi Hane said:
I'm not sure what went on actually at MCM, but Mike managed to get himself made an admin of the MCM facebook account and used it to mass message the whole group advertising a competing event...
Click to expand...
loooooool this guy sounds amazing.
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Check the FreeSayan or Mike Towers entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I must admit I laughed so hard, I almost wet myself at some points.
 
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