 fandom 101, where we take a look at what fandom is, what its aspects are, and what issues exist today in the fan community. I am recording this episode remotely, because, like everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted modern fandom. Many anime, sci-fi, and other fan conventions have been canceled since March, and it is doubtful that they will be able to resume soon. However, some fans have filled the gap with online conventions, held over digital platforms like Zoom that let fans meet up, cosplay, and discuss their favorite shows just like a real convention. Today, our guests are organizers of one such digital convention. Brianna Leonardo and Ariel Hergith are the convention co-chairs of WebCon, a virtual convention that was held at the end of May. Brianna and Ariel, welcome. Hi. Hello. It's nice to meet with you both. I especially like your Princess Leia Costing, Brianna. Thank you. You've got to represent the fandom. Also, your background is very appropriate. So, to start off, firstly, what is WebCon and how would you describe it? Like you mentioned earlier, WebCon is an online convention. So, how we like to describe WebCon is that it's put together by a bunch of really passionate fans. We're all volunteers. And we really want to highlight different artists and vendors and panelists because they're definitely hurting during this time with all the con cancellations, which is why we have our spotlights where we interview different artists. And so, WebCon is a very large and company convention. So, we have all fandoms present. We have like anime panels, comic panels, all that type of stuff. We have DJ parties. We have meet-ups, games. Do you have anything else to add, Ariel? Yeah. So, as Brianna said, it's a convention, but online, who would have known? But I also kind of think it became kind of like an experiment in testing new forms of expressing ideas and art. It also allows for like a lot of different people who wouldn't normally get to like express their ideas on things to have a platform to put out those thoughts. Yeah. All right. What gave you the idea to create this convention? I really wanted to create WebCon after seeing that cons were canceled across the country, which is the first time that's happened in decades, especially since convention culture is so popular right now. And then there was a lot of potential to run a virtual convention because it allows anyone to be able to be volunteers or panelists or take, run their own virtual convention, which is why it's very common now to see some almost like every weekend at this point. And since it's like online too, like you can connect with people across the country that you normally wouldn't sometimes when you go to your local convention. So that's what kind of made me want to run our own virtual convention. I was actually originally thinking of trying to host an online event sometime around when my favorite convention was canceled, anime next because I've been planning a very intricate cosplay and I was going to like sew it for the first time and everything. Originally, I was just going to make it like a group of friends and we would just like give our own small panels and talk to each other. But one day when I was just like scrolling through Facebook, I saw one of Breanna's posts talking about like interest in an online event. And so I reached out to that because uh getting help on things is a lot better than just running something by yourself. Yeah. So I thought it was a really good idea and I definitely wanted to help out with it. All right. How did you plan what to put on the schedule? So I feel like the schedule kind of made itself not like I was looking for certain things for the schedule. So what I did was just make Facebook posts and all of the groups I'm in because there's so many different fandoms and cosplay communities and just made a general post and just saw who was interested and just worked with what people wanted to offer and just give them that creative freedom to tell us. Like if you had a choice of doing anything convention like what would you do and that's what kind of made the schedule. So I kind of put a lot of the schedule together along with Breanna and one of our volunteers Tasha. And something that I thought was cool about it was we kind of like we're just pretty much accepting everything. Like we looked at what they were about but we pretty much like wanted to make sure it was a positive experience for everyone. And one thing we didn't realize was that it would actually fill up a lot. We thought there wasn't going to be as much interest at first but people really wanted to be involved. And basically because of that it opened up pretty much to any interest. We got like I can't even think of kind of a area we didn't cover. That's it. Okay sounds like you covered pretty much everything. Since the convention was held on three different platforms Zoom, Twitch and Discord what technical challenges were there to getting it all to run smoothly? So with anything you do online like there's always technical challenges even if you make a backup plan to your backup plan to your backup plan. So originally we had Zoom and we used the breakout room function to like mimic different panel rooms like how you would have to conventionally panel room one does this two three so we could fit more panels because of how many we've had. Realizing while doing that execution maybe not the best idea because some technical difficulties were that as hosts we had to put people in the certain rooms they couldn't put it themselves and so that sometimes placed people in the wrong rooms or they were confused about what room they wanted to go to or it might be just wrapped up into the panel because they wanted to they it's like walking through a panel that cut through another one which can be a little awkward and sometimes with streaming there was like video lag you know making sure you have the good internet to use and then there was confusion sometimes where panels are being held because they were on different platforms because we wanted to encompass as much as possible because some people are way more comfortable on Discord some people don't like Discord and we want Zoom but then that also made it a little confusing how to hop around and go to the different panels but I just wanted to give a shout out to Jessica Peng because she was our like streaming and media guru and she's the one that knew how to use like OBS and everything and set that all up for us because we were all very new and we were literally learning as we were putting webcon together which is very difficult when you're trying to build on your knowledge while planning for a convention yeah very steep learning curve what has the response been to this convention I feel like it's been pretty positive I think because we continued past our convention date we started having weekly sessions it's not like a full-out convention every weekend but we have like at least some activities for people to look forward to and I think we were able to build a community and that aspect because a lot of times like when you go to a virtual convention you only tend at once and that's it and it's not like a following like an in real life convention where you know it's going to happen again next year so virtuals are a little bit of a gray area so I think because we constantly keep having content we were able to create like our own little like webhead family as we call it do you have anything to add Ariel uh yeah um for response I think it's been pretty like overwhelmingly positive people keep looking for areas to um kind of just interact with people I feel like people are just missing that sort of like friendship and camaraderie with others so I feel like especially putting it in an area where you can um it's kind of scary sometimes I feel like for people to just talk to new people but I always felt like conventions kind of bridged that gap a little bit like everyone's here for the same thing it's like you've already bridged like getting past like who people um are on a surface level so you can really start to make those connections with others uh I also feel like we um because we incorporated a lot of ideas and we keep um incorporating a lot of the feedback people give us it's actually been um kind of inspiring a few other conventions to use some of those ideas so I thought it was pretty cool to see like we went to um a smaller server convention the other day and they used one of our ideas for like a giveaway for um encouraging people to attend panels so I thought that was cool nice uh what can the other conventions has webcon inspired um see yuki con there's actually like a server on discord where it's a bunch of conheads and other conventions and so they're always throwing off ideas um and then I I don't talk a lot on there because sometimes they talk about webcon but in a positive light but I feel uncomfortable like I just get okay on that stuff but I do hear that stuff like they're like oh I really like the way like we've heard I I guess the best feedback I've been seeing online the other conventions are trying to incorporate is like a really intensive artist alley and trying to advertise your artists as much as possible because those tend to get a little bit put on the back burner for virtual conventions um like we made a facebook group artist alley as well so even if you didn't have the discord server you can just go on our facebook page you could still see the artist that we have um and then the email blasts them in the spotlights so I'm I'm really glad people are taking more notice and helping these creative people keep their livelihood basically and what's the name of that server um it's artist alley for dummies and then there's like various other ones too that I can't think off of the top of my head because I just keep getting server invites okay I'm just like except except except and I just like don't know what to do because I'm like oh I guess let's you go like I'm a person that always joins everything okay areas probably the same way like I sometimes keep some invites and I'm like there's so many funniest is when we see each other on the server like I literally like then text you I'm like sounds fun uh what do you think is the main difference between playing an online con and a real life one um so with an online convention it's a little bit easier um financially and legally so for example like when you run an in real one you need money to be able to like book a space a lot of finances are needed you need insurance to make sure everyone stays safe so there's a lot of um legality that's involved that we kind of get away with because we're virtual that we don't have to worry about yay um so that's pretty nice and then I think another big disadvantage too is like as like a cosplayer when you're in an in real life convention you walk around and you have to like be in real life showcases your work and it's easier to get photography done but in a virtual convention unfortunately it's really hard like you only see me from up to here to here so which is why I wanted to cosplay stuff like I'm literally wearing pajama pants and you'll never know how much work I put on my bottoms or my crop because you'll never see it I actually I used to help run a couple of conventions some library conventions and a bigger one I used to do with my organization in Arizona but something I did notice that I don't think a lot of people think of is response time um just because like with email and everything it's like when you're planning an in-person convention yes you're still emailing people and like waiting for those responses but like the day of it becomes very hectic realizing that when you're trying to ask people like oh is your panel set up correctly oh you need help accessing this like you need help because you can't even access the server it's like you've got to split your attention in like 80 different ways and also wait for those responses and then people are waiting for your responses I think it's like kind of something that I didn't expect as much all right what lessons did you think did you learn from the first webcon that you think will help you improve the convention in the future so this is a shout out for Ariel even though she's in this video chat but like um because like she mentioned she ran in real life conventions um and she made me very aware that there's a lot when planning a convention that I realized when I originally was like yeah let's do this guys and start gathering people like even simple things like putting the schedule together putting a manual all the promotional materials like that takes a lot of energy um just the planning meetings we've had like we've had to like zoom people super late at night until like 3am um just to make things get done especially since we tried to throw this entire convention basically 30 days or less I don't know why there's there'll be a vlog series of how this happened but basically like definitely putting in more time into planning for the future conventions um just because I kind of thought that virtual would make it like easier in a way but still a lot of work uh yeah one thing um I feel like I would take away from this uh because like you learn something from every event you run but specifically for this online one really learning your platform I think is very important because when we had originally decided to use this court I was like oh yeah I know that sort of like my brother knows it more and I had like my 14 year old brother at the time like conscripted his child labor to help set up the server but at the same time like at first I kind of relied on that rather than trying to learn it myself so I think next time like and I mean I've been doing it now but like really learning what you can do with your with what resources you have right uh once the pandemic eases would you consider holding the con in a physical location um I would definitely consider it it would definitely have to be like a smaller con like not like a giant convention center or anything like that like there is a place I was thinking of in Boston but I feel like it could potentially do it but I would just definitely have to do like a lot of research and like make sure I talk to the right people it's I actually started like befriending real convention people like staff like besides aerial but like just that though like having like that network that I didn't have before kind of makes it a little bit more plausible in the future but we'll definitely have to see like with cost and like everything like the real world problems how feasible that would be yeah I'm gonna leave that to Breonna to figure that out um I always did things with other people's funds and by that I mean I would uh apply for funding and have them deal with all that uh it's it's hard um when I originally ran one of our conventions uh there was a huge issue we ran into where all of a sudden we um we didn't realize that we needed not only a security company but on site police officers for the event and so we had to find like an extra $2,000 in the budget like pocket change but like no no it was very stressful so things like that I feel like I don't ever want to do it again so I'll help run things but the the funding stuff please leave me alone okay uh what other upcoming virtual cons would you recommend people check out um I actually don't know any upcoming right now like uh but I did just 10 like yuki con um yumei con uh I went to anime lockdown I kind of find out about things last minute because my schedule is very variable I I work like crazy shifts at work so then I'll suddenly see I'm free I went to truck con as well um and went on those virtual platforms and they're all amazing I don't have any right now that I'm planning for the future but I will definitely like hover around those discord servers with aerial because they have like the convention pings that tell you what's coming up for the week yeah definitely and then we have our mini sessions coming up again we have this month and then november um it's from october to mid november so that's something we're gonna have to look forward to planning lies okay and what's coming up in the fall um so basically we what happened was we did these mini sessions every week to like foster the community and it's also easier for us because it's still planning but not like a hard core convention planning it's easier um a lighter schedule each week and so a lot of people really enjoyed them and they really liked having something to do every week and having something where they can continue meeting the same friends on our server so we kind of want to do that again in october and november but we also okay out to other conventions and see if they want to post anything on our server especially since there's so many online communities and conventions all right um and last question is what advice would you give to someone who wants to start an online con um I would say to make sure that you have a good support team to uh start I've heard of horror stories of where only one individual was running an entire online convention and they had extreme burnout um because it's not easy it takes a lot of work and also we have a large team everyone brings different talents to the table that you don't have as well so speaking from our own like staff group that I also want to give shout outs to um so we have like Steven Stoyer he's also one of the conchairs and he brings like a bunch of humor and like memes to the table like he made all our anthems and he dropped an album for webcon on Spotify and brought all the tiktoks so he was able to reach people through that route and then we had like aunt um bohal who does like videography professionally he made all those really professional videos for us and he's the one who started the spotlight idea as well and then Jessica like she's just like super creative um and she made like she's literally like a one woman media and promotional materials team um which I she has way more talent than I could do like if you had me make those flyers they would look like they were made on paint so that's why you need a bunch you need a large team and then um we also have like Justin and he's very ambitious like he just reached out to like doctor who youtubers and was like hey you want to come here and he just like has he just has so much professionalism and just reaches out to people I'm like I would feel so scared contacting those really important people but that's good you do that if I could just add to that I think definitely utilizing the talents you have available to you um I know every time we had an issue I like tried to think of like someone who actually knew how to do that uh when we were creating this schedule I talked about her before but um Tasha is one of my friends from college and she just really really loves organizing like that's all like she loves it um but uh something else I really think people should look at is like planning out um kind of like a tentative schedule for when you want things done because I know a lot of conventions kind of popped up originally within like the first week a lot of them I didn't plan out as much like what amounts of work need to get into that and I feel like that also added to a lot of the burnout for uh some people um but I think definitely utilizing those talents because it'll make everything easier for you and make it easier on your timeline and you won't be up till five a.m. and then get back up at six to run your convention the next day all right uh that's all the time we have for today but thank you for talking with me uh Breonna Narriel uh where can we find you online um so we have a website webcom5.com we also have facebook, youtube, twitter, twitch, tiktok it's all under uh webcon 2020 and then we also have Jessica Pang's website which is JessicaPang.com if you ever need her expertise on news streaming and stuff just because people have seen her work with webcon and then she helped out with like the um other events as well um she's a freelancer and she loves doing that so if you guys ever need some advice make sure to check out her website yeah um I don't have anything super professional like that I just have my facebook uh my tumblr I won't share that uh but um I will promote my brother's comic uh please go read project freedom on web tunes that's that's all the promotion I have all right uh thank you for joining us to learn about fandom I hope to see you next time to discuss the ins and outs of fan culture and remember never stop being passionate about the things you love I'll see you next time thank you for watching