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!