I originally aimed for 12 months off after March 2017, however this was going to be a variable period of time depending on how my health recovered. During my first 2 months off, I wanted nothing to do with Neko and honestly thought about shutting down Neko down due to my personal health.
Things eventually looked up when me and my fiancee agreed to make a move to Sydney, it's a long story which I'll put up in a future blog post but to briefly sum it up, Perth is a terrible place to be post-mining boom, while Sydney has the most potential economically at the time of writing.Once the Sydney move was decided, it was probably the most excited I've ever felt about working on Neko since TeddyLoid. It's good to be back!
First of all, I should mention that I'm not going full Reinhardt back into Neko, don't expect any sort of major event announcements coming up in the next few months. I wouldn't expect any events to be happening before the end of the year. Right now, most of the focus is just on planning and brainstorming without the stress of the looming deadline of an event coming up which is the biggest source of burnout.
In regards to the burnout, first of all, I'm sticking to the original plan of shifting Neko to a once a year extravaganza, since I'd put the number shows as the main reason for the burnout. Switching base to Sydney will help dramatically with shorter travel times, more sleep, recover better post show, this is going to be massive since a lot of the burnout was from traveling and trying to get back into our day jobs.
Next month there's going to be some pretty big meetings which decide the future of Neko. The goal of which is re-analyse everything, everyone, every place and every little detail about Neko. I'll be honest, right at this stage, a lot of big things are happening and planned, we've got talks happening with people on 5 continents right now, I've got many talented new DJs, catgirls, performers, tech people, artists, agents, sponsors, managers, venues and more that I'm looking at, nothing is safe or sacred. Neko didn't get to where it is today by following formulas or being complacent, so I'm looking at so much to make Neko these next shows absolutely mega.As for other changes, binging 11 seasons of Ru Paul's Drag Race gave me quite a fair few ideas. XD
