Rather than give a standard criticism or review, I decided to write a guide to running a tiny convention on next to no money, highlighting places Johncon can improve. I myself have run many tiny conventions in the past, while I was the president (and founder *boast boast*) of the Underground Gaming Society at Rutgers. For the record, we love Johncon, and would love to see it do better, and hopefully this guide will help it do just that. None of this criticism is meant to be taken negatively.

So here we go!

How to Run an Awesome Con on No Money

1. Lean on Your Members for Entertainment – One of the things Johncon doesn’t do, but should, it use its members as a resource. The convention had a single anime viewing room, and a game room with one PS3 on a CRT monitor, and one DDR set up, most likely because that’s everything the college could provide. That’s not very impressive, and it’s an easy way to get people to go home after checking the con out. Now, here’s the trick. Most people who are running a con, already own gaming systems, games, and of course TVs to hook those systems up to.  So what any small con should do, is have its members bring their own personal set-ups to the con in order to be part of the gaming room. Even if only five people were running the con, you would add those five game setups to the two the college gave you and your game room immediately looks bigger. The same goes for anime or viewing rooms. If there is any member that has a laptop and monitor or laptop and projector, they should bring it. Heck, even your board game library should substantially come from your members.
2. Lean on Your Veterans for Entertainment – One thing that Johncon has going for it, is that several Alumni of Johns Hopkins still go to Johncon for fun. These Alumni also have game systems, TVs, laptops to hook up and show anime on, so on so forth. Reach out to them early, and ask them what they can provide. Many of them (especially if they have fallen into good careers) will have really high quality monitors or even projectors and well expanded game libraries.
3. Bribe People for Entertainment – Finally, offer the general populace a chance to pitch in and help the convention out. It’s very simple. Bring a Console/TV set-up, and get free entry into the con! Add this together with the stuff the college gave you, the stuff your members provided, and the stuff your veterans supplied and suddenly you find yourself with a game room with over 20 game stations, a huge tabletop gaming library, and several anime viewing rooms, enough to rival many others small or even average sized cons, with no money spent whatsoever.
4. (Protect Your Investment) – Here is how you handle people volunteering their electronics for Johncon. First, everyone who donates must put a piece of tape on EVERYTHING they donate which has their name, phone number, and possibly even address on it. This way we know EXACTLY who owns which setup. When I say everything I mean EVERYTHING from controllers to TVs to systems to even game cases. You also have to have one convention staffer watch the gaming room at all times. It’s a shitty job but it will make your convention waaaaaay better. Extra points if you can handle shifts to get the game room running twenty four hours. Keep a detailed inventory of who is donating once and have your gameroom staffer have a copy at all times. Other than that, you simply get in touch with all your donating members as early as you can before the convention starts. Get the person with the biggest car or van to start rounding the donated electronics up (or let people bring the set-up themselves) and get them all in place (if not started) before the convention starts. Then, when the convention ends, do the same thing in reverse. Round up all the electronic and spread them out to the exact people who own each setup as you break down the con. The exact same thing holds true for anyone who is volunteering to say, run an anime viewing room with their laptop.
5. See The Con As You Walk In – One of the problems Johncon has is you can’t really see a convention happening as soon as you walk in the door. You basically just see an empty lounge with a reg desk and nothing else, and you aren’t allowed to see what else the convention holds until you pay your registration fee. As a result, people who are just checking the convention out and are not sure if they want to come or not will walk in, see nothing, and walk out without a second thought. Any successful convention should allow congoers to see the convention in progress before they even reg, and so the Johncon lounge area should be used for something. You can use it for a videogaming area, a board gaming area (with your board game library right there) or even an area for PC gaming. Anything that gets people doing some sort of activity in that area will do.
6. Decorations – This sounds dumb but you should decorate, a lot. You should let people know as soon as they walk in that this is a con and it is happening right now! Heck, you should decorate outside with signs or something to let people who are walking by know there is a convention happening inside the building Keeping the front door open is also a good way to do this. Remember, atmosphere builds hype and hype builds a good con, so anything that builds more atmosphere will help your con thrive. You do need to spend some money on decorations, but it’s a comparably small amount to what you would spend on everything else at the convention.
7. Advertise Early – The biggest problem with most small cons is not their content, but their attendance. Simply put, small cons need to spend an IMMENSE amount of effort advertising, and advertising early. As soon as you know the con date, start putting out fliers on campus. Not only that, but get the word out on the internet, on facebook, on twitter, and on every convention database that is out there. Post to forums that might be interested in the con. The person who is running the game room should post to Shoryuken.com or Dustloop.com or something like that. The anime guys should post to Anime News Network and AnimeCons.com and stuff like that. The board gaming people should post the board game geek. Let EVERYONE know that your convention is happening and don’t stop. Then, as stuff gets revealed such as guests, panel lineups, tournaments, and so forth, advertise again! Let everyone know in an update. Make it impossible for anyone to NOT know that the convention is going on. Most of this advertising is free over the internet, and fliers can be printed up at any random college computer lab.
8. Figure Out Your Content – When people decide they want to go to a convention, it’s because there is something at that convention they want to see or do. So the earlier you can promise content, the more people will want to come. Even if you don’t know exactly what TIME these events will be happening, informing people of your panels, games, tournaments, and so forth will build hype about your convention. Just keep people in the know, so that they can hype themselves up.
9. Utilize Your Space – Never, ever, EVER let a space go unused. Even if you have a really small meeting room, use it for roleplaying games, board games, or even anime viewing. Have something going on in every room, and if you can, have something going on in the hallways! You always want people to see the convention no matter where they walk, so that means utilizing  every single room the building has to offer.
10. Ask for Volunteers – This one is simple. Offer someone free entry (and food) if they help staff the con. Many people will do this for the food alone.
11. Be creative! – The final piece of advice I have is to be creative. The good thing about small college cons is that they don’t necessarily have the worries huge cons have. They can experiment and do things that other cons can’t without worrying too much about liability issues. So all those good ideas that people have that just can’t be done because Otakon staff is afraid of being sued, that’s your goldmine.

Well, that’s about it. Hopefully this guide has been informative! Now you know that you too can run a successful convention in very little cash.

Still, we had a lot of fun reading this one, and it’s one of the only ones that were submitted that didn’t have any honestly glaring errors. We wanted to get to the end of this story, which wasn’t really the tone of the night during judging. I mean, we were drunk and our tolerance for bad fic was reeeeeallly low. So congratulations author, you impressed us even while we were binge drinking and that’s impressive.

Johto and Kanto have always been at war.

Or at least that’s what they say, but Lyra doesn’t believe a speck of it. After all, it hasn’t been forever since she’s seen her father.

Lyra doesn’t remember her father though, doesn’t remember his warm brown eyes or his strong hands that carried her around the house, but her mother does.

Your father was a good man, she tells Lyra, her voice strong and carefully untinged with sadness, but Lyra can still hear it.

Lyra’s father was a good man, her mother had told her, one of the first to volunteer when he’d heard about the war, and one of the first to die. He was a brave soldier, a good man, and that’s why the army keeps sending them checks.

Why are we fighting? Lyra asks. Why did Dad have to fight at all?

Her mother looks back at her, smiles and says, Your father was a good man.

Lyra doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

Lyra is thirteen when the checks stop coming.

It’s that space of time right between spring and summer, when the nights are still cool and the air has yet to turn humid enough to be sticky and uncomfortable. In last week of class, Lyra comes home to her mother quietly sobbing in the kitchen.

Lyra knows her mother cries. Lyra knows her mother cries often, but never lets Lyra see because her mother wants to be strong for her.

But her mother doesn’t even try to pretend when Lyra walks in.

Mother, mother, what’s wrong? Lyra asks.

Her mother waves her off, handkerchief dabbling away the tear stains in one hand, the other grabbing at the opened letter on the table. Lyra hesitantly retreats to her room.

That night, she sneaks out into the kitchen to find what her mother’s been hiding.

Tell me about father, Lyra asks on the night before the last day of school.

Your father was a good man, her mother says.

Tell me a story, mother, Lyra says.

You’re too old for a story, her mother replies, but tells Lyra about a time when cities weren’t rampaged by destruction and debris, when Hoothoots and Pidgeys fluttered across the fields, when sunsets were warm and colorful on the edge of summer – a time before a war that began forever ago.

May, Lyra thinks, used to be a beautiful month.

Good night, her mother says when she turns off Lyra’s lights.

Goodbye, Lyra says, but her mother never hears.

Lyra arrives at training camp with as much food as she managed to stuff in her backpack that morning.

I’m Lyra, she says to the enlister in charge of the registration forms, and tells him about how she is her father’s daughter.

The enlister looks up at her blankly.

He was one of the first people to serve, one of the first people to die. My father was a good man, she says again when her father’s name doesn’t spark any recognition in the man’s eyes.

A lot of good men have died for this war, he says before filling out the rest of her forms.

On the first night, she gets a hysterical phone call on her PokéGear from her mother.

Where are you? her mother yells, close to tears.

You don’t need to worry about me, mother, Lyra tells her and smiles even though her mother can’t see her.

Come back by the end of the week, or I never want to see you again, her mother threatens.

Lyra frowns. Don’t be like that, mother. I’m doing what’s best for our family. I’m taking care of you, and I can take care of myself.

Her mother hangs up, but calls back the next night. And the next night.

But the calls stop coming after a week.

Basic training lasts two weeks, and Lyra thinks that they are the longest two weeks of her life. She wakes up exhausted at 0600 hours in the morning, and goes to bed exhausted at 0000 hours at night.

She runs and trips, sprints and falls, rinses and repeats. She learns to do push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups until she can barely keep herself up anymore.

It’s all worth it, though, at the end of the week when she is presented with a check in a modest amount made out to her family.

Lyra’s smile is wider than the sun as she heads to their on-base postal service and mails it back to New Bark Town.

At the end of basic, Lyra takes an aptitude test to see if she’s fit to have a Pokémon. She passes with flying colors, and at the end, is presented with a sweet, cheerful little Marill.

The Marill is sleeping the first time Lyra meets it. This is your partner, Marill, they tell her and Lyra leans in to pat her new companion on the head. The Marill’s bright eyes pop open as soon she touches it, and it leaps into her arms.

Lyra gasps and chokes back a sob as it cuddles against her neck. How could she force such a tiny thing to fight?

Lyra sees the first familiar face in a month at her Pokémon training course.

Lyra! her school friend Ethan calls out when she walks into class, and drags her over to where he’s sitting with his Cyndaquil and a red-haired boy with a Totodile.

This is Silver, Ethan introduces, and Silver casts her a sideways glance before the instructor ushers all of them into their seats.

What are you doing here? Lyra asks as they walk out the door, Silver trailing behind them.

Ethan laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his head. Everyone has their reasons, he says, looking back at Silver, who is pointedly ignoring both of them.

What about you, though? he asks. Never thought you’d be the type.

Lyra smiles. She doesn’t understand this, doesn’t understand war or why they’re fighting. For my mother, she says.

It’s the only thing she’s sure of still.

The nights at the end of June of are thick and hot, and Lyra can’t sleep. She’s tired, miserable, but tomorrow, they’re shipping her battalion out to the battlefield, into the middle of the war.

She glances at her clock. 0132 hours, she thinks, and then jolts in shock when she realizes how she now thinks of it that way. She takes in a shaky breath, slipping out of bed as silently as she can. In the hallway, she dials her home phone number on her PokéGear.

Her mother’s sleepy, confused voice answers the phone.

Lyra’s chest tightens, and fear and homesickness twists in the pit of her stomach.

She thinks, I miss you and, I want to go home, I’m scared of dying, but instead, she says, Mother, did you get the checks?

There’s a long pause. When her mother finally speaks, her voice is tight and trembling. Lyra…

Something inside of Lyra breaks. Her eyes widen and she snaps close the PokéGear, turning it off so her mother can’t call her back. Lyra breathes slowly before opening her door again. She crawls back into bed and stares at her clock. 0140 hours.

Lyra turns in her bed and cries herself to sleep.

It’s hot, slick, and muddy in the trenches, but even worse by the barricades, where most of the fighting is. Bullets ricochet against sand, metal, wood, whatever there is to stop it; plow, cling, crunch echoing in Lyra’s ear.

Lyra holds her rifle, instructing Marill to direct a water gun at a soldier on the other side. As Marill attacks, Lyra aims to fire, but suddenly crashes to the ground.

Rill! Marill shrieks.

Lyra pushes Marill off, ready to yell until she notices a bullet hole where she’d been less than a second prior.

Marill looks at her, scared, and she carefully pats it on the head. She won’t let her guard down again.

Ethan’s bleeding. Lyra screams and cries and begs, No no no this isn’t happening please tell me this isn’t happening this isn’t real, but Ethan’s still bleeding.

Ethan reaches up with a shaky hand to reassure her, but that only sends Lyra into further hysterics.

Move! Silver shoves her aside and bends down to put pressure on Ethan’s wound.

Tears are sliding down Silver’s cheeks as well, but Lyra barely notices.

I’ll be okay, Lyra, he says, as Lyra’s uselessly hovering over Silver’s shoulder.

Ethan raises a hand to brush off a tear that’s threatening to spill out of Silver’s eye. Don’t cry for me, Silver.

Shut up! Silver screams. Shut up shut up shut the fuck up you idiot.

He doesn’t stop screaming until the medics arrive.

Ethan gets an honorable discharge for his bravery and a small monthly pension for the rest of his life.

What he doesn’t get, however, is to ever walk again.

He calls her on her PokéGear as soon as he’s returned to New Bark Town.

Is Silver okay? is the first thing he asks, and Lyra’s chest tightens with an emotion she doesn’t recognize. Please take care of him, now that I can’t.

He calls her every day. How’s Silver doing? Ethan will ask, and Lyra will smile even though he can’t see it, and tell him that Silver is fine, they’re all fine. What she doesn’t mention though, is how Silver is a little more careless, a little more reckless without Ethan around.

I talked to your mother, Ethan tells her one day, and Lyra realizes it’s been weeks since she’s heard from her. She misses you.

I miss air conditioning. Lyra laughs, because it too painful to think about anything else.

You should call her, Ethan says.

Did you ask her if she got my checks? Lyra replies.

It happens at the end of August.

When it happens, at first, an avalanche of thoughts races through Lyra’s mind. No no no, it’s too soon.. I have more I have to do, more I need to do.

But then, she realizes, the outcome will be the same no matter how long she drags this out.

No! Don’t you dare die. Don’t you dare die and leave me too, you stupid bitch, she hears from a blur of red and browns, her vision too hazy to make anything out anymore.

Lyra chokes out a gasp.

She wonders why she isn’t crying. Maybe she’d wasted all her tears already and doesn’t have any left for herself.

Rill… The flash of blue out of the corner of her eye tries to comfort her, and Lyra manages a shaky smile.

A chant of, Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die, is spilling out of Silver’s mouth now as he tries to stop her bleeding, and Lyra just wants to tell him that she doesn’t mind, that it’ll be okay.

Three months, Lyra thinks, is enough for her, and she hopes that ten years is long enough for her mother. Because war is death, and war is paid for in blood; but life? Life isn’t paid for in tears or smiles, but in money – cold hard cash.

And ten years of it is all Lyra can leave to her mother now.

Tell Ethan to take care of my mother, she wants to tell Silver, but instead coughs up blood.

The medics will be here soon. Hang on, Lyra, Silver pleads, and Lyra thinks that it’s the first time she’s ever heard him say her name. She looks up at the blur of him, wondering if he’s crying for her too, and notices that the rest of his hair is now blending into the warm dusk.

Suddenly, Lyra is swept up with a wind of memories, memories of her mother’s determined smile, the smell of her cooking, of her comforting hugs. Then – images of warm brown eyes, her father’s eyes, strong hands, and a crowd of memories that she never knew she had. Them, all together, a family.

August, Lyra thinks, is a beautiful month.

Johncon, over at Johns Hopkins University was nice enough to invite us back to set the convention on fire with our own breed of insanity again! Once again they have been nice enough to shack us up in a decent hotel and pay our way down to the great city of… what is Baltimore know for? Giant enemy crabs?

Johncon is a great con because it’s kind of small. It’s all about anime, video games, sci-fi, and really just geekery of any sort, but since the whole thing is pretty intimate and held on a college campus a good part of the con is just hanging out and chilling with all your fellow geeks and all the con guests. Other than us, who will be performing Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare, Spoiler: The Panel 4, and once again doing our hilarious fanfiction contest that got so many laughs last year, Johncon will also be flying in the authors/artists of Cyanide and Happiness, Surviving the World, Strawberry Death Cake, and Manly Guys Doing Manly Things!

There will also be lots of gaming. Look forward to a Magic: the Gathering tournament, events for popular fighting games such as Blazblue and Marvel VS Capcom 3, TONS of differnet roleplaying games including an annual Paranoia game that runs through midnight, and beta tests of games you’ve never even played before, and much much more!

There’s a non stop anime room and movie room that you can even bring your own shows to. Last year we just showed up with Durarara and people just watched it! There’s a rave Saturday night, and possibly Quidditch on Sunday!

Not only that, but the convention runs twenty four hours long. From start to finish it never closes down from the opening on Friday to the closing on Sunday and guess what? There are couches and beds and shit that you can crash on right in the con space!

There’s also dealer’s rooms, food right in the con, booze … uh… if you bring it … not that we condone underage drinking as awesome as it may be. Oh and the hotel we are staying at has a spa! I guess that’s more awesome for us than you guys … unless you wanna hang in a steam room with a bunch of half naked geeks. I mean, whatever floats your boat man.

Honestly, what more can you ask for from a convention that only costs ten bucks for the entire weekend. Hell if you come with a group of ten or more, it actually only costs seven bucks for the entire weekend! That’s a steal!

Johncon invited us back because … we were funny and made dick jokes, but honestly we want to give something back to them too. So if you are in the Baltimore area or driving distance of the Baltimore area, come down to Johncon and make this the coolest goddamn convention ever. It’s YOUR convention and you can do what YOU want at it. Hope to see you there! (We may bake you cookies.)

Johncon takes place the weekend of April 8th-10th 2011 at John’s Hopkins University. Directions, schedules, and more info can be found at http://www.jhu.edu/johncon/index.html

We will post the rules for the fanfiction contest when we know what day we will be doing it.

But while we’re on the subject of Spoiler 4…Spoiler 3 is finally uploaded.

Well, our performance at JohnCon, anyway.

And it’s broken up in this playlist into individual bits, so if you want to see it all, you don’t have to watch a series of 6 15-minute videos, but can just watch one bit a day. Or your favorite bit over and over while jerking it at the office. Whatevs. All 33 bits are posted for your enjoyment. (Shit, 33? No wonder we always ran so far over! We’ve got, like, 20 this year and we still went long!)

So yeah, check it out. We also judged a fanfic contest there, and that video will get posted at some point. It was really awesome.

Um. I’m terrible at ending things. Penis.

Here are the Johncon detials, with a bit of our own spice added in.

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JohnCon 2010 takes place on April 16th through 18th. There will be a video game room as well as tabletop gaming, Anime, and plenty of other nerdy activities. There will also be a vendor area and Artist Alley in the Glass Pavilion, with tables available for free. To register for a table, please contact Corrine Warren by email at corinneewarren@gmail.com or by phone at 203-414-5888.

General Convention Hours

Friday, April 16th 5pm – Sunday, April 18th 3pm
Video Game Room Confirmed Games

* Rock Band
* DDR
* Super Smash Bros. (Original, Melee, and Brawl)
* Street Fighter
* Disorganization XIII will be bringing Brawl+, the far superior fan patch to Brawl, and BlazBlue … a very special version of BlazBlue

Major Events

* Friday 5pm-6pm, Tabletop Gaming Room: Opening Ceremonies
* Friday 6pm-8pm, Anime Room: Panel by Dr. John Cmar of Sinai Hospital of Baltimore on “H1N1/influenza, issues surrounding the virus itself, media communication, and vaccines”
* Friday 8pm-10pm, Anime Room: Dr. Laura Burns (Dr. Cmar’s wife) will speak about her experience working for the Space Telescope Science Institute and the new James Webb Space Telescope
* Saturday 2pm-4pm, Anime Room: Disorganization XIII Fanfiction Panel (The panel is called Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare)
* Saturday 10pm-12am, Anime Room: Disorganization XIII Spoilers Panel (The panel is called Spoiler: The Panel 3)
* Sunday 12am-3am, Anime Room: Hentai
* Sunday 1pm-3pm, Anime Room: Disorganization XIII Fanfiction Contest Winners Announced (Actually, it’s more like fanfiction contest losers announced. No one actually wins in a fanfiction contest.)

Video Game Room Hours

Friday: 5pm-3am
Saturday: 10am-3am
Sunday: 10am-3pm

Artist Alley/Vending Hours

Friday: 5pm-9pm
Saturday: 10am-9pm
Sunday: 10am-3pm
Registration

Friday: 5pm-10pm
Saturday: 10am-9pm
Sunday: n/a

Other Features and Events:

* 24-hour tabletop gaming (Disorganization XIII members will be running games)
* 24-hour Anime room (Disorganization XIII members will be breaking your brain with anime you haven’t seen and probably should never see)
* 24-hour movie screenings
* Magic: The Gathering tournament
* LARP (Live Action Role Playing)
* Science fiction library

So yeah … it’s gonna be fun.

So JohnCon, over at Johns Hopkins University was nice enough to invite us over to perform for them in our usual screwed up way. So, through the goodness of our hearts (and not at all due to the fact that they are paying us a nice speaking fee) we will be performing both Spoiler: The Panel 3, and Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare at the convention.

Not only that but the convention doubles as a gaming convention of all varieties. So beyond Anime being played in what I am assured is a humongous theater, there will also be videogames played in, what I am assured is a humongous theater (BlazBlue FTW!) Videogames played on a theater screen? Kickass!

Of course when we say gaming we also mean roleplaying, card gaming, and other tabletop affairs of which we are assured there are a shit-ton of. In fact, we were assured this so much that we, ourselves will be running games there! So aside from our panels, be on the lookout for Disorganization XIII productions of Toon, Don’t Rest Your Head, and the Infinity Games Homebrew Production of Broken Sky. Come on, you know you want us to GM for you. You certainly won’t be eaten by a grue!

But perhaps the coolest thing about this convention is that it runs 24/7 (well, 24/3 considering its just one weekend). Yes, all day and all night its non stop anime, gaming, and other cool shit. That’s phenomenal. That’s way more geekery than even some of the big conventions can brag about.

JohnCon is going down the weekend of April 16th-18th. They are expecting a big turnout guys, so let’s give it to them. Check out these sites for more info.

Baltimore Gamer

*sigh* Some day people will learn how to list our panels right.

SPOILER AND FAN-FICTION ARE TWO SEPARATE PANELS CON-STAFF!!!

Geez…