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I’ve been inspired by Michael Lee’s excellent behind the scenes post about SMASH! to explain how things looked from my side of the fence.

First, the background.

I was a founding member of the Sydney University Anime Society and one of the original organisers of Animania. I stopped working on Animania after 2003 and in 2006 I left Australia and went on the JET Programme. While I was in Japan, I heard about Katie Huang’s attempts to create a new anime convention and offered to help out as best I could. At the time, the working title for the event was ComiketWorld Sydney — a name that communicated the focus on art that was a motivating factor for the original organisers.

Although Comiket had strong ‘brand recognition’, I didn’t think it was right. I suggested SMASH! as an alternative. I’d come up with the name a few years earlier but, although I’d thought about organising an event of my own, I’d never had the time or the resources to put one on. I thought the name was pretty neat and it seemed a shame for it to go to waste when someone else could be using it. As I recall, I actually wanted it to be called The SMASH! (or for the domain name to at least be thesmash.com.au¹) but the others weren’t so keen. Looking back, I’m glad I was overruled.

While I was in Japan, there was a limited amount that I could do. I provided advice and suggestions but, when you’re on the other side of the world, it’s not as if you can actually help much on the day. That changed when I returned to Sydney in 2009. I helped assist with the Vendors Department, coordinating our contact with exhibitors, clubs and sponsors. That was the first year that SMASH! was a two-day convention and, while it went well, I’ll be honest: I had hoped for more people to attend. I was excited by the prospect that, with enough people, SMASH! could make the leap no other Sydney-based pop culture convention since OzCon² has made.

Second, this year.

So this year I was elected to a position on the Board of SMASH Inc. As an incorporated association, SMASH Inc is overseen by a bunch of elected representatives. In 2010 we tried a new system of appointing a management committee below us. Many of the members of the Board are on that management committee but not all. I’m one of the two who are not and this gives me a somewhat different perspective on the organisation. Whereas the managers had departments that they are responsible for, I roved, helping out where required. Primarily that was in promotion and marketing — an area that has never been my responsibility, either at the anime club, Animania or SMASH!, but one that I’ve always been interested in.

A lot of work goes into organising a convention. This sounds obvious when you say it but it’s easy to forget when you just rock up on the day. It’s tempting to think that it really shouldn’t be that hard. How difficult is it to hire a building, invite a bunch of exhibitors and put up some posters? Surprisingly difficult, is the answer. Either that or maybe we’re just not really good at it.

Organisation for SMASH! 2010 began in earnest in January. That meant deciding the location, picking staff for departments, setting up the website and basically beginning the long preparation process. Organising a convention possibly wouldn’t be that hard if it was just you. You’d make all the decision, bear or the risk and do all the work. There’d be a lot to do but you’d be the one doing it and there’s an efficiency to that. We’re a big group though, and you generally discuss ideas, come up with proposals and decide what to keep in and what to keep out. Although this can be frustrating at times, I think the event is better as a result. I probably would never have organised the maid café, for instance. That would have been mistake.

We got some early breaks. At the beginning of February, we found that Tiffany Grant, Matt Greenfield and Yūko Miyamura were able to come. This felt huge. SMASH! had brought the first Japanese seiyū to an Australian anime convention in 2008³ but now we had 2 coming at the same time. We also found out that Shaun Healey⁴, who had unfortunately had to cancel as a guest in 2009, was able to come along with his fiancée, Mikiko Ponczeck.

In mid-February we announced the guests and the venue. A lot of people suspected we were going to move (there’s only so long one can stay at the Roundhouse) but judging from the response online, most people weren’t expecting the guests. Their excitement built on our excitement and at that point you almost wished it was August so you could just put the whole thing on right there and then.

Of course, then you’d remember how much work was left to do and you’d be grateful for the months of time that was left. Time to plan our events, organise our AV equipment, plot out our promotion and marketing, design all our signs, badges and paraphernalia and send a lot of Twitter messages.

Third, almost there.

With about a month to go, the nights started to get very long. Things go wrong when you’re organising any event and, when it’s something like an anime convention, it’s a big event. For example, with a few weeks left to go we realised that a room was going to open without any of the equipment in it that was necessary for the events in that room to run. The venue fee was increased because our quote had been provided on the basis of a schedule of fees for the 2010 financial year. And YouTube kept rejecting entries for our AMV competition making it somewhat difficult for us to run our People’s Choice Award.

Still, conventions wait for no man and, no matter the problem, the days ground on and the event drew near. I had created a countdown clock and the numbers would just tick down with a cold sense of inevitability. I had not put any words on the clock so it was just this long string of digits. No ‘days’ or ‘months’ or anything like that. It made it easy to forget what it was before suddenly you’d be jolted out of your stupor upon the realisation that you were into the last 30 days.

I worked closely with fellow Board members, Tom, Nadia and Rob, putting out fires and trying to prevent anything from catching alight. We didn’t always succeed but there was always someone to help. SMASH! is fortunate to have so many people working on it that you’re almost always assured that if you can’t do something, someone else can.

Fourth, my black box.

SMASH! has a curse. No matter what happens, something always goes wrong with our Treasurer. Last year, one of our staff, Dollis Lee, sat in a bathroom both days counting and dispensing money. For that, we made her the Treasurer. Unfortunately, there’s a curse and, with bare days left before the event, Dollis had to pull out at the last second. Not having a replacement Treasurer handy we needed someone who didn’t have a job on the day. I didn’t have a job on the day.

I’m happy to say that in 2010 we didn’t decide to keep the treasury in a toilet. I was in a room, close to the back stage area. I sat in that room for pretty much the entire day. I saw a small amount of the pack up at the beginning and helped with the pack up at the end. The rest of the time was spent in my black box.

It was an odd experience. After having spent so long organising things, I sat out most of the problems that occurred on the day. We have about a dozen radios that are used by key personnel to communicate with each other. Everyone operates on one channel except for treasury. It sits on its own channel which, for most of the day, was silent. Occasionally, ticketing would request some money or notify me that a drop was about to take place. The rest of the time I made comments on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter or just sort of soaked up the atmosphere. Or at least as much of the atmosphere as one can soak up in a windowless room⁵.

I’m going back to Japan to live in October of this year and I don’t expect to return in Australia for a long time. I won’t work on SMASH! again and, on one level, that’s a real shame. This year the event had to stop selling tickets because we reached the capacity of the building. As a result, the event will move to the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre next year. It took four years. Did anyone ever expect that?