Neko Nation AVCon and beyond

It's finally been done, Neko Nation AVCon has come and gone and my god was it a huge epic massive show.  For those who went, massive thanks, there were a lot of you, from what I heard, we got 700 people there, so it was an absolutely amazing turnout!  This included interstate guests such as awesome J-Core producer, Noc.V, awesome Sydney, go-go dancers, Rachel and Mellie, plus plenty of awesome people who showed up, was absolutely amazing to see a whole bunch of new face as well as our regulars too.

On my end it was quite an interesting show, doing something at the convention was quite mindblowing due to the sheer size and opening up to the AVCon crowd.  We had a huge challenge setting up, believe it or not one of our biggest challenges was to just to find tables to put all the DJ gear on since we had so much and trying to get a table through the crowd was a nightmare but we sorted it all out and after that it all ran quite well.  It was probably one of the most tiring events ever, I was starting to fall asleep by 10pm, in comparison, our Melbourne show doesn't open doors till 10pm!

Neko Nation wasn't the only thing that happened and this year was my first year I got to fully check out AVCon and look bias of working for AVCon aside, it's by far the best con in Australia, it's slickly run, there's an overload of entertainment visually, stalls, cosplay, interactivity, gaming, panels, AVCon is a complex show and it's the only con I find myself kicking myself I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, so mega kudos to AVCon.  I know the team work so hard and it's quite a fair bit ahead of all the other cons in Australia in terms of all the fun I had, although I'm hoping to check out SMASH since I heard it is up there in terms of the only major anime convention I'm yet to run.

I'm in a bizarre state of my life right now, I'm more or less coming down from an awesome convention, awesome friends leaving and getting back into all my uni stuff.  It's likely Neko Nation will be taking a bit of a back seat in my life for the rest of the year, things will pale in comparison to AVCon, since I think my biggest motivation is in terms of what I have achieved with Neko Nation and it's going to be hard to top AVCon but I feel like I could bring on some pretty exciting new shows and concepts, Perth has Maid Latte and Byte Nyte involved, Adelaide has Mischief the Cat playing and should be even more epic than ever this time around.

My new focus will be on uni, after weeks of dramu and being thrown into the deep end with my course, it's been tricky to stay above the surface after having moved house and thrown two Neko Nations this week.  To get through the end of this month, with the success that has happened is quite something, with that said, some pretty nasty shit has happened along the way and sacrifices have been made but nonetheless, I've survived it.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I can achieve with marketing and advertising, I absolutely hate how I must prove my skills, since I believe that success in the working world comes from applying experience and practical examples rather than trying to quote academic journals but I'm happy to take on the challenge and see how things go.  If all goes well, then I'm hoping to get two brand new non-Neko Nation events announced and worked on for later in the year!  ^^

Downhill in July

Heading into July I should usually be quite excited and over the moon, I've got two absolutely epic shows, one being the unofficial after party for SMASH, the other being Neko Nation AVCon.  It's been insanely hard to get motivation due to external factors in my life.

I've been slowly growing my paranoia about my work and feeling stress financially, a combination of less hours, bills and a centrelink application that is taking it's time.  This coupled with the fact that my uni application was sent two weeks ago and I'm still waiting for an official reply.  Keep in mind that this is to re-enrol and I've qualified on the basis of being a past student.

On the plus side, I've had some fun DJing at both Proscenium and Necromancy over the past month.  My experience with Proscenium was a nice practice and laidback in smaller environment.  Necromancy was a blast but sadly I was feeling very ill and my brain was clustering up a lot and while I've DJed on the back of feeling quite tired, it was obvious something was feeling right.  Besides that, it was definitely fun and I was quite amused that me and Scarlett had very similar DJing tastes as well, despite us only really finding out about our preferred music on the night definitely did make for some fun.  Definitely keen to give it another shot in the future, since I had a bit of a blast with going back to my industrial roots even if I was a bit rusty.

I've had a few new recent projects that I'm working on in the background, Nekobook is a bit of an interesting new one which I can't really say more about but basically it's basically about finally being able to give back.  I'm looking to get involved in setting up a new industrial event in Adelaide, I did a post to my blogger last night about this and I'm just immensely impressed at how behind this event everyone is.

Been trying to battle a bitch of a fever, just hoping I can muster up some motivation to actually get a few good events up this month, it has been tricky with how sick I've been feeling plus the Sydney event is a tricky one, since ticket sales are always going to be slow for an after party con, (people would rather wait till the after the con to head down).  Really just want to get back to university or find another job to really get myself back on track.  With that said uni is a bit frustrating that I can't really size myself against others but I know that when it comes to marketing but if I can get HD's it will all work out.

It's frustrating, I've got the ultimate catgirl and events working perfectly but it's all counterbalanced by work and study issues, if I can seriously get this all sorted my life will finally be perfect, if I was in Perth the latter problems would be fixed but realistically the problems would just be reversed.  Really hoping for finances to be fixed soon due to the ridiculous amounts of stress it's causing and the massive plans I have for 2013 as well too....

Adelaide Cyber Event 2012

There was a Facebook post today posted up about how there needs to be an pure industrial event in Adelaide.  While most people including myself were quick to argue that this wasn't a viable idea it didn't take long for the Adelaide Industrial Fans group to spring up and already attract 100 members, quite a decent amount all active and ready to go ahead and pretty much create an event.  This is one of the things I love about Adelaide, it's seems across the scenes you get such a great variety of people who are really supportive at trying to make things happen that doesn't really happen in other cities to this extent (Brisbane comes close), I seriously love the fact that Adelaide truly is a city which is focused more on the idea of an event itself.

Anyways, I decided to write this post as a bit of my view in regards to how I'd like to see this event go about and a few pieces of food for thought in regards to how to see this event go quite a successful way.

The biggest problem has been the popularity of the industrial genre, we've seen big booms over the past few years thanks to the rise and proliferation of the likes of Combichrist and Angelspit and continued it's boom with aggrotech thanks to the likes of Nachtmahr, Eisenfunk, X-RX, Psyclon Nine and Aesthetic Perfection are a few that stuck out but all booms must bust and this is one that has been going a bit downhill and one alone that can't be completely relied on for an event.

The event needs to go forward and adapt and evolve and I think another genre that has gone down a similar route has been Drum and Bass, this genre has boomed through the last decade thanks to the help of the likes of Pendulum in particular, especially for someone who grew up in the Perth rave scene!  This has been a genre that has declined due to the boom of dubstep, which while has stolen interest from many other genres, Drum n Bass has seen quite a decline and had to adapt by merging with dubstep events to get out there.  Pendulum even moved onto their new Knife Party project to ensure their survival.

I shouldn't say that this means the end of industrial or the need to sell out but it's simply a case of evolution, remember that at one point that goth scene evolved by choosing to take on industrial, a style of music that even today still has a few purists debating whether or not is should have a place in goth clubs.  So for industrial events here in Australia to move on and progress it needs to take on new genres to really give it more of an appeal, variety and interest.

Let's not forget that industrial isn't a unique genre on it's own, X-RX are heavily influenced by hardstyle, Angels on Acid are heavily influenced by psytrance, Eisenfunk's Pong was heavily influenced by chiptunes and so on and so forth.  We've also seen the likes of Cyberia in Melbourne embrace the growing popularity of electro and dubstep into their event which has seen amazing results for them.  So without a doubt branching on the growing popularity of EDM music would be a must for this event.  With that said, even Adelaide's EDM and rave scene is small and definitely not going to be the saviour to make this event truly work.

I think the key has to be in Adelaide's unique community aspect, I think I'd like to see an interesting variety of guest DJ's in, whether it's from the geek or rave scenes, just to try to slowly get some new crowds interested into the event.  I'd like to even consider getting those new to DJing into it regularly who are passionate about music, the industrial and goth scenes aren't exactly too fussed about top notch beat and key matching so spicing it up with some interesting new music and variety would also be a fun thing for these new people to brag about to bring more people down.  At the same time if possible getting a live act every now and then to make sure that the professionalism is there will highly help too.  Plus all this will ensure a great amount of variety too which I believe is one of the reasons why there has been so much interest in here too.

I would like to see it done irregularly and if possible to be insanely different everytime, I feel complacency would be the biggest threat to any sort of niche breakaway event, especially with the amount of excitement to pull of the industrial only event, constantly mixing things up a bit is important to ensure that it's not stale and that there is a curiousity factor for every event.  Whether it's through new DJ's and more importantly the variety of styles of music from the DJ's, the use of theming in particular the decoration, drinks and design of the venue and the event rather than relying on the attendees to dress up and involving some interesting and unique sponsors for prize giveaways as well.

I personally sense a strong challenge here, let's face it, it's the third goth event in a city where even two goth events feels a bit overcrowded in a subculture where the numbers are dying but there is a strong passionate team behind it who have seen a lot and have some interesting ideas, experience and strengths.  I don't know if it can be a regular thing or if it can be a big event but I think it will end up being a fun one if it goes ahead.

Adelaide cybergoths, it's time to shine soon, or is that glow?  XP

Neko Nation =/= Rape Culture

There have been people wishing to boycott Tokyo Hardcore because of their recent decision to stock Tentacle Grape.  This technically applies to Neko Nation, since it was actually my idea to bring in Tentacle Grape.  I'm absolutely mindblown that people feel the need to boycott us on what is such a trivial matter in my opinion, and this isn't the first time since we've had someone get upset over the Pedobear picture as well pictured below too.

First of all, I do understand the whole idea behind rape culture, it is a serious and important social issue that is relevant and I'm all for the ideas behind it to a reasonable extent.  Rape is a serious issue but so are the likes of torture and murder.  Saw has been a successful series that has spanned off 7 movies due to it's shocking, gory and disturbing torture sequences, the best selling games of last year were Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, games that encourage and glorify death on a bloody war torn battlefield. Like rape, we often see torture and murder are trivialised, glorified and joked about.

The reasons why the like of gruesome torture movies and violent video games exist is due to the context.  We need to remember that these situations are highly unrealistic, to allow these scenarios to happen in real life would be highly sickening to all.  We also need to remember that these situations are highly unrealistic and while the likes of serial killers exist and are a serious and disturbing issue, you'll be hard pressed to find someone that claims that Saw would highly trivialise serial killers and in real war, there aren't any respawns.

This is why the whole boycott against Tentacle Grape is ridiculous, people are boycotting what is a highly unrealistic situation that would not relate to relate to real life.  The name is a play on "Tentacle Rape" a ridiculous scenario where a monster with tentacles will usually attempt to tie up a girl with their tentacles and then proceed to rape.  People are amused by that it is an unusual scenario and are buying into the product because of it.  Tentacle Grape is generally sold to anime fans that get this reference, so this is not a product stocked on regular supermarket shelves.  This is not bought by people who think that rape is amusing or silly, it is bought by people are amused by the whole idea of tentacles.

The product is targeted and being sold to a small niche market and I'm utterly confused that they feel they've done the right thing by boycotting businesses that trivialise rape via Facebook.  This is a highly weak strategy of trying to "support" a cause especially by targetting the small businesses at the bottom of the food chain.  Do you see PETA trying to protest against the local butcher?  Do you see gay rights rallies being protested at your local town hall?  No, they go for the bigger targets because it's the more effective targets.  There's a huge difference between actually trying to make a difference and being seen to try to make a difference, one only has to look at Kony2012, the most "supported" movement of 2012 with many millions behind the cause which made no difference.

The point I'm getting at is that if you are really going to do something for your cause actually, go do something that will actually effect or send a message to the top of the food chain.  You can protest, share and like all you want on Facebook but Kony wasn't exactly shaking in his boots on April 20th.  People need to actually donate your time, money, effort and talents into a cause to make some sort of serious impact which is not done by the keyboard warriors.

The reasons why this product is being sold is because people find the idea of tentacle rape an amusing one thanks to hentai released from Japanese anime companies, then there is also the fact that there are certain hentais in Australia that are legal which have tentacle rape in them.  This is what needs to be aimed for, I just see this whole campaign as protesting against one hentai joke rather than the actual root of where this all stems from a case of knee jerk reaction in trying to be seen to do something rather than actually doing something.

People need to realise that Neko Nation is not some major multinational wholesome corporate company.  Neko Nation is a small business that operates in a niche market that provides a party environment for those 18 and older.  This means that Neko Nation will try and connect with it's demographic (anime fans who like to party) by making communications with an approach that involves anime and is not necessarily family friendly and/or politically correct.  Neko Nation does not take the conservative route with it's messages and therefore might cause a select few individuals to be offended and misunderstand our messages but if you're not able to properly understand our messages and also view things light heartedly, then Neko Nation isn't for you.

Neko Nation does not take the conservative road try to play it safe to be inclusive of everyone.  We are here to do something different by including those who have felt excluded down this conservative path, think about how many clubs and bars will let you in with full cosplay and are willing to play music that is not RnB or house in Australia.

We are maintaining our decision to stock Tentacle Grape as for the select few who think that we are being offensive by possibly trivialising rape (and are highly unlikely to go to our shows anyways) is completely counteracted by the fact that most of our fans would realise that this is a novelty (tasty) harmless product (ignoring the sugar content!) that just a pokes a bit of light hearted fun at anime culture.

End Of Financial Year 2012

So it looks like I get next Friday off and can make it down to Chinatown Harajuku no Yoko, normally this would be quite awesome, sadly this also marks the first time I've been asked not to come into my work.  Getting a night of on end of financial year is a sign that my hours are really starting to trickle down at my work (in Perth it's been a bit of all hands on deck in past years), it's been a while coming but it's slowly starting to hit.  Heading back to uni was by far the right decision here. On and on the note of end of financial year, doing both me and Susannah's tax this year will be my hardest tax challenge yet.

It's been an interesting last week, having been catgirl-less (Susannah in Melbourne), I've had a pretty rough week, lacking motivation with my usual life but managing to chill out more and watching more anime for once, Asobi Ni Iku Yo being such an amazing anime that I enjoyed incredibly and definitely one of my recent favourites, in what's been a week I've been sleeping in lots, not getting much work and feeling pretty depressed.

It's getting to an interesting and nervous time since two of my big events are coming up, Neko Sydney will be interesting, it's a bit nerve wracking since afterparties are definitely a bit nervewrecking with how the last one went in terms of their unpredictability but I'm expecting it to be a really amazing show.

The big one is Neko Nation AVCon, I have to admit I don't think I ever imagined I'd see the day we'd be able to pull anything like this and of all the cons to be with, AVCon, by far the best anime convention in Australia (seriously, having been to a fair few around Australia, it blows the rest out of the water).  It's a big new challenge and I'm looking forward to getting this event all sorted out soon, the feeling of pulling this one off will be amazing.

Beyond that, I'm curious to see what the future brings, I've got a significant charity project I'm looking to launch next month to actually give back towards and work on possibly another new event but on a pretty small scale this time.

University is something I'm a bit nervous to be back in but hopefully I should do fine, I'm making the switch to Advertising and Marketing, it's something I'm a bit nervous about since, I've been feeling a bit weak compared to seeing some of the stuff the pros pull off but all I need to do is beat the people in my uni to get a job.  Last experience with marketing in university, I got 91% in my exam, plus I've been getting a lot of practical experience with the new direction I've been taking Neko Nation this year, so once I get into the rhythm of university I should be fine.

This month is proving to be a struggle against myself, battling depression and trying to make the most short bursts of positive and hyperactive energy to get through the days.  With that said, I just need a few smaller things sorted out and a few little victories to really get through the rest of this month and things will start to pick up.

Oh and last but not least, awesome fan art created by Khat too, mainly for my DJing page, especially since I've got Kawaii Loli Attack this week and Necromancy next, should be fun and something to look forward too!  ^^

Neko Tour v1.0

Doing the Neko Nation tour has been one of the most unique, intense and interesting experiences I've had in my life.  There's been a lot of hard work, tough times and even a relationship breakdown but it's been rewarding, meeting many new friends and visiting lots of amazing places.

Travelling around Australia has been great, I've enjoyed travelling to all the cities.  Being back in Perth was probably the most special moment though, since it had really felt like a bit of a homecoming and it seriously had changed so much in the time I had left, plus it was very chilled out being with old friends, watching Eurovision and taking it easy after what was a crazy tour.

My personal life suffered dramatically on the tour as me and Susannah had to deal with a lot more than we usually would thanks to lots of frustrating things that just haven't gone our way on the tour which has really tested us, in the end, as soon as we spent more than a day apart it was pretty safe to say that on my end I missed her and couldn't live without her.


The other thing I pretty much noticed on the tour was the whole Melbourne vs. Sydney thing.  I've had a lot of people tell me bad things about Sydney and lots of amazing things about Melbourne when to be honest I found the complete opposite about both cities.  I found Sydney to be a lovely city filled with lots of interesting and fun activities, it felt alive, there was a lot to do, even during the night and was definitely a fun highlight of the show.

Melbourne wasn't too bad this time but honestly that place still irks me, there were good people there but honestly with the exception of two people I would have no reason to ever return back to Melbourne both personally.  I've found putting on events in Melbourne to be more of a "glorified party scene" with a huge focus on attracting popular people than trying to attract people to your event by making it good and was honestly the last straw in terms of ever wanting to go back to Melbourne.

I found myself enjoying the company of lots of random people and new friends on the tour, especially Brisbane always throws up lots of new fun interesting people who love meeting us, they had this unique way of welcoming us and it's this interesting tightly knit community that love coming down and seeing our show.  MOS Burger and just something about Brisbane I feel like I could move or live here in the future, the weather is a bit extreme but I'm from Singapore and could easily adjust to it.

Perth I had a blast, it's a tightly knit community since we don't change our staff members much here since we've got a lovely community of people that I work and deal with at this place.  In particular I had a blast catching up with Tara, who was pretty much going through what I went through last year in terms of her long distance relationship and it was great to party with her as well.  Overall I had lots of fun and honestly Perth is an amazing show, we've got lots of video games, cheeseburger sushi, the biggest venue with the best lighting, DJ Equipment and it's a pretty much was one of my original goals when  was a lot younger to hold an event in Gilkisons and I'm glad we've become a regular there.

Just finished Hyper Dragon last night and it was a good event, low on numbers but launching a new event in Winter is tough due to sickness and cold weather, Hindley Street was quite abandonned.  With that said I enjoyed the new challenge of putting on a new event and the new DJ set I had to come up with was an interesting challenge as I've switched back from my 180bpm stuff, back to 128-145bpm range due to finding amazing J-Core DJ's on this tour.

Anyways, rushing to get all the Supanova promo done in time but for now, taking a nice day off, catgirl animes, Formula 1 and more blogging.

Adventure Time

It's been an interesting past few months.  After kick starting off the Neko Nation tour in Adelaide things have not slowed down a single bit in my life. With shows all around Australia including Brisbane last weekend and only Perth to go.  There's been no weekends off with Chinatown Harajuku no Yoko kicking getting launched last month and working at Kodomo no Hi Festival.

These last 2 months have taught me a lot and that I'm basically pushing my limits incredibly hard to the edge, I'm a workaholic and have no problems admitting that as my social life is an absolute wreck at the moment on having no time to see people and those times that I do I'm either too sick or working at social occasions.

This tour has been a blast and I've learnt a lot from it, it far from feels like repeating the same show 5 times over, each show is quite different, there's so many different people on board, different venues and different crowds, it's absolutely crazy, fun and amazing to travel around and do this.  While I'm glad I have the chance to do this, I'm proving that I'm not doing well to cope with all this.  Not only does the show involve a lot of work but that's on top of the store, my day job plus my new projects.

I'm now seriously looking at my future plans for the year and looking at dropping out of Tokyo Hardcore soon.  There's so much stress coming from here that it makes sense to start dropping my commitment out of here soon, especially with the number of hours going into it and myself not getting really much out of it in terms of personal satisfaction.

As such I'm looking to really need to make a move onto continuing my studies since my transfer didn't work out originally I'd like to give it another shot since I would like to start to get a proper career going.  Neko Nation and Tokyo Hardcore doesn't exactly pay the bills and the job that does isn't likely to last much longer, unless you all decide to throw away your Internet banking and embrace cheques again!

I'm leaning towards finishing off my commerce degree although looking at switching from accounting to marketing.  I think lots of people laughed and joked that I couldn't be an accountant and the path I'm going down is proving less and less likely to suit an accounting role.  In general, marketing has been the one subject I seem to be very highly obsessed with, I seem to be analysing so many marketing campaigns just for the fun of it, that I probably should actually consider doing this for a living.  I only studied marketing once and I got over 90% in my final exam and pretty much virtually dominated the class in terms of work and participation on all the optional work as well.  I'm pretty keen to go back to university and prove myself since while I don't miss assignments and exams I wouldn't mind giving it another crack.

I have intentions to finish off this year quite hugely and with a bang although for now, it's time to figure out how to get through this hectic month and let things quieten down soon as I work my way to recovery.