Mokucon was Rutger’s second small anime convention that took place on December 5, 2009. It was run by the members of the student club Anime and Japanese Environmental Society(AJES). The con took place on Rutger’s campus in the Douglass Student center and for the most part it was a free con.

Facility wise the con was given 6 rooms and hallway spaces to use. One large room was dedicated to their main events, a dealer’s room,two game rooms, and two with various events. In the hallways downstairs under the stairs they had an artist alley. It also had a cafeteria so people could take a break and people also took over another section of the facilities just to sit around so there’s definitely space to grow in the future. I’m not sure if those rooms could be used for events but at least there’s space to hold people if the weather is bad again like it was this year.

They had a few panels I was able to attend. Karl “Uncle Yo” Custer held his stand-up panel again and as always brings in new material. And the RAGE panel with one of the hosts being Mario Bueno who I’ve seen in various area events.  He was  very good with the delivery and keeping the audience.  For the most part this con was a hangout con with people I’ve met over the years. Vic Mignogna was brought in for a panel and meet/greet session and was the only non-free event for non-Rutger’s attendees.  Organization wise it wasn’t perfect but good enough for the turnout, had there been more people with good weather it might of been different.

After the con I had a chance to do a small Q&A with Nicholas Teodoro the current president of AJES.

CP: To run an open event like Mokucon on campus did Rutgers have any requirements such as promoting things such as student recruitment in order to get space?
NT:Truthfully when we first started planning Mokucon we were not expecting so many non-Rutgers people to come. It’s just something that happened after Vic Mignogna agreed to come. Since the Mokucon drew in so many non-Rutgers people we ran into some trouble with the people in charge of the Douglass Campus Center, but in the end everything was resolved. I know that Rutgers never asked us to promote the college, but I do hope that some of our attendees make Rutgers one of their top choices when choosing a college.

CP: For all the planning and running of the con, was it done solely by Rutger’s AJES members or did you reach out to get additional support from other organizations?
NT: Yes, the convention was mostly planned and run by our current AJES members; although we did have help from the Anime and Game Tech club in Middlesex Community College. We have a close relationship with their club so when they offered to run the Video Game room for Mokucon we were very thankful. They also were a big help in running the Card Game/Tabletop room.

CP: The event seemed to run fairly smooth with some changes on the fly. Anything you wish could have been done better in hindsight?

NT: Next time we are definitely planning on having a finalized schedule for the con at least a week ahead of time. All the last minute changes caused us some stressful night. I’m thankful that three of my officers, Thaddeus Ng, Chrystal Yan, and Lesley Sun, were there to help with the scheduling because I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it without their help.

CP: Regarding the night time dance that was being planned. Where did AJES plan on having that happen as we were told that room was taken away. Was it in the same facility?
NT: The night time dance was supposed to be in the Douglass Lounge, the same room where we held the Vic panel. From the start we knew that the room could only hold 100 people at a time because of safety issues and we were okay with that. However, we had a few restriction put on the room last minute because the room had never been used for a dance before. The officers decided that it would be better to cancel the dance altogether rather than have a substandard dance full of restrictions.

CP: I heard word from different people in the crowd that there was some an idea of expanding it to two days for next year. Is AJES really thinking about expanding to a Weekend con?
NT: Yes, we were thinking of making Mokucon a two day event. The officers and I just felt that there is so much we want to do next year for Mokucon that we would not be able to fit it all into one day.

CP: As far as attendance I read you were planning on giving out wristband but didn’t see any. Were you able to get a count and was the crowd to your expectations?
NT: It’s difficult to keep count of attendance in a free convention. We originally planned to hand out wristbands to everyone that comes to the con, but we were unsure if everyone would come to the information booth to pick up a wristband. We got a rough estimate of how many people came to Mokucon and I was still quite happy with the numbers considering it was raining/snowing all day.

So that was Mokucon and I hope they do get a chance to do it again next year.  As far as photos are concerned I brought the kitchen sink with me and didn’t get to use it because of the weather. I had a friend with me before the con started and was able to check out the area taking a few photos, there were some nice spots but we ran inside before it really began to rain . Indoors they had a nice room with a fireplace with a piano. During the day it was fine as the sunlight was flowing in, at night it was a different story. At night the room had an orange glow to it and I was thinking it was just the wood floors and the fire going on, but it was the dreaded Sodium Vapor lighting. I could white balance against it but the colors would be still off. I’ve been pushing ISO and shooting with large apertures so much that I’ve lost most of my flash skills. So I think for next year I’ll start to force myself to start using the flash again.  Another interesting thing was I ran into someone who liked some of the work I’ve done over the years which got me thinking about how I’ve been doing this as a hobby.  I’ll have to admit most of the photos I get are only good because of the cosplayer’s actions themselves. I tend to get candid photos or near candid and catch it at that moment as I see it. Posing wise I have very little clue about what to tell a cosplayer to do, but the cosplayer themselves usually have a very good idea of how they want to look. I have to thank them for being good at what they do.