November 2015

Crazy past few months since I've last updated, I'll start off with all things Neko Sydney, future plans and then a bit onto the personal stuff.

Neko Sydney took place recent and seriously, it was one glorious event.  I can not thank everyone involved whether working or attending, this was an absolutely special and amazing show and easily the best one we've done ever.  In the past Sydney shows have been great but frustrating, we've dealt with a lot of issues and restrictions and even though we've done good shows there's always been this massive list of things we could always improve on but I really felt that finally moving to Manning Bar we've really nailed the show we've wanted to do in Sydney for an incredibly long time.

A lot of changes were made for this one and I think the obvious first thanks has to go to the venue, we've done 4 different venues in the last 3 shows but this one hands down is the best one we've worked with easily.  We just clicked, they understood our event they let us do our own thing and more importantly they actually listen, I could go on and on but as a simple example, the bar lines were relatively short the whole night, we constantly tell venues of the huge surge of people at the start of the night, the attendance and it's frustrating how many times venues don't listen to us when we're helping them try to make money!

A lot of new staff and people on board which is always awesome and really pleased with all the staff on board in general (and also all the staff we couldn't get on board, you're still awesome).  Trialled a new management system behind the scenes and it made the night so much easier, even though I wasn't exactly able to chillout, dance and enjoy the event like a regular attendee, it was the most fun I've had a night in a long time.  Mega thanks Sydney, absolutely love being there and can't wait to be back again.

As fun as it is to reminisce about Sydney, we've also got the next shows coming up in the tour, Perth is next, always a good show, really love the people and of course easiest logistically.  No flights, living with my current manager and also minimal sleep deprivation is nice, my girlfriend went 47 hours without sleep at the last Sydney show!  Line-up and preparation is looking great, I feel that there's finally a lot of really good special attractions and v

ariety which I'm really happy about here.

Brisbane follows Perth and it's going to be a great night over there.  It's a bit scary with a new venue I've never seen before but it's probably the easiest new venue to deal with ever, worked with the manager before and the place looks spectacular lit up in amazing UV and LED lighting.  Working with Matt (Brisbane Manager) on a new venue is going to be fun, it's a clean slate and we've got venue management which we're really excited to be working with.

Adelaide is going to be the last of this tour, the last Adelaide show was great but definitely a lot I feel that could be improved on.  Overall though, the new venue is fantastic, we've got easily one of my favourite venue managers (he virtually loves any odd geeky events like ours!) and while it's an unusual space I'm excited about the challenge of making this venue work even better.  Got a bit of an upgraded team for this one including working with Joypad.  Despite being a smaller show, I always get excited about Adelaide, it's my second home and so psyched for this show.

Melbourne, definitely not ignoring this city, with sold out shows and an amazing crew of staff over there, it's a city I really want to get a show going there soon.  I'll actually update this on the Neko Nation website hopefully within a week.

Nekonomicon Calendars, I'm really excited for this but will admit that while I have the calendars it has definitely snuck up on me.  More details soon.  Been very on a massive new side project, more details to hopefully be released any day now.

In terms of my personal life, it's been scary how crazy and hectic my life is, at the start of the year the thought of working on Neko during the day was a ridiculous idea but these days it's easily taking up pretty much all my time during the day and decent chunks of my weekend.  I'm currently working weeknights at ANZ and also self-studying Japanese in my own time.  I bought the latest Hyperdimension Neptunia game at the start of this month and I honestly haven't had a chance to play it!  >.>

Purrth + Sydney Update, Personal update

Purrth show was absolutely incredible, honestly one of the most enjoyable shows I've done in a while.  Really great crowd, performances and turnout, Purrth is always lots and lots of fun.

Really looking forward to the next show there, behind the scenes Purrth is currently my favourite show to work on, no interstate logistics (flights, accommodation, luggage and sleep deprivation) and it feels like everything is flowing and clicking a lot better behind the scenes which is really awesome.

Sydney is coming up, our best show from a production stand point but oh boy is there a tonne of work to do with this one.  Tickets are still getting delayed again.  To cut a long story short here, I can't use Eventbrite and I need 3 different parties to give me the ok before selling tickets.

Despite the delays a lot of other stuff in on schedule and I'm really excited about it, new venue is the best Sydney one yet and I'm really excited to see what the team can come up with for this space!  Also draft DJ line-up was complete today, it's a pretty interesting one, half interstate acts, quite a few newbies to Neko Sydney and music-wise, let's just say it's going to be quite different from the past few shows.  XP

Also got Neko Argentina coming up, pretty amazing, South America might be surprising to some but Brasil, Argentina and Chile are three of the biggest countries in the world for Japanese culture.  The Argentina team is freakin' awesome and yeah, it's pretty amazing this is happening.

Adelaide and Brisbane coming up soon too, they're on the backburner once I take care of Purrth and Sydney.  ^^

In terms of my personal life, making a lot of massive changes, decided for a three month break between the tours.  Planning to use a lot of the time to work on my mental and physical self.  Currently seeing a psychologist to get my stress, anxiety, depression under control and working on a mindfulness program which is doing absolute wonders.  Taken up a lot more exercise and going to be attempting a half marathon later this month, trying to eat better, well when my wonderful girlfriend isn't serving me macaroni and cheese pizzas!  In general, feeling a lot better about myself and more recharged than ever, can actually start to enjoy the leadup to shows now which is nice.

Sydney Mid 2015 Update

Sydney was definitely one mega achievement of a show, I have no idea how this ended up happening so well, despite all the venue issues which included a liquor licensing change in the lead up, needing to get a second venue and well all the recent news about the drama with old Imperial Hotel.  There was no one but two venues that made it essentially like running two events on at the same night, on top of being sleep deprived from Neko Brisbane the night before.

But it was worth it!

Anyways, really happy with how the night went with all the hard work for that event out of the way, the event was an interesting one, was really surprised how good the event looked despite the unusual venue, we had a great crew helping out on tech, plus we also had some really nice work with security with the safety squad which was really great to see happening, having full control of security on this one helped a lot.

Second part was kick ass from what I remember, Rocket Science generally do great work with events so teaming up with them produced a good second part from what I've been told, I was barely awake at part 2, so mega apologies for everyone over there and all the staff who had to deal with  me being pretty much dead and non-responsive.  XD

Recently had a long staff meeting and I'll be honest we've got a lot on our plate before we're looking to announce anything shortly.  Also booking dates in Sydney is incredibly hard with a lot happening near the end of the year.  Really want to be back in Sydney soon but even with such an awesome crew involved, Sydney is by far the toughest show to put on with how big the plans were for the last one, let alone the next one.

Announcement probably next month, hopefully early next month, as for the show, fingers crossed before the year is up.

Also will be in Sydney for SMASH, really, really excited for this con, heard some really awesome news behind the scenes that will make it the con you have to be at this year, no matter where you are in Australia.  Looking forward to catching up with a lot of you there!  <3

Adelaide Mid 2015 Update

It was a long time waiting but oh boy it was great to come back to Adelaide, pretty much the first city where Neko really boomed, where I lived throughout the start of Neko and it's just a city that brings back a fair bit of nostalgia to me.

The show was our biggest and probably one of our better shows in history, the new venue was going to be interesting to work with but I knew once I talked to this venue that this was the venue I wanted to work with for the long term if it all worked out and it certainly did!

There's something special about the Adelaide goers, I think it just feels more like a cosplay community altogether coming and a nice most people knowing everyone but it's pretty much a given in terms of a smaller city.  I felt like I got along with a wider variety of people here, helps there were a lot of old friends I needed to catch up with that night too!

Anyways, onto the actual show, I think it was a really interesting format with the venue divided up into multiple rooms, there was a lot of variety and unique ways to enjoy the night, despite it being crowded at a few points, in general there was a great number of people throughout the night, nice usage of all the spaces and a nice mix of socialising and awesome tunes.

Adelaide was great, although being a new venue, still a few kinks I want to iron out and maximise the space better next time but it was an awesome show, aiming to come back probably start of next year at this rate, announcement isn't too far off!

Melbourne Mid 2015 Update

Melbourne has generally been the most difficult city for Neko Nation, the past years for Neko Melbourne were tough, venues have been hard to find and also tricky to deal with, marketing and getting people interested has been tough and pretty much just everything we would try just didn't work or ever went to plan.  To be honest, I always found it a massive shame nothing ever worked in Melbourne because I honestly believed Melbourne was probably one of my favourite cities musically in terms of the DJ's we had there and it's where the Neko Nation anthem was born!

So 2015, I was on the verge of giving up until I had someone interested in taking over and I let her work her magic and my god did she work her magic.  Everything got restarted, refreshed and revitalised and we had our fastest selling out show within 2 weeks and when the show happened, it was magical, it was pretty much what I always hoped would end up happening in Melbourne.

I'm proud to say that we are going to be adding Melbourne back to the regular schedule of touring from now on, we aren't going to be racing to put on a show shortly, we've got a lot to sort out and organise for the next show, however in particular, I'm aware of a lot of people missing out so we'll be looking at possibly a new venue to ensure more people can enjoy Neko Nation soon, aiming to come start of 2016 hopefully but venue stuffs are always unpredictable!

Seriously, mega thanks Melbourne, it's good to be back!

Brisbane Mid-2015 Update

Neko Brisbane has always been one of my personal favourite cities, we've always had good shows here and it's a city I enjoy being in a lot especially the food and Southbank.

Anyways, we've had two here already and both were pretty damn awesome shows, in quick succession, to be honest, we normally wouldn't do shows this close together but we couldn't pass up the opportunity of Yui Kanan and the March show was scheduled a bit later than originally planned.

Anyways as for the future, it's something I'm currently looking into at the moment, there are a few issues that need to be fixed before we go to the next show and the popularity of our event is attracting interest from other venues which I'm currently investigating at the moment, Deluxe has been a great host for the last few events and while it would be great to continue there, I'm open to looking into other options.

So at the moment there are delays mostly due to venue reasons, with that said, it's unlike the last time where we lost Coniston Lane and ran out of venues, this time we're taking a bit of time with our options but it's not too long before we announce something soon.  My Brisbane guy is away on the con tour, I'm looking into a few other improvements as well too, so I really want to do everything I can to make this one even more awesome once I can get everything I want perfect and sorted!

Brisbane has always been pretty spectacular and I think an announcement is only a week or two away to be honest from this post, aiming for a show before the year is up.  Really can't wait to be back soon!

Neko Purrth + Life Update 2k15

I'm sure more people are here for the Perth update than my personal stuffs but I've decided to combine the two since there isn't really much to report about Purrth.

Purrth Update:

Things for the upcoming show are going really great, agreed with my Purrth manager to do a Harajuku themed show.  First show in a while we won't have a headliner but we've still got a bunch of awesome DJ's, catgirls, awesome gaming room and the usual sort of stuff to expect at a Neko, really extra excited for the decor about this one.

Unlike all the other cities, Perth is the only city where we've had a long-term relationship with our venue with Gilkisons since 2012.  The venue is great, is one of the biggest venues we use around Australia and just great to deal with in terms of our demands, space and the location, so the future of Perth is looking pretty awesome.

Now onto the personal stuff and wrap-up of the last tour.

Long time since I've posted on here, a lot has happened, so let's see where to begin.

Pretty much finished with university, passed with pretty awesome grades, wen
t through a marketing graduate program with a bunch of the top WA's top ad agencies but unfortunately the mining crash meant I had to find work elsewhere, considering when you've got employers going through all the effort of a graduate program and deciding not to pick people, then you know things are dire.  Work was good, made a whole bunch of money but 13 hour days of working two jobs throughout the week and Neko on the weekends was killing me.

So there's been a tonne of work but with that said main highlights of the year aren't really too surprising, girlfriend has been absolutely freakin' awesome still, moving in with her has definitely been one of the best decisions I've made in a while, was surprised how little drama there has been in terms of moving into the new place and living together in general.

Neko Tour

Of course Neko Nation is still a massive part of my life and the show has been going great, definitely a lot better than I could have imagined this year, Brisbane kicked off the year awesomely, full capacity show and being in Brisbane city is always a lot of fun, especially around Southbank.  Had S3RL in Perth which is always a blast, Perth absolutely love S3RL on an entire new level here, definitely one intense and fun show.

Yui tour was great, she's amazing on stage in terms of her personality and music but off stage by far her and her manager were a dream to deal with, would have been more fun me to deal with if I didn't have so much sleep dep, which was guaranteed doing a full on back to back show at the two most intense and energetic shows of Brisbane which was fun, while Sydney, oh boy, definitely one of my favourite shows of the year, but really hard to get through all the work involved for that one.

One of the more interesting highlights was the return to Melbourne and Adelaide, they got a break for a while as I focused on the three shows which were working well and struggling to figure out plans for revitalizing Adelaide and Melbourne.  Melbourne was pretty insane, had a new team takeover and for a long time it seemed that Melbourne never had much interest in our events and then all of a sudden, had a sellout within 2 weeks which was just incredible, the final show was really great as well too.

Adelaide, well it was such a fun show and it always a bit of a personal one for me as it was where I lived when Neko Nation was starting and while it didn't host the first show, it was where I felt it really kickstarted Neko Nation being a truly awesome event.  The new venue was spectacular, not just from the feedback from the people but from us to deal with, other cities might hate this but 2 minutes to get a drink, maximum!  It was a long wait for an Adelaide show but I really wanted to make sure it was right, had my Adelaide manager help a lot with getting kick ass staff for this one and the venue managers working with us to make this a great night.

Neko Nation June Plans

Post Adelaide, I've been keeping quiet, honestly, 2015 was way too full on so I've been keeping pretty quiet due to my own personal reasons, recovering and not doing much with Neko even with the extra hours from not working during the day.  Steam sales, AnimeLab, chilling out with my girlfriend has been what I've needed this month.

With that said I've spent the last week doing event reviews figuring out what needs to be done for all the upcoming events.  I'm slowly getting back into things this week, biggest thing on my plate is to clean up stuff that has been long overdue, website updates and Nekonomicon at the moment.

So even though you might not here from me much atm, we've got a lot of exciting plans coming up, including Nekonomicon, secret projects for 2016 and of course new shows!