Tour Update - Perth

Hi everyone, will be doing my best to actually update the blog, I've just been extremely busy with the tour and the launch of Tokyo Hardcore!




We recently had two shows on our tour, the first show was held in Perth on September 23rd and it was easily the best and biggest production show we had done yet, mega thanks to all the staff involved, the venue who were amazing to deal with and helped up put one amazing show and of course all our fans who helped make it one of the most enjoyable shows yet.

It was an amazing show which saw many crazy and unique aspects, we were able to introduce Perth to Saccharine's very popular Bubblegum Pop set which brought a mix of meme's, 90's pop music and well known songs in the anime scene.  We had sexy schoolgirl catgirls who did an amazing job despite the pressure of one of our DJ's dressing up as Pedobear for the night and chasing after them in some amusing photos.  Our free sushi was kicked up a notch thanks to Iku Sushi, with possibly some of the tastiest sushi yet and a new surprise for our guests cheeseburger sushi, which may sound a bit odd to some but those who had it were very blown away!

Perth was an amazing show and was our biggest one yet, in terms of the venue, projector size, number of stalls and even number of people attending as well.  We're glad it went well since we were determined to take Perth up another level and in the end it was an amazing show and I'm so looking forward to coming back!

Epic Thanks

Once again an epic thanks has to go out to all the people behind the Adelaide Neko Nation for what was our biggest and best show yet.  While me and Susannah put a fair bit of time into the show we had around 25 other people involved that made this show happen.

We had 8 absolutely stunning catgirls on board Carrie, Kelly, Katja, Saccharine, Bethany, Lenii, Nana and Jimmy.  14 DJ's on board, with a special thanks to our new DJ's Shy, Visual-Kei-ra, Super BC Kid and our favourite, Giddy Kong who flew over from Perth again!  Our photographers, James, Thanh and Ashlea and when you include our doorman, venue staff and our awesome sponsors, Gametraders Marion, Freq Entertainment, Tokyo Hardcore, Miss Pixies and of course our huge favourite Shin Tokyo who have been epicly generous with prizes!

Seriously mega thanks, this was by far our biggest show yet and it was the most successful yet.  <3

Manifest

Just to let everyone know that we're going to be at Manifest at the Tokyo Hardcore stall, we'll have plenty of fliers for Neko Nation's debut in Melbourne plus our special, 2 for $30 ticket Manifest exclusive offer as well!

We'll also be doing a special promotional panel which includes talks on a variety of topics:
- What to expect at Neko Nation Melbourne
- A brief history on Neko Nation
- The future of Neko Nation
- A sneak preview of Nekomimi!
- How to get involved with Neko Nation
- Meet and greet the owners and founders!
- Question time

We're looking forward to coming down to Manifest and checking out Melbourne!

All Ages Events

One of the most commonly asked questions we get is whether we are going to put on an all ages event.  Quite simply we would love to but people have to understand the difficulty of the situation of putting on an all ages event.

First of all, putting on an 18+ event anywhere in Australia isn't too tricky well at least for experienced event promoters, however an all ages event varies not just from city to city but from council to council.  According to governments there's a whole stigma against the under 18 crowd, apparently they're seen as dangerous, irresponsible and shouldn't be out late.  Then we've got the problem of venues, there's few venues that like the idea of having teenagers partying and on the other end, venues aren't really keen on putting on events when they can't make their money on alcohol.

There's a lot of work that gets put into an 18+ event, however there's an insane amount of work that gets involved before being able to put on an all ages event, let alone all the work that happens afterwards like with 18+ events.

Having said this, it is not something I'm completely keen on giving up on, I remember how frustrating it was not being able to attend events I thought were awesome when I was underage and wished that my favourite events were all ages events.  So with that said, it is something we will look at and will investigate if there are any opportunities for us to do so.  ^^

Neko Nation Updates - July 2011 and Tour

Neko Nation Radelaide
Saturday, September 3rd 2011
Live on Light Square
The latest Neko Nation Radelaide has been released.  We had tickets on sale at AV-Con and we've hit the record for pre-sale tickets already, despite the event being 6 weeks away!

Expect all the craziness you have come to love from Neko Nation and prepare for one hell of a party, especially if you're still suffering from post AV-Con depression this is the perfect cure for you!

If you missed your chance to get tickets you can get tickets from Venuetix.

Neko Nation Tour
Perth - Friday, September 23rd 2011 @ The Bakery
Melbourne - Saturday, October 8th 2011 @ Geddes Lounge (The Basement)
Adelaide - Saturday, October 29th 2011 (TBC) @ Live on Light Square
Brisbane - Saturday, November 12th 2011 @ Step Inn

I would like to personally apologise for the lateness in bringing the information for the tour, unfortunately there has been delays due to Tokyo Hardcore, moving from Perth and unfortunately it takes a long time to deal with venues for our event, (not many clubs are used to our very strange demands for the night!).  None of the events have been 100% confirmed, we're still 90% confirmed with all the venues and are getting lots of little last minute things sorted out with all the venues before we work on creating the fliers.

Staff Search
If you applied for the staff search, we're getting back in contact with as many of you as soon as possible, I haven't been able to properly get back to you all until the venue has been booked, things such as venue size, closing times have a huge effect on the numbers we need staffing wise.  We have got a good number of staff helping out for all the events, although we could use a few more in Brisbane and we've ended up having to cancel the Sydney show due to virtually minimal applications for roles.

Manifest
We will be in the Tokyo Hardcore stall for Manifest Melbourne in August.  We will be selling tickets and will have fliers for the first Neko Nation in Melbourne taking place in October.  We will have special discounts for those who buy tickets through our store at Manifest like those who bought tickets at AV-Con.  We will also be putting on a special presentation about Neko Nation and more about the event in a special panel.  Feel free to also talk to us in the stall to give us your feedback about the event and get involved!

Consensual

Our most popular suggestion and request is when we are going to do an after party for a anime convention.  We are getting involved with our first convention at Consensual in Melbourne in November 2011.  Consensual is Asutralia's first yaoi and yuri convention and we are very excited to get involved with Avi and the team behind consensual to throw one hell of an amazing and potentially sexy party!

The future of our industry

It's quite an epic time to be a geek in Australia, there are all sorts of new cons and events popping up everywhere.  Our regular cons are growing epicly and I've been told that Supanova hit some pretty epic crowd numbers recently throughout the events.

We're also seeing all sorts of new cons and festivals popping up, some of these include Consensual and the K-Pop festival in November.  The growth of smaller subcultures of yaoi and yuri and K-Pop is showing a massive expansion all around.

The likes of Shin-Tokyo and Empire Toys, geek stores have been growing in size and popularity this year, despite all the online competition which has seen many retail chains around close down this year.  They're still rising above the challenge as fans remain loyal to their businesses.

The Mana Bar has launched recently in Melbourne after it's success in Brisbane, news was that the owners got into trouble with the council for blocking the footpaths due to the insanely long lines on launch.

For those on in Perth and Adelaide, we've had Neko Nations here instead which the last one managed to hit capacity and the announcement of our tour, there is no shortage of us slowing down any time soon either.

This week also sees the soft launch of Tokyo Hardcore at AV-Con (Adelaide), which has come about due to a high demand in Japanese fashion.  There's been a lot of interest and hype surrounding it's launch and it is going to look quite spectacular once they have their soft launch a few months from now.

It is a great time to be in this industry.  For those thinking about entering though, a word of caution, everyone in this industry works damn hard to strive for perfection, including myself, however it's because we love what we do and from my end, I can't wait to expand Neko Nation, kick start this tour and help our industry grow massively.  ^^

Japan!

The Neko Nation owners recently went to Japan to get started on our next business project Tokyo Hardcore, a Japanese lolita, gothic and cyber fashion store featuring the best brands from Japan.  We had a blast meeting a lot of the brands in person and went really well with the meetings, we will have more details and a proper blog for this soon as well.  We're working on getting a stall at AV-Con as well too!

More details at: http://www.facebook.com/we.love.tokyo.hardcore

On my own personal blog I've done a more serious blog about the things and adventures I had in Japan which you can check out at: http://hyper-catalystic.blogspot.com/2011/07/trip-to-japan.html

This is more a light hearted look into some of the things we did and saw in Japan that I personally thought was quite amusing.  XD

The JR (Japanese Rail), system.  Might be a good idea to start learning this before you go, to say it's a bit confusing is an understatement.  Choose to not learn it at your own peril or you'll never get to anywhere you want to go in Japan!

Found outside a hotel in Osaka.  It's just to freakish to properly caption.  :S

 McDonalds are never far away in Japan!  XD

 Naomi (our translator), took us to this really awesome gothic restaurant located in Shinjuku, the menu is written in a big chunky gothic bible, this place looks amazing!  Also holds the Tokyo Decadence events as well.  ^^

Found at a temple in Shinjuku, notice how the wooden part at the top looks exactly like a giant penis.  XD

The one game everyone wanted to play in the Sega Arcade, the Vocaloid game, I totally did not try to glomp the poster here.  XD

Reasons why Japan is awesome, you're discouraged from wearing Crocs as soon as you get to the airport.  XD

DOS compatible floppy discs.  Japan is so far ahead in technology that you can't possibly fathom the amount of power these discs can hold!

Shinjuku, very clean thanks to their anti-elephant policy.

This is what the ads for the new Zelda game look like, seriously.

Cubic Mouth, as Naomi quoted, "it looks like clown porn".  Somehow Disney gave approval for this brand to exist.  Click on the picture to see it zoomed in, we saw this merchandise everywhere around Japan, seriously, wtf?!

Cat relaxing cafe, think catgirls serving free sushi is awesome, what about cats serving coffee!  Ok, that's probably not what this place was about but the sign is somewhat quite misleading.  XP

Edward Cullen is so last decade, Nyanpire is the new vampire for the new decade.  Does Edward Cullen drive in a cat shaped car that looks exactly like himself?  Didn't think so, hence why Nyanpire is just too damn awesome.

Last but not least an ad for phone company SoftBank, they're the only phone network you can get iPhone in Japan.  They've got a bizarre advertising commercial involving a family, I originally thought the family didn't have a dad but our translator actually pointed out that the dog is the dad!  There are kids in the family and to be honest it's all sounding a bit Azu Manga Diaoh (think Chiyo-Chan's father).  The ads lead to some very interesting merchandise for this character and this is just another case of whacky advertising in Japan and why we love how strange Japan really is.  ^^