Current mood:	restless
Entry tags:	anime, art, conventions, ranting

The Ohayocon 2009 Saga...
...or, how to abuse your position in a non-profit organization for maximum personal gain.

The first convention I ever went to was Katsucon 2003. In six years of attending conventions, almost always in the artist alley, never once have I been told I was breaking the rules. No stickers at your convention? They get left at home. No adult work at your convention? I don't even bring the binder. In fact, I wrote a tutorial on attending conventions as an artist, reminding everyone to follow the rules as they were laid out. I should have listened to my friends who said that Ohayocon was rife with problems.

This was the first time I'd been to Ohayocon – with an eight hour drive, venturing into an unknown is always a risk, but I submitted my product list (prints, buttons, stickers, and bookmarks) and portfolio (links to my deviantart account and my main site at ghostfire.net) to their jury for consideration and made it in, so I was excited to give it a go.

Early on Friday, I put together my display like I have for any number of conventions before. Pieces like Bunneh and Dr. Oh's Miracle Cures always make it up. Newer work like Indian Summer on Harvest Street and Sweet Lolita and Hurty Kitty goes up too. Kazekage and Sleepy Zelda are added to the display most of the time, and Ohayocon was no exception.

Trouble began as soon as the display went up. Yad, the co-artist alley head, came over and said that "Sleepy Zelda" needed to be either covered up or taken down. Now, this is a piece that has been through no less than a dozen conventions without a problem – it was up at Setsucon two weeks prior – so it took a second for that to sink in. My boyfriend was shocked as well. Once the display goes up, it's somewhat difficult to alter, so I asked what needed to be covered. He said you could see through her dress. Mark asked what part. There was a lot of hemming and hawwing, but no real response. Then he told me it had to come down.

Seriously...?

With no answer but no recourse, I took it down and replaced it with "God of This New World". Mark and I finished putting up the display and started getting to the people who were already lined up in front of the table, looking through the binder and asking about the buttons.


Four or five hours later, a very apologetic girl approached the table and said that "Kazekage" needed to be covered up. By this time, we'd already talked with a few of our friends about the incident with the first picture and had managed to laugh it off as a fluke – a freak occurrence that couldn't possibly be repeated. Again, this picture has been going to conventions with me since it was made in 2005 without a problem. We asked the girl to find out what needed to be covered up, and she left to find out. This time Yad returned, and said that covering it wouldn't be acceptable, that it had to come down.

Seriously?!

I tried a bit harder this time to find out what was wrong with the picture. He had no answer except to repeat that it needed to be taken down. If that one is pornographic, then so is every crucifixion painting and statue I can think of. Like another one of my pieces, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", "Kazekage" is meant to call back to religious paintings. Yes, there is a lot of skin showing, but everything is covered, or I wouldn't display it, and I certainly think someone else would have taken issue with it in the past three and a half years. I can only assume that people think the draping in his sash is more than just draping, but it's there specifically so that I don't have to show anything.

So, no answer, and again, no recourse, I removed the picture anyway.


What do you do when you think the head of the artist alley you're in is being inexplicably unreasonable? After he returned to his table, Mark and I called our friends back and tried to once again laugh the situation off. Just because I grew up in Wisconsin doesn't mean I can't jab the area about being midwesty and Bible-belty. (For those of you who don't know, Ohayocon is in Columbus, in central Ohio.) Whether or not the area had anything to actually do with the situation is something that came up only after I was kicked out, but I'll come back to this point later.

Putting up display prints is difficult enough as it is. Over a three day weekend I'll hear hundreds of people blurt out everything from "Ewwwwwww, HET!" to "Ewww, that's so gay!" to "Why don't you draw him with Riku/Light/Sasukeeeeee?" I take it in stride and try to make sure that there's a wide selection up so there's something to suit everyone's tastes. I also try to keep a balance of original and fanart pieces, both to keep in line with various artist alley rules, and because a few of the originals are popular.

The artist alley closed for the night, and Mark and I packed up the table. We went back to the hotel room, somewhat shaken but still in a state of disbelief.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning. Unless it's a 24 hour situation, I make it a point to be professional and keep my table open all available hours, every day of a convention. There was a crowd of people in the artist alley even though it wasn't supposed to be open yet – they'd formed the line for the dealer's room past all of the front tables, including mine. People split off to come to my table, and I had a bit of a crowd even before I was completely set up. Despite it usually being quiet on a Saturday morning (everyone's either still asleep or completely hung-over), there was a steady stream of people until Mark showed up right around noon.


It was shortly after that that things took a dramatic turn for the worst. A woman came up to the side of the table and announced that I would have to stop selling now.

Wait, what?

It was so sudden, I didn't really believe it at first.

This time Mark asked what the problem was, and she (who I later found out was the female co-head of the artist alley, Solikha), said that this was my third strike (A point here – all three of their "violations" were up from the very beginning of the convention.) and I had to clear out. Mark asked what rule we'd broken now, and she said that my chibi buttons were bootlegs – copies – and that they violated the rules. (Now, if they're bootlegs, so are almost all fanart pieces in artist alleys. But for the chibis specifically, not only are all of them done in one style – my own – they're also soft-shaded, pot-bellied, mitten-pawed and tiny-limbed versions of whatever character they represent, frequently only identifiable by their costume.)

At this point, my blood was running cold and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I asked her if chibis in general were against their rules, and she said no, but that mine were. With a smug sneer on her face, she ignored our attempts to be reasonable, then said I should try coming up with my own ideas. Also, why couldn't I sell anything original? (Standing in front of the table where more half the work on display is original.)

This is, of course, wonderfully ironic coming from someone whose main business model involves selling stuffed sushi pillows. Google just loves these. No, really, no one's ever thought of those.

Security was called in to stand in front of the table while we were forced to dismantle. Our badges were also confiscated. We were (very condescendingly) offered regular attendee badges and told to go enjoy the rest of the convention. Neither Mark nor I were going to stand for that. If you kick me out of the artist alley, you've kicked me out of the convention. There is a tremendous difference between a convention you attend to enjoy, and one you attend to work. As Mark managed to get us a late checkout from the hotel and I hurriedly packed our display and wares, security handed out business cards to dozens of disappointed attendees.


It's been a month since then.

The thing that keeps turning in my mind: this was a juried artist alley. I didn't hold anything back or misrepresent what I was bringing, so did they simply not do their jobs and check out the portfolios I submitted, or did they decide after I got there that I was taking too much business away from them, and therefore had to be eliminated? The icy stares I was getting the entire time – both of their tables were facing mine and just across the aisle – lend credence to that theory.

That's really something that makes me laugh, grimly, and the latter is made even more likely by the fact that the guy, Yad, is heading another artist alley at Middle Tennessee Anime Convention – where absolutely no fanart is allowed. Running an artist alley, but don't have anything that people want to buy? Just eliminate the competition! Problem solved, and that couldn't possibly be a conflict of interests. Also, nevermind that you're going to have a lot of disappointment when no one can find any of their favorite characters to buy. Anime convention. Anime convention! Just because it's great that people have original art at their tables, doesn't necessarily mean that's what attendees want to buy. When you want original work, head over to a sci-fi/fantasy convention. When you want comic work, visit a comic convention. And when you want anime fanart, you peruse the artist alley at an anime convention.

A word here: artist alley heads, convention chairs... artists pay you to provide content for your convention. This is supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Good artists draw people in to your convention, and by having a table at your convention, they get sales and exposure.

So that's it, I guess. How to get kicked out of an artist alley in one simple step. See you next at Castle Point Anime Convention, Tekkoshocon, Toracon, Anime Central, Anime Boston, ColossalCon, AnimeNext, Anime Mid-Atlantic, Otakon, ConnectiCon, New York Anime Festival, and Zenkaikon.