“We had a larger turnout than expected,” Comikaze staff told KPCC via Twitter. Comikaze responded to fans on social media, blaming the problem with fans being stuck outside on the fire marshal and saying that the problems were out of their control. They said that they were a small team trying their best."
Without A Net sweetly reports "growing pains" for Comikaze Expo, which I believe is poorly managed. It probably would have been wiser to get a bigger team or more volunteers to help out if it was having so much trouble. Not realizing many fans would show up in LA for a comic-con like event seems like a bit odd as an excuse and blaming the fire marshall a bit lame.
I believe the event will grow as it had many great celebs and VIP's of fandom in attendance. It's a great place to meet other fans, cosplay and buy some nerd merch for the attending price of twenty bucks, plus awful parking. If you saw the videos earlier in the week every one seemed to have a great time, those who made it inside that is. I just hope it gets more people to actually manage it by it's next weekend November 1-3, 2013.
Also, many people I've talked to hate the name Comikaze Expo as do I. As a kamikaze isn't a really good thing, it's rather odd to name an event after it. Do you want to think of Japanese soldiers killing themselves while taking out our ships in World War 2, while buying Doctor Who crap? The event isn't only about comics and hasn't been around as long as Comic-Con to have the word comic ingrained in it. Hope they take my advice and change the name.
See you at Comic-cide or Comic-casadia.
Update: I like Liz Ohanesian's use of "growing pains" for the same problem of people getting stuck outside in the hot sun in her article about the event. She covers all the nerd events in LA, check out here Meltdow articles, too.
I'll report if I see growing pains again.
