Well, this was an absolute tech mess from beginning to end. For the most part, events at least eventually happened, mostly with plenty of scuff and after significant delays. It's actually astounding how much shit went wrong here. They had better work hard to make sure they get shit figured out by the next one.
However, monetary gains/losses aside, I'm sure it was a net positive for everyone involved in terms of exposure and general satisfaction. Not to tribalfag, but I think this is especially true for Phase. They had a massive presence at this con, and it's clear how many people were there for Phase. Scuff aside, all the talents seemed to have enjoyed it, as well as the people actually there. Those of us at home got the worst of the experience.
I'll try to be nice and hope that the Offkai organizers use this as a learning experience and try to work things out better for next time. A few bumps here and there would have been forgivable, but damn near everything had so many problems that they had to even delay their main concert by an hour and a half into the night. Poor Shiina didn't seem like she could catch a break, but she damn well gave it her all. The talents put so much work into their activities here, and since they're the ones bringing the paying customers to drop ridiculous amounts of money, the least Offkai can do is do better next time.
I've already written an essay, so I'll end it with some of my favorite highlights (most will be Phase related because I'm a Phase shill):
- Jelly's, Lisa's, and Nina's performances at the live concert were amazing. I know of Nina, but I don't know much about her, but I know how much this performance meant to Jelly and Lisa, and they did amazing. Lisa couldn't even catch herself from crying during one point in a song. I'm incredibly happy for them.
- Uruka's performance was also amazing. Probably my favorite, actually. I'm beyond happy for her that it went so well after hearing she was having such a hard time with her throat issues earlier this week that it drove her to tears at the end of one of her streams. Her singing was amazing, and I'm always a fan of her violin performances, so that was great.
- The robot tours, while scuffed as hell, had some fun moments like Pippa being Pippa and the various vtubers interacting with other vtubers on screens (Pippa and Sleepy, Lia and Katta, etc). I also watched Yuko happily buying a Sleepy print and being excited pointing out Pippa merch while in the robot, which was nice given how good of friends they all are.
- Lumi being Lumi and talking shit during her karaoke segment in that party room.
- Airi and Tenma talking shit on the sound guy during the concert for fucking around with the sound during Jelly's performance, even leading to Airi getting chat banned.
In the end, Offkai deserves the criticism on how scuffed it was, but honestly, I did enjoy the stuff I was able to watch for the most part. I just hope they're better prepared next time. *Insert totally original "Thank you for coming to my TedTalk" joke here*