Neko Nation for 2017 and Beyond

So I've been having a bunch of time off and am slowly getting back into wanting to do Neko events.  That said, nothing much is happening soon and it's definitely not a case of picking up where we left off, as I'm looking into making a very big change on how we run events.

I'm looking to shift Neko Nation into an annual event, very much inspired by many of the major conventions, that we will be taking the show around Australia to do one show in each city throughout the year, I'll list some of the major reasons why I'm looking to take Neko in this direction.

I'm honestly not happy with the quality of the events that comes from the current frequency of doing them, the obvious effect is that we've got an increase in budget and time to do things much bigger and better than we've had in the past.  It also reduces the amount of compromise we've had with doing frequent shows, the phrase, "we'll wait till next show" is very common behind the scenes in terms of budget and time restrictions.

Time was another issue we had, basically we did our shows three months apart when we first started and with the shows growing to the level it has today, we've had to do way more work in a shorter amount of time.  We're at the point where our team is very stretched thin, especially those in managerial and involved in shows over multiple cities.  It may not seem like much work at the events but it's the work outside the events you don''t see that really adds up.

One of the other things we noticed is that despite having done over 70 events in the past 5 years or so, we still get plenty of people saying things along the lines of, "I can't wait till Neko returns next year", even when we've got another two events to put on.  It's a very hard mentality to shake off in the anime, cosplay scene that events can only happen annually, so if you can't beat them, join them I guess.

Finally, it's what I want to make Neko actually happen.  Near the end of the year, I honestly felt that I was close to quitting and being done with Neko.  I loved Neko but I believe that if I didn't have my heart in it and wanted to give in my all into every event, there's no point for me to keep going.  When I first started the whole idea of taking this small club and doing as many events as possible in all the cities around Australia was the be all and end all for me but I honestly have felt that's no longer the case.

Right now, what motivates me is the ability to go full on out and create absolutely big massive spectacular events.  I like the challenge of going out there, working with awesome people, to create awesome experiences for the attendees and I think this is very reflective of the current anime, gaming, pop culture, cosplay scene.

To follow on from what I said before, when I was a young boy, the biggest anime convention we had in Perth was on a couple of basketball courts and that was the only anime event.  Now we're getting numerous national events all over the country, heck even international events like RTX and PAX, the scene is absolutely amazing at the moment and from my point of view I want to make sure we're not doing shows for the sake of doing shows, we want to absolutely smash it out of the park when we make our contribution towards the massive selection of amazing events in Australia atm.

I know that for some, the idea of of going from 3 Neko Nation events to 1, is definitely going to suck, especially the hardcore fans who always attend every one.  As I said earlier, we have so many option in the scene plus our events are going to be way bigger, spectacular and more amazing than before, we're working on some pretty incredible stuff in the pipeline, we want to bring in more awesome decor, have more unique and interesting performers and we've got some really amazing acts we want to bring down from Japan and lets just say that in a year or two's time, we're going to do something way, way bigger than TeddyLoid.

Anyways, I haven't announced it on the Neko Nation website yet because it's something I'm still thinking about over Christmas and honestly, Christmas is when I'm looking to have some time off too.  It will be quite a massive shock to Neko but lets face it, Neko has always aimed to evolve, it's changed a lot from when I used to open with 90 minute J-Rock sets, events in tiny warehouses, less than 100 pieces of sushi served by only two catgirls and events with no free water (fuck that venue, seriously) and it's going to change again and it will be for the better.

Oh and I guess you're probably curious when the next events are on, as a rough schedule.

Perth to be announced very soon, I want to enjoy Christmas off and then will offer more details.

Adelaide and Brisbane are next in line, quite a few things I'm looking into here, plans to return to both these cities mid-2017.

Melbourne and Sydney, want to relaunch both of these events, I've got some pretty dramatic changes I want to look at before we go back here, don't expect a return till near the end of 2017.

For now, I'm off on break, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  <3

Neko Nation Break Year - 2017

As I've announced on Facebook a few months ago, taking time away from Neko and also planning to slow down Neko Nation from now on.  This has been a while coming, the main reason for the time off is due to health reasons, which has been caused by a lot of burnout and returning to Neko once I feel fresh and re-energised.


I'd say it goes all the way back to TeddyLoid, not just the show, but the planning and show started in December 2014 just after I finished university.  TeddyLoid wasn't cheap, I didn't have the money at the time and I had to take out a second job to save up to bring him over for the tour, this meant a full time job, a week nightly job and running Neko, plus one of these jobs had quite a bit of overtime!  Not surprisingly I didn't survive too long working multiple jobs but got enough to make the tour happen.  So I still haven't confirmed TeddyLoid and I'm already exhausted!

So fast forward a bit later and the setup for TeddyLoid was tough and tiring, I won't bore people too much with the details but organising three shows in a row, with a guest that doesn't speak English was one of the biggest challenges yet.  The scheduling, planning and the logistics involved was absolutely insane, that made all our other shows like organising a kids birthday party in comparison.

So the shows came and despite all that work involved and the craziness of the tour (especially the sleep deprivation), I can honestly say it was one of the best experiences of my life.  Putting on a successful event is nice, but touring with an amazing talented music producer and someone I looked up to was such an amazing and rewarding experience that I will never forget.

So after resting up and sorting out all the post show stuffs, the TeddyLoid tour was such a success that we felt we needed to capitalise on the success with more of our regular events.  This was actually a good idea and our following shows went really well on our Winter Tour and led to our recent Spring tour.  This was great for Neko but for myself personally, not so much.

My health had started going into decline not too long after TeddyLoid tour but didn't really think much of it but it kept getting worse and worse throughout the year and I was constantly getting sick for weeks on end.  While I've seen doctors and they've got an idea, they've put stress and burnout as the biggest issue to get my health sorted.

In general Neko has been stressful but the tipping point came recently where there was one show which we absolutely dreaded, basically everything went wrong, pre-event was a nightmare, setup was a nightmare and the show definitely didn't go to plan but thankfully the show still went well.  After that show, I had never thrown up as I had in my life and was the sickest I had ever been in a long time.  It was bad enough I was getting tired from all the shows, but my health was constantly going downhill and it was at this point when I knew that Neko needed to go on hiatus.


I write this now as the tour is over and I'm starting to get so much better, even though I won't be 100% away from Neko (Nekonomicon calendars, social media, etc.), the main plan is to put a lot of focus on my health, fitness, relationship and eventually my social life too.  I've got a fair few plans which I'll go into detail on another post.