Neko Nation Updates May

Sydney
S3RL and GPK announced, catgirl applications opened (check Neko Nation Sydney group).  This show is going to be massive, likely to be the biggest budget show in history (talking at least 5 figure expenses), DJ's from 6 different states and territories, three floors, fastest selling earlybirds in history, this will be mega.

Purrth
Earlybirds sold out and releasing tickets in Tokyo Underground very soon.  Catgirl, Catboy and DJ applications are now open, only anime, gaming, Japanese related sets only.  Going to be an awesome show, should be great back at Gilks, got a few new interesting setup things to play around with, particularly on the top floor with the gaming, mega excited about this.

Brisbane
Coniston Lane has changed their team, management, owners, our contract became void and we've been on the hunt for a new venue.  There's one venue heavily sticking out and we're going to take it slowly and make sure that we can make Neko Nation amazingly well in this venue, there's a lot of potential with the place we're looking at, it's just a matter of seeing if we can all get on the same page with the venue negotiations, should be an update within two weeks.

Adelaide
AVCon won't be taking place this year, new team, new objectives and a new focus, despite us not coming back this year, we did have two amazing shows at AVCon in 2012 and 2013, we had fun and we still wish AVCon the best of luck this year.  With the lack of AVCon show, Brisbane venue drama and uni assignments, I'll be hopefully booking at Adelaide at the end of the month now, most likely a show a few months before the end of the year back in Producers.

Melbourne
At this stage we're taking a break and helping work with Tokyo Fantastic Night at the moment who are doing a Japanese club night at the moment with past Neko Nation DJ's.  We'll let them do their thing in the meantime and keeping in contact in regards to trying to work together to bring another Melbourne show in the future.

Neko Planet
For the time being, turning it's focus onto a new division which will help work with Riveting Promotions to help with alt/industrial acts in Australia, in particular Perth, should be an exciting new challenge and lots of awesome events I'm looking forward to helping out with, including the upcoming Velvet Acid Christ show on June 14th @ Bakery in Perth.  As for the future of the Neko Planet that was seen last month, it's likely I'll do something in the future but that's at least a year away and I've got Neko Nation and other things to focus on at the moment

The reality of assymetry

While I can't say I'm noticing too much of this talk at the moment, I feel now is probably a good time to discuss the issue of why certain Neko Nation's appear to be "better" than others.  I think some people believe in the whole "McDonald's" like approach of consistency and the idea that no matter where you are in the world you can get a Big Mac that tastes virtually the same wherever.  The whole idea of simply copying and pasting events doesn't work and even if it did it's virtually impossible for us to do.

The reality is that it simply doesn't work like that and there are so many reasons but I'll rush through some of the common ones.  Venues vary insanely, no two venues are alike and I can assure you that if we could get 5 venues around the country that were the same oh boy would that make my life a lot easier (and probably a lot more boring too).  They all have different setups, rules of what we can and can't do, when they open, close, certain things they can do awesomely, different rates, just that alone should explain enough.

There are differences in the crowds, numbers being the obvious ones but the crowds in terms of musical tastes, preferences, fashion, energy, socialising are dramatically different depending on the city.  It's not simply a case of the cosplay/anime scene being the same nationwide plus throw in the complexity of how different scenes see Neko in different cities.  In one city, the rave scene and Neko Nation goes hand in hand, in another city, the rave scene won't touch our event.

Staffing plays a huge role, certain things happen because of special people, depending on the cities, we've seen Touhou, Moe Swag, Vocaloid, MLP, industrial, hardstyle musically.  Certain things happen in certain cities because of the people who have worked for something for that show and some things aren't feasible to travel and post around (no matter how many times you ask, we can't put bacon cheeseburger sushi in the post).  Plus it goes onto logistics, I can do more shows in Perth because it's closer and nearer, Brisbane is far away and harder as an example, it can also work in reverse, S3RL will appear more in his hometown Brisbane than elsewhere.  Then yeah, budget, more people = more money to spend on the show.  Certain cities get more frequent shows and bigger shows simply because the budget is there, it's simple supply and demand.  At the moment Sydney averages ten times as many people as Melbourne at shows and this isn't an exaggeration!

I'll touch on the S3RL issue a lot because this is something that always get asked all the time when is S3RL coming to *insert home city here*.  It depends on a whole bunch of factors as mentioned above, Perth, there will be a return in the near future if all goes to plan.  Adelaide, originally was part of our AVCon plan but that ended up falling through this year, once Adelaide gets bigger I'll be able to look into it again.

So yeah, this is something I could really go on with in terms of all the minor details, I should also mention that a lot of it simply comes down to my team that I work with, there is no competition between cities and the managers who run each city, they are aware of what happens in the other cities and keep an eye on the ideas that all the other cities do but at the end of the day we're all working by deciding what works and is relevant for each scenario, show and city.

Full Circle

Rewind over a decade ago and I was pretty much still 17, staring up at my calendar counting down the months when I could check out awesome industrial events, heck I still remember my favourite night was this bizarre anime/industrial/rave hybrid.  I was listening to tonnes of industrial acts, in particular my favourite at the time being Velvet Acid Christ and well, it's kind of amusing looking back and seeing what's happened now.


A decade ago things were different, Livejournal was social media of choice, underground raves required you to figure out a secret meeting point to get a physical map without internet help to find you way there and Covenant performed at Metro City, the biggest nightclub in Perth.  My first live club gig, which was amazing and pretty much shortly after turning 18, started working with Outbreed and learned my craft with events, I learned the basics, I learned the advanced stuff, I've worked from all sorts of events, to illegal underground raves to monthly house nights to major festivals like BDO and I've seen all sorts of crazy things, sex, drugs, undercover cops, raids, mafias.  It was one crazy rollercoaster of an eyeopener into the world of events.

I remember being surrounded by people who went out, telling me about getting jaded and how while you're having fun now, you'll grow up, you'll get bored out of this life within a year or two.  You'll change, you'll grow out of it all, this is a temporary life until you figure out where you want to be.  Over a decade later, I never really did.

I've ended up here, creating an event that was partly influenced by the first event I got to work with (along with a lot of Japanese events I was influenced by), heck the original creator of Outbreed flew back down to check out this event from Singapore recently and was quite amazed and impressed.  I would be told that kandi, happy hardcore and PLUR was something that would be dead constantly when I first started raving yet, I've had people thank me for helping revive that rave scene over in Sydney.  I've ended up DJing at a whole bunch of other clubs all around Australia and meeting absolutely amazing musicians, models, promoters and all sorts of awesome peeps.

Funnily enough now, Neko Nation was created because of my two passions, the industrial/alt scene was too full and there wasn't really much I could add over here, yet now ironically enough, it was all my work in the anime/cosplay scene that caught the attention of various people in the alt scene across Australia and heck, now I'm getting involved with Velvet Acid Christ over next month is pretty damn sweet.

To make me even happier the position I saw myself in many, many years ago is the position I've seen a fair few people who work with me are here right now, while I want to be doing events for a long time, I know one day it will end up stopping and some of the awesome people I've had in higher up positions, I'm really looking forward to the amazing events they create in the future.

So yeah, somehow I couldn't imagine over a decade ago I'd be here and it was something I never ever thought about or aimed for but somehow, I survived and somehow made it here, which is absolutely crazy.