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.