Ditto. Saw the OP when they released it, was still affected by that big common route moment as much as you’d expect.
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Ok you’ve convinced me to show it, they hype level is too stronk with it.
[quote=“Aspirety, post:20, topic:1217”]
If you wanna use screenshots from each of the games for reference, you’re more than welcome to sample the images from Kazamatsuri.org’s information pages! They’re sure to help you collecting information to talk about as well.
[/quote]I’m making liberal use of the info pages when I’m writing up the sections for each game lol
[quote=“Takafumi, post:21, topic:1217”]
Ditto. Saw the OP when they released it, was still affected by that big common route moment as much as you’d expect.
[/quote] Good to hear I had never seen the Moon OP until I had actually hit Moon so I had no clue what it was like to see it before playing the game.
Seems that the others have already given a number of suggestions, but if you’re looking for some more input I’ll try to help. As Takafumi mentioned I’ve led panels & given presentations on similar topics before so I have experience in how these can be run effectively.
With such a small timeslot, time management will be of utmost importance. Determine how long it will take you to cover each topic you wish to discuss and try not to get behind. I go through about a dozen full practices of my presentations to make sure the timing is right. I’d also suggest engaging the audience throughout your panel; it will keep them engaged and focused on what you have to say. Finally, regardless of how many people are present, relax and have fun! Conventions are a place where you can showcase your love for various anime/VNs/manga etc. so let it shine foe everyone there!
Have fun and best of luck! I’m looking forward to giving a presentation of my own on Angel Beats! next week and I’m getting pumped!! xD
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[quote=“Clannad_Man, post:23, topic:1217”]
so I have experience in how these can be run effectively.
[/quote]Honestly this is the part that worries me the most, I’ve done a lot of public speaking stuff and going smoothly is one thing I always struggle with.
[quote=“Clannad_Man, post:23, topic:1217”]
With such a small timeslot, time management will be of utmost importance.
[/quote]I’ve been kicking myself for a while now for only applying for the 30 minute slot instead of the full hour cause I’m cutting stuff that I would really like to have in there. lol
[quote=“Clannad_Man, post:23, topic:1217”]
Determine how long it will take you to cover each topic you wish to discuss and try not to get behind.
[/quote]This is my working point right now, I really want to cover everything, but I have to determine how long each section is going to get.
Would you care to expand on this a bit, I have been planning on taking questions, but was planning on holding that till the end to keep from breaking everything up and eating up time. What others ways would you suggest to engage them?
Get a lot of practice in front of your friends, using exact setup you’ll use during the panel (or as close as possible). This way you’ll at least be familiar with the technical setup, gauge the timing, identify potential problems, and sort out your performance. Ask their opinion, of course.
That’s what my prof always tell me. xD
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One of the ways I like to engage the audience is through audio-visuals. I embed pictures and videos in my presentations to help set the mood while I’m speaking. For instance, I’ll take music that the audience is familiar with and adjust the volume so that it is subdued and relatively consistent throughout. At the same time I’ll have muted videos playing in the background encoded in a format that works best with the version of PowerPoint I’m using. This way, the audience has a variety of areas they can focus on and switch between based off of their preference. A goal in adding these should be to find the right balance between setting the mood and not becoming overpowering or distracting the audience from what you are saying.
Another way to engage the audience is by adding questions throughout a presentation and postpone taking questions until the end. This allows the presenter to establish a flow and cadence which would otherwise be difficult to predict. I typically include about 6-7 planned questions per hour and incentivize the audience to answer by offering prizes to those that answer correctly. I choose audience members at random (via distribution of numbered tickets) and allow anyone in the audience to shout out their answers and help (sort of like The Price is Right). I’ve found this to be very effective as a way of keeping the audience focused on what I have to say as they try to find hints for follow-up questions.
If you’d like me to link to a presentation I gave as an example just let me know. (Got to run for now! ^^; )
5 Likes
So today was the day for our little attempt at running a panel so here is the post game wrap up post.
Mistakes were made and lessons were learned, chiefly being that 30 minutes is not enough time even if we are attempting to trim the information down to the most bare bones of the bare bones. We had too much content to try and cram into a 30 minute segment to start with which allowed no times for the unexpected, which of course there was some. I had created a powerpoint presentation that played the op movies for the games while we talked about the games; however, my laptop screen was broken so it was basically unusable so we checked on Friday with an organizer to see if we could get a laptop to use and were told it wouldn’t be a problem so we exited Friday feeling like everything was in order.
Saturday morning rolls around and the door open at 10 which is when the panel starts so we show up at 9:30 thinking to get a head start only to be told we would be let in at 9:50 to give us a few minutes to set up. We are finally allowed in and we start to get ready so we ask about the laptop. You could instantly see that the guy had forgot about it so he starts making phone calls to see where the video guy is to see about getting a laptop. (As an aside we assumed we would be getting the small panel room, but to our surprise we ended up getting the main event hall first thing in the morning). So we get an update around 9:55 that video guy is about 30 minutes out, he had overslept so we had no laptop. People start to go into panic mode around this point, and finally they decide to borrow a laptop from another room where it wasn’t being used.
10:08 rolls around and finally everything is ready laptop, sound, video, everything. Only problem being that we are 10 minutes into our 30 minute panel and were only just about to start. The guy who had the next panel was very kind and told us to take our time since we got a late start, but it wasn’t really an option since our laptop was on loan and had to be returned. Fortunately this was the only real hiccup as everything else went smoothly for the most part. Our already gutted presentation was gutted further when we got the general wrap up sign as we started talking about Rewrite. We buzzed through Rewrite quickly and mentioned Harmonia off hand before showing the PV for Charlotte and squeezing as much info in as possible.
I had decided to hold a raffle style drawing at the end of the panel and give away a copy of Planetarian on steam. We had made and handed out papers to everyone that had general info on where you could find and purchase each game, these pages were numbered and I quickly drew a number and luckily got a winner on the first draw, and that drew the panel to a close, just in time as people were coming in for the next panel.
We were moderately worried about attendance not knowing how many people would be interested in key around us, and having the first panel of the day while people were still arriving (another aside the tech guy that was assigned to our panel was a huge key fan and helped us out a ton so mad props to him). As we started it was a bit as I feared seeing how we had one person in the audience that wasn’t a member of our group. I was happily surprised though as the panel went on more and more people filtered in as they began to arrive and we handed out all 20 of the copies of the info page I had made. Unfortunately due to running show short on time we were unable to take any questions from the audience which I had planned on doing before hand.
As far as the content goes I feel like we covered enough we were able to cover major points all the way up to LB! which is where we began to cut pretty heavily. We got in a mention about Clannad coming out in October and even got a Kaza plug in mentioning the AIR bookclub (also included in the info sheets to visit Kaza for more info).
All in all I feel alright about the panel with running into the time wall keeping me from feeling good about it, but it was mildly expected to a point. For a first time panelist it was fun/frustrating/exhausting experience that still managed to feel rewarding if for not other reason than giving away a copy of Planetarian to someone who had never heard of it before. Lessons were learned about all aspects of the process from preparation to execution and beyond that will be invaluable should we decide to attempt this again.
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Sounds like a harsh learning experience. I’m definitely excited to hear the results should you attempt it again 
When’s “Key Panel Redux”? Next year we’re definitely applying for atleast an hour long panel.
