Rainfurrest and the problem with Adult Only Conventions

By now one has head how a pattern of misbehavior and vandalism has case Rainfurrest to lose it hotel venue for 2016, and possible the convention. There been a lot written about his but I do have a few issues.


First is catering to the adult debauchery and fetishism will bite you in the end. Rainfurrest has been know t be more permissive to fetishism like Adult Baby Diaper Lover. Promoting deviant behavior sends message it is ok to behave badly. This is not to say a convention cannot have and adult media but there is a time and place for it. Second after taking to somebody at Orycon 38, trying to spin what went down is not the answer, hotels can Google you know.
The discussion on Flayrah about the loss of Okacon suggest the furry convention should adults only. Besides I feel it is wrong to rewarding bad behavior, there are three other reasons why making banning minors from conventions are a bad idea. First you are cutting off a good portion of the fandom including potential volunteers. Second it seem to sends the message it ok to act rude and crude. A good example is my bad experience with my only adult geek con I attended called MewCon (Manga and exotic worlds). The people decided to make the con 18+. The con lost some adults who would not be able to attend without child care, a lot of minors banned from attending; this cause a good portion of potential volunteer unable to attend especially when the hotel changed the ruse concerning public spaces. There was not enough volunteers to cover all the rooms. The rule change did not help when 50% ghosted the con, they entered without paying. Second it encouraged bad, foul behavior, I was also uncomfortable of all the shenanigan in the main events room. Finally banning minors doesn’t make it a convention but a excusive private party. Conventions should be more the meeting up with friends but sharing knowledge, and celebrating the experience in the fandom. This includes fans of different ages. If one bans minors, the do not have any business to run a convention because conventions unlike private parties should serve all fan and not the one the staff likes. It is call being an adult. I feel the root case, we have a generation of spoiled brats who lack to social skills to deal with anybody outside their peer groups. To me to ban minors is not sign of a mature level head adult but one of immaturity.
Provenance Anime Conference tried to be different by being 21 over only but mature and more academic content. The problem was the con creators under estimated the interest, they had a 2000 person cap but only attracted 211 paid attendees. I feel this was due the con organizers failed to take account of the anime fandom demographic; they were appealing to a diminishing demographic. As organizer of the Otaku 25+ panel at Kumoricon, I originally pattern the panel after older furry fans 30 years and older. But in taking to fans I realize the age where anime fandom start losing interest in the fandom was much younger around early 20’s. In addition I wonder how may wanted to go but could not because of job, and need to find childcare for three days.
So what did we learn, conventions need to be careful who they cater to; lying to the to your potential hotel is not going anywhere and making you con adult only s not a good idea and detrimental to a cons longevity.

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