Hello to all of my beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast universe! I am back with another Holiday Matsuri video!
2018!

Okay guys, the last video from last year’s Hol Mat is here.
Voice Actors Q&A Panel at Holiday Matsuri. Like the past few years we have done press, we have recorded another year. Well, more like Nerdy Shirts. SO, me and Gondras were on our way to this panel since he forgot the tripod in our room and as we got closer that was when my cane incident. Trust me, when we told him the news about what had happened he was surprised. I will talk about that later.

Anyways, this panel apparently while Nerdy Shirts was recording, Todd noticed him and asked about it which you will hear from that moment. We did make it for the end which was good and glad we did despite being late and my cane being broken which I will go tint next!

Like with the last post, this will also be the last Guests Q&A thing we will record because this is our last Holiday Matsuri we will be covering press for. I know we should come back for it as attendees but press has been a big thing for us for many years and still remembering doing it for MetroCon many years ago and we missed going to that one. We would go to it this year but this July will be getting my eyes checked so may stay in a hotel Friday night. Anyways, we have appreciated the work and we have done really great work and gotten awesome opportunities at Hol Mat during the years we have attended and covered even with how we interviewed Steve Blum which was amazing. What got us not to cover anymore is that last year’s press staff was disorganized. The past years before that as in 2015 through 2017 they were really organized as in making sure we have events to cover and also Google Hangouts to do with the teams, heck I did love 2017 Hangouts when there were more than one press teams in the chat! Having that time to meet was a good thing and gives us time to work together and say, “I will cover this event!” “We will cover this.” And so on, last year that didn’t happen. It felt like we were dismissed and it did take almost close to the convention for any word about us getting the passes when we did reserve our room. Vivi was mad that Tobi and him didn’t get any word about not getting approved either. I did get the message that they were overwhelmed with so many people signing up for it but smaller conventions have gotten a high demand, even Omni, on press and they were able to handle it by doing what they need to do and schedule what they can. Heck, even Barbara Goodson at last year’s RangerStop told me that she was already packed with interviews and understood. I think the high demand last year was due to the guests they were getting since we did tot that chance to interview Jennifer Hale which made me happy despite losing my cane, which I will get to next. So, in the end, I feel like the Press Staff could have handled it better last year and I know we have brought great publicity to the convention but seeing how disorganized it was who knows what would happen for this year and I am really grateful for what we have done and the opportunities presented to us. I hope you have enjoyed we have brought to you guys and this year we are hoping for RangerStop 7 since I had a blast and hoping Gondras will join me for it too since we have been Power Rangers fans for years!
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Another reason is that my cane was broken at Holiday Matsuri and I never experienced that at bigger conventions. Plus, I felt like blindness is overlooked when becoming accessible. For one thing, last year, on the group I posted an idea where town criers would call out where certain events would be and where other rooms like Vendor’s Hall and Game Room, even someone came up with an idea of playing certain music to show the different areas are. I also liked that idea but it can be drowned out. What ticked me off though was a guy out of nowhere saying it was a completely bad idea because of people with sound sensory issues can have problems. I can see where he is coming from but the Manga Library was actually considered a quiet place and of course some panels are pretty quiet too. Not only that, I did reply to his comment saying, you know you can either be in a different spot or just wear ear buds, I mean Electric Daisy Carnival even sell them in their store on site for anyone who needs them and there is an electronics store in the World Center if need be. I did appreciate one staff member who was in charge of some of the set up for the convention did ask me to message her with my ideas and I did write my post about making conventions more accessible to the blind and sent that link and unfortunately no reply nor anything happened. I felt like it was not looked at. To me blindness does get overlooked and not considered as much nowadays, it was earlier when I did do the Blind Experience back in 2013 but now I feel like accessibility should not only consider the people with sound issues but also visual issues and what is interesting I found out I was not the only blind person going to this thing and it’s not easy when so many people are in one place and you need to get to somewhere and don’t have an idea of where you’re going. Not only that, there are times where people get distracted by their friends and what’s in front of them or even by the phone in hand which can cause an accident like my cane breaking, I am still sad about that, I think people should be more aware about that too. Not only that, not sitting in the middle of walkway either, saw that on the ramp in the hotel heading towards the rooms.

I think that is it guys! I know I rambled a bit but wanted you guys to understand what I have experienced and why we made our decision, on this. Not sure about attending as attendees since I felt like some of the stuff was a bit disorganized outside of Press. Even I heard the Christmas Tree Ornament thing didn’t happen. I know I always look forward to this convention every year with the Convention Spotlight but after last year it is now aborted for me in my mind. Hoping we do go back to MetroCon since I have missed that for many years and they were our first Press Experience so we will see for next year.

Well, that is it for the Hol Mat posts. So, what is next? Our interview with Tia Ballard from Omni Fandom Expo!