Neko Brisbane: Cancelled to Megashow

Caturday, August 18th 2018, it was the best Neko Nation event that we had done, the team was so on point, the performances, DJs, catgirls, media, it was just an amazing show where everything finally came together and best of all that crowd was magical, something I've never seen any other crowd get close to at any other show.

It broke the record for the biggest show in Australia yet, which was not bad considering the first Neko Nation Brisbane event was cancelled due to lack of interest.

Neko Nation Brisbane is Cancelled
Not many people will probably recognise the picture from the right, the promotional image from Neko Nation Brisbane 2011 which was cancelled.  Neko had a mini experimental show launch in Perth earlier that year, we finally did our first proper show in Adelaide in mid year to a big success, another success in Perth, and we decided to give a national tour a shot at the end of the year.  I was never expecting Neko to grow to such a success so soon but the reality soon hit.

Melbourne flopped for it's first event (and almost every event we ever did there), as for Brisbane, it got announced and the person I put in charge of the event attracted a whopping 40 people click attending, which once you include staff and around half the people who clicked attending not to show up it wasn't looking good.

I'll be honest, this surprised me a little bit, I knew Brisbane was going to be hard, I had very few contacts or friends in Brisbane but I know it was the home of the mega Supanova events, Mana Bar just opened up there and I knew there had to be a crowd there.  As for who I got to run the event, well you know the saying, if you want something done, then you got to do it yourself!  The first event while far from run perfectly I would have liked and laughably bad by the standards of a show I run now, it was supported greatly by the Brisbane crowd and we had the biggest crowd at a Neko Nation debut event in any city.

No Sweet Home
While the Brisbane crowd loved it, the reality is pitching an event like this to a venue at the time was rough, it was hard to find venues and the venues that would have us weren't exactly of the best standard, even when I've found better venues, Brisbane was rough, to go through a few of the issues, one venue broke the law (and I believe was shut down), one venue had $50 eBay decks, one venue manager blocked my number, Facebook and email and one venue kicked me out of my own event while I was running it!

Step up on stage
Despite the venue issues, when we had a venue, Brisbane was one of the most fun shows to organise because of the varied crowds from all sorts of scenes, we had a wide variety of different musical tastes, fashion styles, catgirls and DJ's, it was one of the most fun shows to organise.  We got to experiment in Brisbane a lot more as the crowd was more open and we had a great venue to work with when Coniston Lane existed.  Gtting S3RL was a given, we had amazing performers like Lele singing live and burlesque performer Aisaka Dream, we had some of the decor elements like the cherry trees, staging setup, a lot of fun things we got to experiment with in the 2013-2014 era until a management change in the venue meant we had to look elsewhere for venues.

Harder & Faster
Neko changed into more of a regular club night around 2015-2016, the venues we had available were more of a club style setting, which meant no stage but at the same time, we started attracting interstate and internationals over, the likes of Kenaz, Jadeabella, Sisen, Yui Kanan and of course TeddyLoid.  It was a fun time and I really felt like they were really fun events where it was more like a full on rave rather than the more varied events of today.  It was a good period as we had regular venues, good crowds and the events were solid, we even had a fell sellouts including the TeddyLoid event in 2016.

Look on The Brightside
Moving to The Brightside was probably the biggest and craziest vision I had for Neko, the last show we did at the venue beforehand was a sellout, putting on events was pretty easy having done it a number of times that I could do it in my sleep, on in my case on a few hours of sleep, which the schedule I had to put these Brisbane shows on!  We finally had a home for Neko in Brisbane but I honestly felt the Brisbane show could be so much better.

The Brightside was a very interesting proposal but a risky one, the show budget would blow up dramatically.  The regular part of the Brightside would be around a similar cost to our previous venue but then the new area, the outdoor area, we literally just had a carpark, we had to setup a stage and everything on it, it would turn Neko from a club event to a mini festival event.

The reality was the ability to get a lot of amazing performers which I feel was a massive strength of the Brisbane event, being able to setup my dream stage design and best of all The Brightside was probably the first venue I worked with that actually understood our event and went super above and beyond for event to make it a success.

In general all three events I've hosted there were very spectacular, the first two were absolutely amazing in 2016.  However I honestly believed that the 2018 event was not going to happen at a few points with how sick I was getting, how many things I wanted to do weren't able to go ahead and the number of plans changing, yet it all worked if anything maybe for the better because while the show wasn't perfect, I think it's by far the best night and event I've ever done or been involved with and it's thanks to all the magical people I've worked with and all those who came and supported me.

I'm sad to see it end but for those who did make it down and was a part, thank you, I'll never forget what an amazing journey it was from getting my first show canned to the amazing final show in Brisbane, thank you so very much.  <3

Bye Bye Brisbane?

Sunday, August 19th 2018, 12:16am
Valley Drive In, Backstage Area

"I'm going to miss this so much, I don't know if I really want this to end."

After that last Neko Nation Brisbane show, was the first point where I seriously felt like I finally had enough motivation and inspiration to consider just one more show, at least for Brisbane.  It was the first time I had been so emotionally overwhelmed by an event or a tour maybe since TeddyLoid in 2016.  It was a combination of an amazing team, a lot of things going to plan and the amazing crowd reaction, seriously, I couldn't have asked for a better event.

Sadly, I do see it as the end for Neko Nation Brisbane.

I've gone into great detail in past posts but I'll try to quickly sum it up.  Putting on a show involves a lot of time and effort, on a personal level that involves a lot of stress, it puts pressure on my health, relationship, friendships, work and study.  Neko isn't something I do for a living, I've juggled Neko regardless of what life has thrown at me, I've done Neko while holding full time work, sometimes multiple jobs, even getting a uni degree and holding a job and Neko!

To get Neko to where it has been, I've made a lot of sacrifices which I don't regret but it's taking its toll and it's getting harder for me to put on a show.  With Neko it is something I only want to do if I know I'm giving it my 100% all and I no longer believe I'm at a point which I'm able to do so.  I'm on my 8th year and I'm on show #73 now, I've done this way longer than I should have.

That said I would still love to see the event continue in one way or another

I have obviously thought about it and looked into the idea of selling or having somebody else takeover.  I'm 100% commited right now to finishing off The End is Meow tour in Perth and the finale in Sydney but I'm open to talks when this is over.

You'd find very few people who have a combination of the skills required to run a club event like this, experience in the anime and cosplay scene and the passion and drive to run an event of the scale of Neko.  It's unlikely but I wouldn't say impossible, we will see.

Maybe someone else could run a similar event...

After this tour is over, I doubt I'll ever see a desire for me to be in a position to run events, however I'm very interested in stepping back and keen to help let the next generation take over and run something similar.  Unlike when I first started doing Neko, you've got the advantage of knowing that it's a proven concept!

I'll admit how much I want to help here I'm not quite sure yet, I've got my main personal goals I want to work on first, marriage, career, holiday.  Plus I'm not sure how I'll go about it whether I want to handpick someone to mentor, start up a blog/video series in regards to how to go about running events, do an AMA or even just leave my inbox open for people to message in regards to advice.

Maybe ?

It's worth noting that of course my future plans and thoughts on this could change on how I want to go about my future and the future of similar events to this.  I'm pretty certain I won't be running Neko or events anything on a large scale in the near future.  I'm looking forward to finishing this tour, having a nice holiday and then I'll see how I feel.  The reality is I'm probably more keener in actually finally getting to go to any event like Neko rather than working.

Finally
Finally, don't be sad it's over, be glad that it's happened.

Adelaide 2011-2018, Thank You

While the first Neko Nation was in Perth, it wasn't till Neko Nation went to Adelaide that it really took off.

Adelaide was where the first real Neko Nation event took place, Perth was a bit of a prototype with a small casual bar style environment with minimal dance floor and two catgirls.  A lot of the elements such as getting at least 8 catgirls on, having a wide variety of DJs (not myself for half the night), performances, interstate DJs and in general the crowd was the most into it out of the 2011 shows we did.

The first Adelaide show was one of the reasons I would move to Adelaide for a short stint.  I found the people super appreciative that they were getting the event, they were super supportive, not just of my event but the likes of AVCon, Joypad, even smaller alternative events were very super supportive of what I was doing.  Adelaide was a small community but on a supportive and creative level, Adelaide was amazing.

The shows a lot of people hold dear and claim as the peak was the 2012-2013 era.  First of all we moved to Higher Ground, a venue many people hold dear when we were able to move Neko to a more professional level and I honestly felt like I was being accepted and a part of the anime and cosplay community.  It only grew further from there as AVCon let us host our first convention after party, a goal I would have one day wished for let alone to get there so quickly.

It took many shows to really push to get somewhere in most cities but very much straight up, Adelaide was super accepting, has no idea who I was and took me in as one of their own.  While Neko was always hard work, I always found lots of motivation and inspiration when working in Adelaide and the shows were generally the ones I could actually have the most fun at even while running the shows compared to how technical some of the other events were.

In recent years, I will admit, the Adelaide show while still great, it isn't our leading show and hasn't hit the insane levels that our Sydney and Brisbane shows get.  It shouldn't be too much of a surprise, smaller city and a nightlife that became difficult to deal with (all my past venues closing down), we lost good talent interstate (Jadeabella and Sei stick out) but at the end of the day, unlike many other promoters, I decided not to give up on the Adelaide show and the events with Crown and Sceptre in recent years was a blast.

In 2018, after a 5 year hiatus, we got the call from AVCon, it was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and it was amazing to be back.  It was a great event, even if I had little control or involvement (in short, I have little control over the event a convention setting), it felt good to be back, a lot of people told me they enjoyed what we did, my set and also how much they were going to miss us.

It was a small city I fell in love with in 2009 when I first visited by myself to check out Tokyo Electro Invasion, a one off Japanese music style event in Adelaide, I loved the people there and the experience and it's crazy how that one night was part of the motivation to bring the next Japanese inspired club night, except this time it wasn't a one off.

Adelaide, seriously, thank you, what an amazing ride, I'm going to miss doing Neko Nation Adelaide but it's a city that I'll definitely be back too.  <3

Neko Nation Retirement - Part 3 - Future

So the future of Neko Nation and my life, so lets sum up the next 12 months first.

I’ve announced retirement, I’m going to try to complete at least one show in all the major cities and there might be another bonus show or two in there.  Once we complete the final show in each city that will pretty much be it.

Melbourne will not get another show, we’ve constantly tried to announce Melbourne shows and the interest wasn’t there, Canberra had 5x the interest.  I’ve made comments on my personal profile multiple times on this but it’s just a city where Neko and similar events don’t work there (Japanese music events and gaming events are another story though).

I’m doing my best to go as much all out with these last shows, it’s not going to be that much more than usual mainly because that would imply that I wasn’t putting in 100% with the past shows but I’m trying to work in a few bonuses.  I can confirm that I won’t be doing internationals to keep the costs down but rather focus on a nice all star lineup of the best of the best DJs around Australia and amazing local performances.  The finale will be in Sydney in early 2019, then that’s it.  More details soon.

So the main question I’m expecting, if you’re finished with Neko why don’t you get someone to takeover or sell it?

There’s an incredibly small list of people who would have the skills, talent, experience and knowledge to take over Neko Nation.  Those that do I believe either don’t have the time or interest, they’re finding success and dedicated to their own projects and events.  If anyone wants to prove me wrong though, I’m definitely open to any serious interest to buy Neko Nation.

What will happen is that Neko Nation will leave a significantly large gap for events to fill, nobody is doing an anime/cosplay party styled event like Neko on the same production levels around Australia regularly.  There are a similar style events, yes, you’ve got your local chiptune, gaming events and bars, you’ve got your local rave events but there isn’t really that anime/cosplay party niche really being filled outside of what I’ve done.

That said, I don’t expect the scene to 100% die when Neko Nation goes, I’m going but it’s not like all the DJ’s, catgirls, catboys, performers, media, event management are going anywhere.  I can easily still be involved in this scene or similar scenes.  The opportunity for an event organiser to step up and run something like Neko is definitely there if you wish to give it a go.

I personally don’t intend to 100% exit the anime/cosplay/anisong party event scene, I’ll definitely be open to advisory roles and the potential to work various events if I’m not running the whole damn show of course!  If the right opportunity, event or person comes along, I would not be 100% closed to ever doing an event again for a one off project but right now I’ve got priorities elsewhere.

So I guess my main goals post Neko Nation.  First of all, rest, enjoy some time off, I want my weekends back, I’m working on Neko virtually every weekend, if I’m not at a show I’m at home working on trying to make a show happen.  I want to get out, enjoy Sydney and also get my health back up to normal.

My other big goal is to help Sandy with all her projects, for 5 years she has supported my decision to run Neko, she has put in a ridiculous amount of time, effort and money to help make this all happen, if it wasn’t for her, Neko would have ended years ago.  There’s a lot of amazing projects and things she has wanted to do and that I haven’t been able to support her with because of Neko, so this will change once I quit.  I also want our relationship to actually reflect that she’s more than my business partner, she’s my actual waifu too, so I’m looking forward to helping her with her dreams and goals.

I guess my final goal is to pass on the baton to keep this anime/cosplay/anisong/Neko thing going without me.  I worked for Outbreed once upon a time and in a sense my event is somewhat of a spiritual successor to what Mark did at the time.  I’ve got the wear and tear and I feel my time is up with events but for somebody else, their time is now, people with the right passion, concepts, goals and interests, I’m open to helping that next generation of events in that anime/cosplay/anisong scene.

Neko Nation may be dead soon but I feel it’s impact will be long remembered and in some shape or form it will keep going.  Don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it’s happened.

Going to have one last ride partying, it’s going to be special but after that, I’m ready for it to be over and I’m also excited for the future.  <3

Thank you everyone, it’s been so much fun partying with you all, you’ve all played such a special part of my life, that I’m going to miss so much!  <3

Neko Nation Retirement - Part 2 - Past

Last post I wrote was a lot of negative feelings but the reality is, I’m super thankful to everyone for their participation and their contributions to making this whacky concept of turning a weeaboo nightclub into a reality.  So I guess now is a good time to reflect on a brief history (trust me, I could write a novel about this one day, but I’ll keep it somewhat brief on the main points).

I have worked in the events industry since 2003, I was a glassy, door person, bar staff, bar manager, personal assistant, event setup, event pack down for a wide variety of events.  I worked for a wide variety of events, your usual festivals, club events, underground dance parties and even a 24 hour rave LAN!  For a long time I had always worked on somebody else’s events and with a free Summer holiday break in 2010-2011, decided to give putting my own event on a shot!

The concept behind Neko was more or less a anime, cosplay, Japanese music nightclub event, it wasn’t an original concept, had been done in a few other places in the world in Japan and the Americas but in Australia the closest you got were a few J-Rock band performances, Tokyo Electro Invasion, Outbreed and we slowly started getting the hype of the first gaming bar opening up in Brisbane (Mana Bar).

On paper, it was a simple concept that as we see today, obviously works but trying to sell it back in 2011 was hard when people had no idea what this was or why people should get hyped about it.  I had no reputation in the anime, gaming and cosplay scene, I didn’t have any fancy videos, superstar DJs, amazing anime artists but somehow people showed interest.  That first show was a tough one, I DJed 3 hours (and pretty terribly), there was never more than 5 people dancing (and most of the time it was my close friends), just hit 100 people and we barely had any sushi or catgirls but people enjoyed it.

The most surprising thing wasn’t the response from the attendees, but the amount of interest from interstate.  A fair few people who were jealous that Perth got the event, quickly I had people asking me to bring interstate, which included key people who were able to help make these interstate shows happen.  Perth may have gotten the first pilot but it was bare minimum stuffs, Adelaide we went from 2 catgirls to 8, 4 DJ sets to 12 across two rooms, the first live performance and we had twice the attendance of Perth, Adelaide proved it was a legit thing which helped motivate me to move there and helped making it take it Australia wide within 15 months.

2012 was when I started to have my senpais starting to notice me.  Madman actually contacted me about sponsorship and AVCon wanted us to do their official after party, so I’ve got one of the biggest anime cons in Australia and the biggest anime company in Australia wanting to work with me, I felt like what I had done was not just recognised by those I was close with but it was something that major players were taking notice and supporting us with.

Also made a lot of changes in 2012 that thankfully people don’t remember from the really rough 2011 events, switched over from real life catgirls to anime art, made the debut in my favourite venue in Perth Gilkison’s, also had a few famous debuts including the likes of Jadeabella and Kenaz.

The next year was an emotional one for me, had a bad relationship breakup, I house hopped, I lived in a garage for a while, in short it was rough and I think the only thing that made me happy during that time was putting on Neko Nation events, seriously, everyone who was able to contribute and help me throughout that period to put on shows, thank you.  I ended up moving back to Perth and that first show back in my first home was magical, I ended up hooking up one of my catgirls, asked her out a week or two later and we’re still together to this day!

A lot of Neko after then was how far we could push things and in 2014, was when I went absolutely bonkers and organised Neko Planet, 3 performances, 5 cities, 5 nights in a row, I don’t think I had done a back to back show, or a show with more than one performance.  In the end, I somehow made this tour work logistically and it happened but commercially a massive failure, this was a case of trying to do a large festival for the sake of it, that said I learned a lot from it and it would come in handy a few years later.

Speaking of doing things for the hell of it, I worked with my favourite goth act from when I was a teenager (Velvet Acid Christ), I DJed at a maid café, played alongside Vocaloid legends including Livetune and we also did Neko on a boat, we played “On a Boat”, bucket list complete.

It was also around this time we did the Nekonomicon calendar, where raised approximately a few grand for cat shelters around Australia, we expanded it into a few versions of catgirls, catboys and cosplayers.  It was a lot of work but really great to finally give back to all the kittens!

2015 was the year we ramped things up a lot, I worked 2 jobs, we expanded into some interesting new venues in particular Sydney and Adelaide while we also had massive success with Yui Kanan.  Absolutely amazing girl to deal with, had so much fun bringing her to Neko and a dream to work with.  In the background the wheels were set in the motion that year for our biggest show in 2016.

I got my biggest dream DJ for Neko Nation, getting TeddyLoid was a massive effort and a lot of the credit needs to go out to SMASH for helping make this happen.  TeddyLoid was a massive risk and that tour was probably the best tour we did over the 3 days, which had all our biggest shows on the tour including a sold out Brisbane event and of course massive shout out to Will-O-Wisp Cosplay and her crew for the amazing Me! Me! Me! Dance which went viral.

It was at that moment at the end of that Perth show, roll the credits Neko Nation should have ended, so in front of the curtain especially in Brisbane we had some absolute crackers of a show, especially with the push to get more performances happening at Neko Nation however behind the scenes was a bit of a different story.  We had various staff members struggling with burnout, juggling travel, event preparation and full time jobs.  Let alone myself who had to deal with 18 hour shifts with almost no sleep to get these shows happening and doing this multiple times in a month.

The end result saw a bunch of health complications, including a period where my body rejected food, my body either vomited or excreted everything for a few days, I had temperature shocks, I had a nasty ear infection which I cured before a show through sticking a needle in my ear drum.  Shows never got cancelled, as the famous saying goes, the show must go on!

Health issues aside, it was completely worth it, I’m super proud of seeing a virtually non existent cosplay/anime party scene in Australia and managing to take it up to the production standards, national expansion and the recognition from fans, peers and even international recognition.  I feel so go damn happy with what’s been achieved and what is possible that I never want to stop but even if I did, I can feel very happy with what I’ve achieved when I decide to call it a day.

Neko Nation Retirement - Part 1 - Present

I’m officially calling it a day for Neko Nation.  There will be one final national tour in a number of capital cities and I will wrap up with the final show in Sydney in early 2019.

The reason for the decision is 100% to do with personal reasons and nothing to do with Neko Nation and the events.

Unless you are super close to me, this decision may come as a bit of a shock because the last show was a massive success, heck if anything with how well Neko is going this made it even harder to walk away.

To sum it up, I’ve been doing Neko Nation for a long time, it’s something that takes up a lot of time, effort and energy.  I don’t regret doing it but trying to juggle it on top of multiple jobs, getting a uni degree, a relationship, numerous interstate moves, health scares and Neko has probably taken a toll on me more than any of these.

At the time of writing, I’ve racked up around 70 shows all over Austrlaia and this goes well beyond the night, setup and packdown but many months of preparation, in the case of certain shows like TeddyLoid this can be up to a year of work.  There’s a lot of weekdays, weeknights, weekends and heck even a fair few all nighters in there to get these shows on the road on top of my day to day schedule.

I guess the main reason I’m quitting is that I’m looking to get all these hours back and to put them elsewhere.  I’m planning to commit these hours into focusing on my career, getting a social life back, working on personal projects, catching up on my Steam Library and my Crunchyroll and AnimeLab backlogs and heck investing time into my relationship, I promised my fiancé that we’d actually go on a holiday which we’ve never been able to do because of Neko.

The decision while announced today, it has nothing to do with any recent events it’s something that has been on my mind for 2 years and was honestly a case of not if, but when.

I realise this decision is going to upset people and I’m truly sorry that I was not able to keep it going.  I feel that the person most truly upset is myself and I’m somewhat in tears here, I’ve been from Neko since the very beginning and it’s super sad to kill off my creation.

The reality is I saw two ways to keep going:

The first was to dial down working on Neko as much as possible, create as many shortcuts, do as little as it took to make the event happen, be able to do something that better works and balances with my life.  For me, I don’t feel I can personally go down this route, Neko for me is an all or nothing event, I don’t believe in taking my foot of the gas.

The second is to just keep going like I always have.  This is honestly the way I want it to be.  However I don’t see it possible, those closest around me are starting to realise this is not the case.  I feel like I’m going to eventually get to a point where I won’t be able to mentally and physically keep going and would be forced to eventually cancel a show.  I don’t want it to go to this point either.

In the end, as a decision logically it was a no brainer to step down from Neko Nation, however accepting this decision was an incredibly tough and difficult emotionally.  I still keep thinking I’ll never be walk away and every time I’ve thought about quitting or event taking a break, I always pretty much get that itch to keep doing another show.

Don’t get me wrong, that is still there right now, I’m still writing this thinking I’ll never quit and I have so much that I want to give but the reality is I’m also thinking about my health, my life goals and all the other stuff I’m looking at wanting to do and work on.

I realise this post is quite a bit depressing and bleak but the next two posts are going to be much brighter!