On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Ryan Mathews wrote:

Nicholas Leifker <nwl9354@unix.tamu.edu> wrote:

     The panel wasn't as good as I would have liked, though it was pretty
good; I thought we got off on tangents too much.  I decided to try

letting

the audience ask the questions; problem is, that tends to lead the group
off topic.  

As someone who has some experience in running fanfic panels, I'm curious:
what do you mean by "letting the audience ask the questions".  In the five
panels I've run, I've *always* let the audience ask the questions!  After
all, it's the audience you're there for!  I've never found that it leads
the group off-topic, as long as you exercise control and allow different
people to ask questions.

Well... to put it bluntly, this is the first year where the entire time
was spent doing that.  There were always times in the earlier panels for
questions, but never the entire panel taken up by the questions.  

Truth to tell, it has its good points and bad points.  The main bad point
is relevance; it's easy for the panel to get seriously off-topic, as one
question or comment leads to another.  Making sure that the panel doesn't
stray or that it doesn't dwell too much on a topic is something I will
have to work on.  Another bad point involves its limits; it oftentimes
keeps the panel in the hands of the audience members, while not
giving a chance for the panelists to explore topics that they may wish to
address.  

The A-kon panel has been an exercise in evolution and improvement, as I've
never sat in on anyone else's panel.  The first year, I followed how I'd
seen other "general" anime con panels: in other words, the panelists
talked for awhile about what was on their mind, then the floor was opened
for questions.  The second year, I had my talk all prepared - then found
the setup quite pleasantly thrown away as my opening comments led to
comments from other panelists (usually Richard or John).  The group of us
bounced comments off of each other for the duration of the panel, with
questions and comments thrown in from the audience.  

There is something that I will have to remember with this, and this is
something I will probably do if I'm around to do A-Kon 10: I need to give
the panelists a better opportunity to say what they feel or to open a
question for debate.  Sometimes, the panelist has something that they
*really* want to say; should they be confined by the questions of the
audience?  

Personally, if I could, I'd like to duplicate the efforts of A-Kon 8 when
it comes time for the panel; I thought that one had a slightly better mix
of panelist and panel audience participation.  I had the impression at the
end of 8 that whatever the panelists wanted to say had been said; I didn't
get that feeling for this year's.  A lot of that is a lack of
communication on my part, as I didn't encourage them to speak in that way.
Also, I didn't entertain the idea for all-questions until the night before
the panel, and only then because the idea had been offered.  I'll probably
keep the question format, but it will be with a lot more communication to
the other panelists beforehand as to what they want and expect from the
panel.

If I was in a panel audience, and the panel wasn't taking questions, I'd be
a little annoyed.  (Although I have to admit, the Anime Central audience
was a little shy, and had to be encouraged to participate more than once.)

Well, as I said, it's a process of evolution and learning.

------RM

-- Nick