Kunicon

Kunicon
Status	Inactive
Location	Miami Beach, Florida (2004) Saint Louis, Missouri (2005) Atlanta, Georgia (2005) Denver, Colorado (2005)
Country	United States
First held	2004
Last held	2005

Kunicon was a series of anime conventions organized by Subarashii Nation (formerly D20, Inc.) and held throughout the United States from December 2004 through June 2005. Originally named "Otakucon", the convention was renamed to "Kunicon" after controversy erupted over the name being similar to Otakon, an anime convention held in Baltimore, Maryland. While Kunicon's original goal was to hold a convention in twelve major cities across the United States, these plans were cut short after 4 conventions as Kunicon continued to be plagued with controversy and cost overruns.^[1]

Programming

Kunicon held several events over the course of a convention, including gaming competitions, cosplay contests, panels, live music concerts, anime screenings, and special performances.^[2]

History

Originally announced as "Otakucon", the convention started going by "OtakuCon Miami Beach" several months before the first convention in Miami, Florida.^[2] Otakon staff has reported that they had ordered a cease-and-desist,^[3] but the convention chairman, Manny Camacho, had been reported communicating through back channels directly with the Heads of Otakon to correct the problem. Representatives from Otakon were in attendance at the first Kunicon to meet with the owners of the organization, John Squillante, Mark Squillante and Jason Squillante at the request of Manny Camacho. No lawsuit followed after this event, since the name was changed and a diplomatic solution had been reached. Otakucon, as it began in October 2003 was the concept of Seth Weiler, who worked for the Squillantes at their company Prestige Service Travel, a company no longer functioning, was the principal financier of the event organization.^[4] When the St. Louis event was announced as the second convention, it was announced under the name "Kunicon".^[2]

Kunicon itself was built and staffed by multiple members of Yasumicon, a free convention in Miami - chaired by Terry Montgomery; Manny Camacho was on the board at this time and was recruited by Seth Weiler. At the time the event has already been promoted at multiple events throughout the US. These events included Ohayocon, Anime Central, Anime Boston, MegaCon and Jacon. The current Chairman of the convention at that time, Mark Squillante along with his brother the Vice President of the companies Sales department and their consultant Seth Weiler had been traveling to all of these events promoting the name brand as Otakucon.

The Company did not have any significant push or organization in terms of its programming or website and when they recruited Manny Camacho he was placed as a Video Gaming and Video Programming Director through his company AnimeFURY Studios, a company sold off to Central Park Media in 2002.

Mr. Camacho was hired internally by the company as a consultant instead of remaining as a volunteer director for Video Gaming and Video Programming. Mark Squillante at this time decided it was time to declare a proper Event Chairman as he was not experienced enough to do the job himself. The company initially wanted Mr. Camacho to fulfill this role with his past experience of over 10 years working and sponsoring events, he refused. Subarashii Nation at that time named D20 inc, also a name under fire which was registered had interviewed Roy and Amy Harms, the event owners for MetroCon in Tampa.

The interview with Mr. Harms had Amy Harms present and accompanied by Michael Shultz (referred to as Maboroshi - owner and operator of Risingsun.net). The company decided to go another way, and nearing the time to fulfill the show, Mr. Camacho reluctantly took the position with the stipulation that his staff from Yasumicon had to be given key positions to make the event work.

The Convention had a large number of bills but was well funded by Prestige Service Travel (PST Inc.), in November 2004, Sandals announced it was no longer servicing 3rd party tour operators. PST Inc. had 60% of its business routed in Sandals Resort Properties. In an effort to remain profitable, Kunicon, then Subarashii Nation, was no longer under the financial security of this $30 Million dollar a year company. By December 2004, The company had placed $430,000 of its $500,000 budget into the companies assets.

The event occurred December 17–19 in the Fountainbleau Hilton Resort and took over 205,000 square feet (19,000 m²) of event space. The 24 hour event across all its departments had 36 Directorial Staff, multiple assistants and 3 Co-Convention Chairman (Manny Camacho, Mark Squillante and Jason Squillante). Seth Weiler, originally the negotiator of the hotel contracts and the lead consultant on the project left the company the day after the first event for undisclosed reasons.

The volunteers that were available for the convention showed mass truancy and the event had to run with a skeleton crew. facing countless operational problems of a 24 hour event and a lack of staff, the Directorial Staff and the volunteers from the combined Yasumicon, Orange Anime, Wasabi Anime and various friends and family took over the responsibilities and completed the event.

During the weekend, the convention registration numbers were confirmed as high as 3600 attendees, as stated by Manny Camacho, verified by Mark Squillante. The hand written and coded registration system created by Mark Squillante suffered networking issues during the event which caused problems in direct attendance accounting. Further attendance accounting was verified at the conclusion of the weekend. The Convention as reported by the financial department reportedly had 74 Vendor Booths sold of 100. 5342 attendees broken into Day, Weekend and Gaming Passes. 4 Major financial Sponsors, including Geneon, Bandai, Funimation and ADV Films.

At the conclusion of the event (from an interview taken with Manny Camacho and with Mark Squillante) Michael Schultz who had represented the convention through photographed cosplay mock ups prior to the event, reportedly decided to state the event had issues with their attendance. Michael had requested payment in the sums of $50,000 from Subarashii Nation as payment for photographing their events throughout the year. This was summarily refused as no one in the organization had approved such a salary expense, especially to an Amateur photographer.

Allegations of impropriety and broken promises flew as risingsun.net began to state incorrect numbers on the internet in regards to Kunicon. After a long campaign of cross argument and debate, both on the internet and documented at events, most notably Anime Express in 2005, an event in Daytona Beach. Michael Schultz and Manny Camacho were recorded by a variety of on lookers in an argument that would later be posted on a variety of online sites (none of which are located at this time) to disprove Michael Shultz Allegations. The Community began to stop supporting Risingsun.net for creating rumors out of anger toward Kunicon. When interviewed, Mr. Camacho stated simply "I'm thankful that the community stepped up to defend us, Maboroshi, has been after us for awhile and its great to see that he got caught in his lies, I am not going after him in court, because I don't do that or care to, but he is learning a lesson from this I hope."

Kunicon continued to plan events for San Diego, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Denver. However, San Diego was quickly canceled at the request of Manny Camacho, due to his belief there was no reason to put on an event in San Diego. Kunicon while it had made more than half of its investment back and the remaining bulk from advertisements on its site and other event properties, decided to rebuild its operations and placed Manny Camacho as the VP of Operations. Mr. Camacho appointed most of his Yasumicon Staff as the heads of various departments and new members from the now near defunct PST Inc. as its staff.

The next Event, St Louis, was marked as a fully organized event without the interference of the Board of Directors of the company:

John Squillante (President, CEO), Judith Squillante (Finance, Investor), Mark Squillante (Vice President, Marketing), Jason Squillante (Vice President, Sales) Robert Palacios (Chief Financial Officer), David Ferris (Finance, Investor).

Mr. Camacho and his team from Yasumicon:

Terry Montgomery (Main Events), Sabrina Bueno (Panels, Live Events), Larry Furry (Programming), Juan Garcia (IT, Webmaster), Cedric Capestany (Security Operations), Omar Maragh (Gaming, GPX/AFS), Robin Perrin (Convention Operations), Kelvin Johnson (Guest Relations) - Vendor Relations was handled by David Ferris, Registrations by Judith Squillante.

The St. Louis event was created, reported from attendees on various forums as an amazing experience. The event launched the Official Robotech tour, March 4, 2005, a 20 Year Anniversary for the Robotech Series. The convention reported over 3200 attendance with its newly revised registration system improved by Mark Squillante. When Kunicon did not return to St. Louis, Maryville University student Alisha Bingham established Anime St. Louis to fill the void.

The Subarashii Nation Inc organization handled other events through Mr. Camacho's contacts to include Horror and Multi-Genre events, consulted and built by Mr. Camacho and his team.

The Convention Company took a turn after The Owners and Board Members decided after its Denver event that it would no longer pay its employees. The planning for the Miami 2005 event was in full swing, website created, and guests announced. Mr. Camacho as the Operations Head of the company and the Chairman had prepared the event to cost under $20,000 in capital. Utilizing contacts and PST's former Tour Operator tools had paid for all the flights with travel mileage points and the Fontainebleau which had been purchased and partially renovated by Turnberry Properties had reported 446% Block use from Kunicon's original Miami event. The Turnberry extended multiple complimentary spaces for its second event in their facility reducing space costs as well as booking costs. Kunicon already owning its own sound, lighting, registration, clerical and ancillary equipment, the reduction in costs were exceptional.

When the Board of Directors had voted to remove the fees needed to be awarded to its employees after accomplishing the June event, now the company facing full profitability status. Mr. Camacho has demanded that the staff be paid for their services and given the opportunity to decide to remain to work each event as a volunteer or resign their positions. Subarashii Nation inc. decided to not pay the employees and offered Mr. Camacho increased Salary for remaining and running the company. Mr. Camacho resigned his position and posted on his Live Journal all the accounts of what had occurred with the company. Subarashii Nation made an attempt to continue running the event in Miami and soon lost the support of the community, celebrities and sponsors with the absence of Mr. Camacho and his team. Subarahii Nation cancelled Kunicon Miami 2005 and never made an attempt to build another event. They never allowed themselves to be reached for further comment.

Mark Squillante had contacted Mr. Camacho in November 2005 and asked him to please remove the information on the livejournal as it was affecting his ability to seek employment. Mr. Camacho felt it was no longer necessary to keep that journal open and edited the contents.

Event history

Dates	Location	Atten.	Guests
December 17–19, 2004	Fontainebleau Hilton Resort Miami, Florida	3,400	Steve Bennett, Mandy Bonhomme, Johnny Yong Bosch, David Kaye, Scott McNeil, Vic Mignogna, Kirby Morrow, Tomonori Ochikoshi, Carrie Savage, Joshua Seth, Doug Smith, and Toshifumi Yoshida.[5]
March 4–6, 2005	Millennium Hotel St. Louis, Missouri		Tom Bateman, Steve Bennett, Robert DeJesus, Richard Epcar, Kevin McKeever, Scott McNeil, Vic Mignogna, Chris Patton, Piano Squall, Doug Smith, Steve Yun, and Tommy Yune[6]
May 27–29, 2005	Westin Peachtree Plaza Atlanta, Georgia		10Sheen, Greg Ayres, Emily DeJesus, Robert DeJesus, Richard Epcar, Tiffany Grant, Matt Greenfield, Mike McFarland, Kevin McKeever, Chris Patton, phoenix/NEBULIN, Piano Squall, Sean Schemmel, Select Start, Mike Sinterniklaas, Doug Smith, Team Ryouko, Yellow Dancer, Toshifumi Yoshida, and Tommy Yune.[7]
June 17–19, 2005	Marriott Tech Center Denver, Colorado	475	10Sheen, Laura Bailey, Tom Bateman, Steve Bennett, Lindsay Cibos, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Richard Epcar, Tiffany Grant, Matt Greenfield, Jared Hodges, Samantha Inoue Harte, Mike McFarland, Piano Squall, Sean Schemmel, Jan Scott-Frazier, Mike Sinterniklaas, Yellow Dancer, and Steve Yun.[8]

References

1. ^ Delahanty, Patrick (2005-11-05). "Kunicon canceled; former chairman posts attendance numbers". AnimeCons.com. http://www.animecons.com/news/article.shtml/193. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Otakucon schedule announced" (Press release). 2004-12-10. http://www.animecons.com/news/article.shtml/96. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 
3. ^ Koulikov, Mikhail (2005-01-26). "2004 Year in Review: Anime Con Highlights". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2005-01-26/9. Retrieved 2007-02-28. 
4. ^ Lillard, Kevin. "OtakuCon - Kunicon Plans - 2004". A Fan's View. Archived from the original on 2006-10-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20061022003954/http://www.fansview.com/2004/otakucon/121704a.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-28. 
5. ^ "OtakuCon Miami Beach 2004 Information". AnimeCons.com. http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/566. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 
6. ^ "Kunicon St. Louis 2005 Information". AnimeCons.com. http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/734. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 
7. ^ "Kunicon Atlanta 2005 Information". AnimeCons.com. http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/713. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 
8. ^ "Kunicon Denver 2005 Information". AnimeCons.com. http://www.animecons.com/events/info.shtml/772. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 

External links

• D20, Inc., the former incorporated name of Subarashii Nation
• LiveJournal of former convention chair, Manny Camacho