Volunteering at Anime Festival Orlando!

Anime Festival Orlando, Florida's BEST anime convention, will be taking place from August 5-8 of this year. For those of you on Full Sail scheduling, that is the first weekend of your August term. AFO features more bang for your buck than any anime convention in the state with a growing list of fun and interesting industry guests, exciting events, and interactive contests and panels!

One of the major events of Anime Festival Orlando will be the Skies of Orlandia, a weekend long game that hundreds of players will enjoy during the convention. I can't give away any details publicly just yet, but it involves players gaining experience points, leveling up, teaming up for quests, and competing against each other in contests of skill. While they are doing this, they will be aligned to a faction that they will try to help win. These factions will be lead by characters that will perform on stage during several main events.

The Propeller Anime Club has been responsible for running the game Swords of Orlandia at the past two years of AFO. It has been a fun time for both us and the convention attendees. Once again, we shall be a big part in operating the game this year. However, the scope and popularity of the game has grown and we will need more people than ever to help. Not only that, the main reason AFO is so successful every year is because of the quality help we get from volunteers!

So with that, if you are available during AFO weekend, then I ask of your help!

There are three ways you can help at AFO. In doing so, you will get a free weekend pass for the convention.

1. Skies of Orlandia - You will have to be in costume and you will have to interact with hundreds of people every day. There are four factions to represent. The outfits will resemble that of the late 1800s Victorian era with a steampunk flavor. How you get the costumes made is your responsibility. The game will run from that Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, but I will need help setting up on that Thursday throughout the day.
   
   As a member of the Skies of Orlandia staff, you will know the rules of the game and interact with players to help them accomplish aspects of the game and gain experience points and level up. If you are going to be a game character representing a faction, then you must guide your followers to victory. We will also need administrative help for keeping track of how the players are doing and which faction is winning.
   
   Taking a page out of the AFO volunteer playbook, I will need 13 hours of time from each volunteer. To be more specific: I would like 5 hours on Friday, 5 hours on Saturday, and 3 hours on Sunday. The SoO game room is closed on 9pm on Friday and Saturday and will close an hour before opening ceremonies is scheduled to begin. So you are guaranteed to be free on nights(which is when a lot of the best events happen anyways). You are to contact me if you want to volunteer to be on SoO game staff.
   
   
2. Volunteering - There is a lot of help the convention needs. Room setup, security, guest handling, videogame room, video rooms, badge check at doors for events, and helping attendees of the convention. You will be visible regardless of your job and will have to interact with thousands of people. It's not as bad as it sounds; the head of volunteering at AFO is an excellent leader and every volunteer I've talked to has enjoyed the experience.
   
   The learn more about volunteering and to sign up, there is a volunteer section on AFO's website that you should read.
   
   
3. Panelists - Anime Festival Orlando prides itself on having a schedule full of events. The general complaint about AFO is that there is too much to do at the convention and not enough time to do it all! To keep that tradition going, panel submissions are available until May 15th 2010. Entertaining and educating people on anime or something related to the Japanese culture is an important aspect to Anime Festival Orlando's programming.
   
   For this year, doing one panel will get you a weekend pass. It sounds easy but it takes solid effort and time to put together a great panel. Yeah sure, you could throw some bullshit together for an hour and get your free pass but all you end up doing is wasting the time of people who've decided to attend your event. You will not shame the Propeller Anime Club with half-assed panels! Luckily, our track record with panels is excellent and I intend to keep it that way.
   
   Several of us have already submitted panels and they have been approved. As you guys have submitted panels, I would like your panel titles and descriptions so I can put together promotional materials as we get closer to the convention. It will be like how we did it for MegaCon, but better!

That is it for now! Well almost. I will be setting up two meetings in the near future for those wanting more information about working the Skies of Orlandia game. The first one will be this Wednesday(4/28) at 8:15pm and on next Thursday(5/6) at 7:00pm. Both will start at in the lobby of building 3B at Full Sail University. From there, we will find an open room.

Last thing: If you decide to help out Anime Festival Orlando in any way, keep in mind that you are not only representing Anime Festival Orlando, you are also representing the Propeller Anime Club and the local anime community in general. Do your best to do as good of a job as you can at AFO!