GACC2008: Pre Event

Currently listening to nothing
Currently reporting stuff

Ok. Internal politics behind. On to the making the event stories.

GACC2007 ended with a great success which kept the committees burning to re-organize it again for next year.

The 2007/2008 session, I decided to lead the club for another year because my found that no one can perform better than me at that time. Not bragging, it’s just something that the whole committee agrees too. That sets me as the longest serving president for the club, hence I can try to push the club better than before by fixing my previous year’s mistakes. For GACC2008, we choose GACC2007 secretary to become the director since she’s fully spirited to run the event. The other core committees were decided on the very night too.

Before MMU session 2006/2007 ended, there’s nothing much the committees can do… other than preparing proposals and looking out for potential sponsors.

Plans.

We planned to extend GACC’s content to a bigger scale by providing more agendas. But too bad a lot of agendas were scrapped off due to financial constrains. Some of the agendas were:

• O-matsuri – Collaborate with Japanese Language Society. Failed because JLS wanted this event to be on a bigger scale like Bon Odori. JLS also depended on us a lot to execute the plan T_T. The plan went ahead with Chibi-matsuri without JLS help but also failed due to financial constrains and lack of human resource. Yes, not enough leaders. Capable leaders were pushed to other division to ensure GACC runs smoothly.
• PSP Competition – Can’t think of it’s efficient execution plan. “Bring your own PSP” is a messy method and no one is willing to lend their PSP to us. Including me. Dunno wat game to play also.
• Performance Competition – My plan of killing idle times. Judging will be based on how entertaining they are. Yes, they can perform anything they like within a time limit. Convert all the performance and turned it into a competition where they will strive to it make good. Found out that the execution plan was messy and we scrapped it. Might emerge on the next GACC.
• Taiko no Tatsujin – Yes, we were planning to bring in the machine. And we almost got it too until it was scrapped a week before the event. There was a problem with power transformer problem where all the Japanese machines required Japanese standard 100 volts power supply. Jusco arcades were equipped with this. Yes, we did try to look for this transformer and we failed to get it. WE ALMOST GOT IT! DAMMIT! T_T
• PC Games competition – Afraid that gamers might overwhelm ACG community people. Wanted to make a “Bring your own computer” contest too where their rigs will be rated. Scrapped way earlier in the organizing process. Die DoTA players. Die.
• Next Gen Consoles Competition – Tired of using PS2 over and over again, we planned to use Next Gen consoles as platform for competition. Scrapped due to console availability. We only manage to find all 3 console a week before the event. Really wanna see Wii Tennis competition in action T_T
• AMV competition – Scrapped waaay earlier because we can’t think of a good plan to execute it.

Yeah. We planned a lot of other crazy stuffs but also got scrapped.

CRAP! Did I just suggested you guys a list of stuff to be done for your university event? Damn.

Oh, what’s my task actually? It seems that I’m everywhere and some are confused with my tasks. My main tasks are simple: supervise the director. Yes, that all. But of course, I didn’t supervise my director much because I’m pretty sure that she can handle the event well without my intervention that much. What I really did for the event was: Marketing and Design. Of course, help the director is decision making situations also.

For the marketing plans, i used methods that no other clubs in campus done before. Yes, evil marketing.

I was confident that our hall is going to be sardined anyway, so I tell em all not to come ( of course, the more you tell em not to come, the more they will come ). Social engineering is fun sometimes… for a good cause of course. Anyway, it’s a fun method of advertising. Might help us to win MMU Awards a bit. Who knows.

I’ve been doing the designs for GACC since it’s birth, and this might be the last one. So, I had to give whatever I got into this. *flex*. The theme was orange because.. orange is nice, and according to the clea ( GACC logo ), orange represents “circle” or community. So, it’s just nice. I had Navin to help me out with some killer words too. “Join the orange wave” slogan was a parody of the BERSIH rally’s “Join the yellow wave”.

Apparently our director isn’t fond of our radical idea of doing this viral marketing strategy. She don’t have the confidence that this method we’ll work. I had a hard time trying to convince her that this method will work effectively… and cost efficient at the same time.

Oh yeah. I was the mastermind who came out with the evil plan to invade Comic Fiesta 2007 with GACC2008 tshirts. The plan worked well though. Received reports from the promo team that someone actually asked for a group photo of them during the event. Lol. I hope that no one copies this trick in the future. Oh yeah, I was kinda surprised some of my committees ignored my clear order: If you help out for CF, do not wear the tshirt. It seems that they’re too evil T_T. They wanna help out CF while wearing the tshirt. I think that’s ethically wrong. It’s like wearing Panasonic tshirt when working at Sony +_+. I’m sorry CF, please don’t kill me ~

Of course. I don’t plan to make GACC’s a overrated event. Must make sure that this event really rocks. So, we send promo team to check out other ACG events in Malaysia like MAGe and ACF for scouting purposes. Learn their advantages and disadvantages and apply results to our event. But again, seriously, there’s nothing we can do about our small exam hall. T_T

Oh yeah, the cosplay division tawt of something wicked for the solo cosplay competition – “Wheel of Cosplay”. The mechanics of the game is the same as “pulling a card out of the box”, but for hype purposes, a WHEEL is good. The deco team is willing to make the wheel too, and the process of making the wheel was fun. The last time I played with wood was back in high school during “Kemahiran Hidup” class. I think I’ll let Khurshid tell the story of this cosplay wheel. So, I’ll skip this part.

About the seiyuu, did you guys know that we almost scrapped the seiyuu idea due to budget constrains? We had a hard time trying to convince the public that we might not have a seiyuu this year but it seems that every one was very confident with our capabilities of bringing one O_O. Well, thank God that we managed to find extra sponsors and bring him in.

Ah. About the tshirts. Since last year our tshirt sold out like hot cakes/J.Co donuts, we made pre-orders. Of course, some didn’t believe us that the tshirt is going to sell out liek mad… including our dear Director. We announce it publicly about the pre-orders and we didn’t really get a good response… more reasons for our dear director to be confident that we wont sell the tshirt. But the rest of the committee believes that printing 200+ tshirts is WAY WAY WAY not enough. So, me and Navin made a bet with her. And clearly we won. The tshirt sold out on the first day.

Did you get your tshirt? No? Told ya to pre-order. Nope, we are not re-printing it. >:)

Shin Dee, you owe me a meal now. >:D

Hmm. What else? Yes, the disaster to event clashes between Karnival Keluarga Bahagia and GACC2008. Institusi Usrah and EMiNA wants Exam Hall, badly. Well, according to Student Activities Division (STAD), they treat ALL club activities equally important. That’s their policy. Karnival Keluarga Bahagia wanted the whole CLC concourse and Exam Hall for their event. Yes, it’s a big event. CLC concourse for their exhibition and Exam Hall for… colouring competition. Yes, colouring competition. To be specific, “Pertandingan Mewarna Kanak-kanak Peringkat Negeri Melaka” or “Melaka State Level Colouring Competition for Kids”. Again, they wanted the whole CLC concourse and Exam Hall for their event. We only wanted the Exam Hall, which is part of their event venue for our use for the WHOLE GACC event.

Wait wait wait. Let’s not talk bad about them. Come on, STAD’s policy, all activities are equally important. Every event has their own objectives.

Thank God we settled it peacefully with Institusi Usrah. They gave up their event for us… and they gave up half of the CLC concourse for Japanese Language Society ( for their Japanese Cultural Week ). They sacrificed a lot. Thanks Usrah. We will die without the exam hall.

Seriously. Colouring competition.

Ok. Too lazy to put in minor details. Lemme skip to event preparation.

Thursday night / Friday morning, I slept late because I was preparing stuff. Also this is the time where I abandoned my ARX-7 Arbalest head T_T. I went home and “tried” to sleep. I was tried but I was too worried/excited over GACC because it’s too near, hence I can’t sleep properly. Always happen when exciting occasion is reaching near. Friday, I woke up from my not-so-good sleep somewhere in the afternoon.

Went back to home-home straight away because I need to change my Kancil with my bro’s Waja. Then off to Jonker Street with Shin Dee to pick up the booklets and tshirts. The tshirt print out turns out to be good. Happy. Off to exam hall to drop the tshirt and meet Makoto, the translator. At this time, other committees were busy preparing the exam hall : removing the chairs, setting up the deco, tables, stage and all. Previous years, I joined them with the preparation but this year it’s quite different: I volunteered to drive up to KLIA to pick up the seiyuu.

Me, Shin Dee and Makoto supposed to leave Melaka somewhere around 5, but we leave late somewhere around 6. We need to reach KLIA by 8 and thank God there’s no traffic jam. Actually, I’m not really worried about traffic jam because I’m quite confident that there’s no traffic jam during that period, but anyway, who knows. We expected to be back in the exam hall no earlier than 2am.

On the way there, we keep on trying to figure out where to bring our special guests around. And also I’m kinda worried also how this special guest attitude going to be like. From the look of the picture, he looks like some arrogant guy. I dunno, not expecting to much and only expecting the worse.

Reached KLIA at 8, their flight already arrived but they still haven’t come out yet.

That’s the Director Shin Dee and Translator Makoto, holding cards saying “Masakazu Morita-san” and “Ikeda-san”. While waiting and seeing lotsa Japanese people coming out, we were imagining some random Japanese people approach us “WHAT!? THE Masakazu Morita is coming here!?” lol. I don’t that will happen even if we put “Yasuo Fukuda” there lol.

Then he finally came out. ZOMG. He’s completely different than what I’ve imagined! COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. He’s a really nice and cool guy. Ok, fine bring him back to Melaka. Oh yeah, they love my brother’s car. On the way back to Melaka he keep on saying “sugoi ne” and “kakoi” and stuff. I dun really understand what my director and translator talk about back there except bit and pieces. Yes, it’s like I’m in a real life RAW video. +_+;

Yep, should had listened to my director’s advice: “Edo, brush up your Japanese”.

Oh yeah, he’s surprised that we have Jusco here in Melaka. Lol. Btw, we reached Melaka 20 minutes earlier than expected… because I SPEED! Morita-san called me “Initial P” because of my driving and the huge “P” sticker on the car. Uh, that’s not my “P” sticker btw, my bro’s. Oh, they made fun of my driving skillz a lot just because I suck at parking with my bro’s car. Come on, I rarely drive big cars when most of the time I use my small lovely Kancil. T_T

Send them to the hotel for check in. They really love their room. Then off for dinner/supper. Yes, we still haven’t decide where to bring em. In the end, we bring em to ‘Limbongan Burger’. No kidding, yes, we bring em to Limbongan Burger, because when we were driving around that area, they’re interested to go there. O_O. That place “seems” fine.

Oh yeah, there’s this one uncle who can speak Japanese well and he seems to be really excited to serve our special guest, lol. There, Shin Dee asked me whether it’s a good idea to bring ‘em to the exam hall to see the committees before others do. Yes, it was an extremely good idea that I gave her no chance to take it back. I added “do it… without warnings…” >:D. Some more there’s no harm in it since we reached Melaka 20 minutes earlier than expected.

So yeah, those who stayed up until late night in the exam hall were rewarded with a surprise visit by Masakazu Morita-san before other’s did. It seems fine because they really deserve it for staying up late night to set up the hall. Uh, of course.. some of em were busy with the game consoles ~

Naturally, he was raided by the committees… in a civilized manner of course. While others were happy to see him, I was happy to see the hall’s set up. And of course, I’m really happy to see the committees are excited to meet him. The atmosphere was wild. Yes, I’m really really excited to see the committees are hyped up after those tiring work they did.

Then it was about time to send him back to his hotel. According to the plan, I’m supposed to send him back but plans changed. Something happened and I had to stay in the hall leaving Shin Dee and Makoto alone with them. I gave my car keys to them but I found out later that they send them back using Makoto’s Proton Saga. O_O.

After that, we had a short pre-event meeting with the committees. Not many committees left, but enough to help out for the rest of the night.

The stage was there. The tables for doujin groups were set up. The figurine team were setting up their display. Committees at the command centre busy preparing documents and stuffs.

I was busy setting up my PC… my problematic PC. I have no idea why, my PC refuse to boot up normally, until I unplug my DVD drive. Power supply related problem I guess. Then I’m off to stick those “warning signs” all over the place near the entrance. Muahahaha. I love those a lot. Got help from Siraj and Hisashi. So, what you guys think of the warning signs? Lol.

After done with that, I had to help out other divisions. Putting up internal signs. Preparing technical AV stuffs ( yes, quietly tested out the opening video too ). Sorting out stuff for Noise Station team. And stuff.

Then… I had a 10 minutes of sleep… then the rest, I’ll continue on my next blogpost.

PS: The opening video will be uploaded SOON. Don’t worry. SOON.