Possibility of a Newcastle Upon Tyne Event

Bleeprawr

Hikikomori
Hello guys (and gals)

I know that discussion is well placed in this part of the forum but I need to get a few people's opinions on something.

I am working on something in Newcastle Upon Tyne along the lines of a comic/anime/games/ general 'geek' culture convention and I was wondering from those of you in this community what would you think about this happening?

I know in the North East especially in Tyne and Wear we have Sunnycon (in March) and Newcastle Con (in March) and a few other conventions but there isn't a convention in late august / early september to go to in Newcastle itself.

Would you like to go to such an event? If you live in the north of England would you travel? Why and what would make you go?

This is just a discussion to see what people think of such an event so any ideas would be great :)
 
I live in Edinburgh but I'm a North Easterner at heart, so I'd travel. I'd like most of the focus to be on anime/manga/J-culture as there's plenty of other cons which do the general geek culture thing.
 
Thanks for your reply St_Owly,
So you would like a focus on the eastern side of everything?

What would you expect as a guest? As artists would be difficult to come by would a voice actor or two with a masterclass delivered by someone who illustrates in a manga style?

Just trying to work out which way to plan this, I have deliberately left my post vague as I need to find which way I want to run this proposal.

What type of musical guest for an evening would you like to see as well? Someone like Brentalfloss (which can be middle of the road and entertain most people) or try really hard to find a j-culture inspired band (preferably a band that is a j-pop / rock act)?

I think I know which way I want to go on many things but I need to make a concrete decision first.
 
Yeah. I'm not saying totally exclude western media, but I've found that a lot of cons which say they're anime focused have almost as much, if not more focus on western media. An artist like Sonia Leong would be a good guest, along with a Western voice actor.

A J-pop/rock band would probably be very difficult to come by, especially for a new con and a Western group trying to cover J-rock songs would most likely be terrible, so you're probably better off just trying to find a good band.

A personal preference of mine would be a cosplay workshop, so something like get an experienced cosplayer who makes their own costumes to lead a session giving advice and tips on how to start making costumes, maybe on a limited budget.

You could also have a Lolita and/or general J-fashion section. I went to one con which had a room set up as a tea lounge for Lolita folk to go.

You could even expand beyond anime/manga/games to have some stuff about Japanese culture generally. I was at a con where they had a Japanese lady doing tea ceremony and explaining all about that and some other aspects of Japanese culture. I'm sure if you got in touch with the Japan Foundation they'd be able to help you.
 
Thanks for those pointers, I will add those ideas to my proposal and consider what is available locally in order to meet some of those ideas.

You are incredibly helpful :)
 
Bleeprawr said:
I know in the North East especially in Tyne and Wear we have Sunnycon (in March) and Newcastle Con (in March) and a few other conventions but there isn't a convention in late august / early september to go to in Newcastle itself.

Actually Sunnycon is in June. You also have ONECon in August, which was in Middlesbrough but is now in Stockton-on-Tees.
 
My mistake with Sunnycon... I can honestly say that was me making a typo, as for ONECon I wasn't discounting that convention, my feelings towards Stockon On Tees as a place is that it is not on a mainlaine trainline or motorway (seen as the A1 is a good few miles away and the A19 is not a good motorway at all to drive on in my personal opinion).

I wanted to do something that was easy to access for some people so the venue I work for is central to Newcastle (not even a 5 minute walk from the station) and has a good capacity to allow for 2000 +/- at any one time in the building.

I do apologise if it sounds like I am attacking ONECon, it looks like a superb event to attend but I wanted to try something in Newcastle around that time.

Another thing, isn't I52 going to be a major clash for anything held that weekend? I know that it isn't entirely related but equally as important to some gamers across the country.
 
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