July 11th-19th
Welcome to the planning thread for Gaia's first (annual?) Character Convention, hereby referred to as NPCon. It's a celebration of all things NPC, be they be from the manga, shops, events, items, promotions, or games. We welcome one and all and plan to roll this event out modelled after an actual anime convention. Come lend us a hand setting up, we welcome art, ideas, panelists, and more! Come see what role you can play in NPCon 2015!
Index
-Introduction and news (You are here)
-F.A.Q.
-Panel/Exhibition Topics and Staff Lists
-Sample Panel and Resource List
-Links
Artist Alley will consist of two components.
-Artists willing to donate their time and efforts to draw freebies of NPCs and congoers for the event
-Like a real AA, there will be fanmade 'merchandise' of NPCs for you to take home. Some samples from the wonderful [ Kate Lionheart ]:
The meat of the event. I'd like to get other users to craft a 'panel' based on certain characters or groups of characters. These volunteers will be tasked with setting up a panel like a real convention would. Probably something along the lines of a brief introduction of their character(s), their history/current status, and then some related materials including some points of discussion to get people talking about your topic. You're also encouraged to run a game or contest related to your characters. I'll be happy to help with this part if you'd like, and I'm planning to fundraise to cover any prize costs. Fanart/fic contest or something related to your NPC(s)? If it was a thread about the Bifrost maybe a design your own alchemy recipe contest, or if it was about Nicolae or Gold Mountain, maybe something related to gambling, and a thread about Rina could involve recipes or new flower arrangements. These are just random suggestions, feel free to come up with your own plans!
My next step is reaching out to some folks that I know are huge fans as well as fanthreads/guilds themselves. I'd also be willing to accept panels about more general topics, like you'd find at a real convention. Shipping panel? zOMG panel? Gonline panel? If you have something in mind, please don't hesitate to ask!
Sample Panel Here
Feel like running a 'how to' on something? How to run a fanthread or guild, how to draw ___ NPC, a writing workshop, or something else entirely? Pitch an idea, we'd love to see folks helping others get creative! The two workshops we have so far are
-How to Make Do With the Small Amount of Info Gaia Gave for a Certain Character
-How to Organize an NPC Fanthread
Many of the panels and exhibitors will be running games and contests related to their characters, but we are also running some for the event overall. If a panellist is running an art/writing contest related to their characters, your entries will count towards both so long as you remember to enter them both places!
So maybe you can double your odds. Panellists, here's a chance to tempt people to do more of the characters you love, win-win!
I'd really like to give participation prizes based on who/what you are drawing/writing, like a little SDplus doll of one of the characters or something. Before I get 500 odes to Ladyhands, I'm not that rich so these will be small cheap participations prizes, with nicer rewards for grand prize winners.
So far we have these planned:
Art:
Committed
-A general fanart contest with a number of different prizes. Categories coming soon
-"Hashtag Throwback"
Draw a character in their younger days (and keep it as canon as possible...) (I'll try to conduce my workshop first so I can help you guys with keeping things as canon as possible) -AnneLaurant
Ideas
-NPCs at cons?
-Design your own conbadge?
Writing
-General Writing competition. Different categories for poems, fics, ditties, and whatnot.
Games
-Lunch for Rufus
Our resident mascot is busy entertaining fans but he's getting pretty peckish. Do him a favour and cast your line (Dice roll or RNG to be determined) to see if you caught anything then (roll or RNG) again to see what type of fish you got and what Rufus will give you as thanks.
Others
-"Gold Shop Keepers Association" (tentative title)
Your gold shop keepers are sorta having problems since the manufacturers are directing most of their goods to La Victoire. Help the shop keepers out by suggesting other ways of earning their living! (e.g. "Vanessa, your stylin's awesome; why don't you work for Gaia's celebs?" ) -AnneLaurant
The cosplay contest section of the thread. This is going to be a little tricky because there are a lot of NPCs where you can dress almost exactly like the character in question due to items made based on them. I feel like there should be a number of different prizes in place.
-Best overall
-Best using only cosplay items
-Best using no cosplay items
-Best male
-Best female
-Best rule 63
-Best RIG NPC
-Best store NPC
-Best comic NPC
-Best fur
-Most creative
-Best original (but still related to an NPC group, like a new Gold Mountain employee, Kuro Gang member, etc.)
-Best alternative outfit NPC
-Best gijinka (animal/PAW NPC to human, ) and... whatever the opposite of that is. Reverse gijinka?
It would also be nice to give out some prizes to crowd favourites, we'll have to think of a good way to take votes.
Dance/Concert/Flash Spaces
Something special for the flash space fans. Over the course of the event we can plan certain times to dress up and have a party in one of Gaia's flash areas. If someone is feeling really ambitious maybe we can try to poke Without a Doubt members, otherwise we'll just have to set up our own gig. I play a mean theremin.
Plans:
-Cat Cafe (Our mascot is a fuzzy feline after all)
-Hassli has expressed interest in something with Dietrich
-Something with Flint Jakobs, member of Without a Doubt
Special Guests
Can we get an actual NPC to show up? Probably pretty doubtful. It'd be great to get a staff member or artist who's involved in the creation of NPCs in some way to have a little Q&A or just send us a small statement about some of their characters or their work in general.
Update:
We've got Flint Jakobs from Gaia's band Without a Doubt set to show up!
Hmm, I'm not quite sure how to handle this one. A lot of this space at actual conventions is taken up by stores, but there are also people giving out information on other conventions and events. Maybe user run groups that don't associate themselves with a specific NPC like the Paparazzi or HBC would like to have a table here?
