Wednesday, November 25, 2015

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!  >.>