(By the way, I remember you, aion.  Great 
costumes!)

My biggest gripe is not the way the raffles were 
run, but how the autograph sessions themselves 
were run.  (In the case of the guy with too many 
sketches, I think he basically asked a bunch of 
his friends to enter the panels with him, give 
him all their raffle tickets, and allow him to 
attend all the winning sessions himself.)

First, each session was only an hour long, and 
the AX staff definitely did raffle off too many 
spots for some of these sessions.

Secondly, the sketches took way too much time and 
many of the autograph winners were still waiting 
in line by the time the session was closed.  My 
prime example was the Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop 
character designer) second autograph session.  
The sketches were given priority in line, and 
because of that (plus the fact that Kawamoto 
spent too much time per sketch)... only 5 people 
out of the line of 60-70 people ever made it 
inside!!!  I was extremely pissed off as I was 
among the first 20 and still couldn't get in 
despite arriving a half-hour early.

My biggest recommendation for next year is to 
hold a sketch-only session for the sketch winners 
and an autograph-only session for the autograph 
winners.  The sketch winners would appreciate 
this (more time for sketches), as would 
definitely the autograph winners (who wouldn't 
have to wait for the sketches to be done).

Thirdly, AX did not allow any time for transition 
between autograph sessions.  Autograph sessions 
were scheduled in one-hour blocks, with not even 
a 10-30 minute gap between them to allow the 
transitioning between Guests of Honor.  For 
instance, there were many Guests of Honor who 
were willing to stay a little longer past their 
scheduled autograph sessions in order to 
accomodate the remaining people in line but were 
asked to close due to the next set of GoH's 
arriving for the next session.

(In Yu Watase's second autograph session, she 
remained an extra hour past her scheduled session 
to sign for those fans still in line because 
there wasn't anyone scheduled for the hour-block 
after her session... that's dedication to the 
fans!  Imagine how many less people would have 
been disappointed if other GoH's could have 
finished their autograph sessions even 10-15 
minutes longer?)

There definitely should be a half-hour to an hour 
block between autograph sessions so that AX can 
account for: (1) cases when the GoH's are late, 
(2) permit the GoH's to extend their autograph 
sessions if they are nice enough to do so, and 
(3) make line management much much easier on 
themselves.

Okay, that's all for my major critiques of the AX 
autograph system.  Now let me return to my 
Kawamoto horror story...

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