This would be very hard as I think to my knowledge cons like animania are owned by bigger actual companies, while SMASH! is organised by actual students who volunteer time to do these so if we were to i think it would run the risk of maybe having a power imbalance. On top of that, each con also has different events running, that is attended by different people etc, there are too many variables in each con for there to be a set uniform policy across the board. And most conduct rules are the same although they vary in wording and what is change merely adheres to current state laws etc. At least this is to my understanding, I may be wrong since this is just the impression I get.

true, the bigger con's are owned by bigger mobs and what im aiming for is the smaller con's, think avcon, aicon, wacon, smash ect, and have a uniform set of rules that is set up so there is littie risk of people noticing, diffent rules for diffent con's. i say keep ainmaina locked out for 2 or so years, and have nova help broker the set of the rules, but give them the pick if they want to join or not. its not going to set off a power imbalance, but it would give the con's more power to have a greater say in what is going to be put down on paper. @ the very least talk with the other con's 1st and see what happens, then set up a 1 year trial then lets see where it goes from there. but 1st, ask the other head's of borad's and see if they want to junp on the waggon. there has to be an answer to stop having large stuff up's like this year's smash and last years avcon. the risk of this failing is very high, but there has to be a way to fix this mess.

The different variables at each con and deciding on which rules to keep uniform and which rules not to keep uniform will be a logistical nightmare as conduct rules are a given uniform rule across the board but cosplay rules vary depending on the focus as well as other things. Also, I think some cons like to push the limits to expose themselves and challenge the normalities to come up with something new and innovative to draw crowds and I'm scared that putting uniform rules would restrict these ideas before they even get out of the board room, and these ideas are sometimes what essentually gives the con their own little flavour too. It really comes down to which rules they would keep uniform and which not to - applying and these rules are different from theorising them as many more problems pop up too. And only some rules can probably be decided on across the board without any debate i.e safety and conduct, while some would just split everyone and it would take the ENTIRE board of each con to agree on that rule to be in place. Its a good idea, but unless it can be done properly, it would be a complete waste of time and effort especially since these cons are located in all part of Australia. In any case, wouldnt it be better to attempt to skype the meeting?

Also alot of the rules we have are pretty much the same for all cons anyways other than the odd minor rule. The confiscation thing has never really happened before at previous venues even with security and was a first time thing since it was the police who stepped in. I don't think it has happened at other cons either, and I don't think we want to make other cons restrict their attendees from bringing large objects and weapon look alikes for their cosplays if the environment/venue permits them safe enough to not cause any real possible harm (i.e town hall was in city, which is ideal place of attack if need be (just sayin) while UNSW is relatively further from city in a smaller community and had less exposure as uni students dont tend to go school on the weekend) unless the police steps in to ask for them to be removed from the premises. Yes its a safety issue but I think boards would like to avoid a rule like that being inplace unless it is absolutely and legally necessary so that attendees can enjoy their effort and experience of making their cosplays and parading it. but thats just my imo as I read on forums that quite a lot of cosplayers were saying how their weapon was a necessity to their cosplay and all.

Most conventions do have very, very similar rules. It is also a rule of entry into any convention to agree with that convention's code of conduct so it is up to the attendees to be aware of the rules (simply check the website).

What happened with the props at SMASH! this year has absolutely nothing to do with any flaw in the prop rules. Metal weapons and replica weapons are not allowed at ANY convention, this is already the very basic of weapons rules for any convention. Metal weapons also break state law. This is at the fault of attendees for not reading the convention code of conduct.
(long story short, attendees were seen with replica props in sydney and on sydney public transport causing members of the public to alert the police which then in turn brought the police to SMASH!. Metal weapons were confiscated by the police as they broke state law).

There is no merit in having national rules when the rules are already very much the same, and each convention has the right to conduct as it wishes. Even if there was one set of rules, people don't read the existing rules so there is little chance they'd read new ones.The main problem I see is making attendees read the code of conduct. But conventions already do their very best to make sure this happens.

i see that you have some good points. if a trial was to be put in place, it would have to be treated like a fine bancing act. this idea dosnt need whole borads, but only the head of each borad. the idea of the trial is to see if this works and if it does, have it keeped going, if it dosnt scrap it and try again. for the point about skype, not everyone has skype

I think you're asking a bit much, remember these are conventions, most of them run by volunteers, and there isn't any issue with the rules at present, and I don't really see the merit in having a nation wide set of rules when the rules are already practically the same for every convention already. Its just a matter of people reading the rules (thats the issue)

guys, you both have good points. what im saying is, have conutry wide rules in place so that the majorty of people dont mistake 1 con's set of rules as the same as a diffent con's set of rule's. have a set of core rules that they must all go with. im not trying to goat the cosplay faction into a fight, but there has to be a uniform line that they all take. otherwise there would be more mess for the borad's to mop up @ the con, then if you take this set of rules. the ban on metal props should be tougher, if you were to go down this line of thinking. call me hardline, but there has to be an answer to this pressing issue. the core theroy is to make the rules betten understode, not make the issue any more conplex then it already is.

tom and rob, your more then welcome to say your point if you want

I'm happy to discuss issues but could you please list what the issues are exactly rather than just saying that there are some?

When would someone mistake one convention's code of conduct for another when all code of conducts are very much the same. Go look up the code of conducts for conventions and you'll see that they already are mostly the same, some just have a few extra rules. There isn't a rampant number of people breaking the code of conduct so I do not think this is a pressing problem.

The only probem I can see is making sure people know that bringing metal props to any convention is illegal, whilst this is in both our cosplay rules and code of conduct, there are those who don't read it. So I will be making sure that this is repeated in the SMASH! newsletter, facebook group etc to hopefully reach those who do not read the SMASH! website itself. I've already addressed what happened with props this year several times and it is to no fault of our own that people couldn't read the conditions of entry to the convention and caused havoc which brought the police. What I can do is try and spread awareness that people do actually need to read the rules (even though its easily available on the website and reading the code of conduct is a condition of entry to SMASH!). So I don't think this is in so much a large problem.

What do you mean a uniform line that cosplay takes? Do you mean props rules? They're 99% the same for any convention. Please could you explain what you mean by uniform line?

There isn't any other way to make a ban tougher than having a complete ban in the first place and confiscation.

By doing this though, you would have to actually organise an actual "ORGANISATION" which all cons have to front in order to promote these rules. This would take alot of time and energy I would imagine and again the board are just volunteers and when most rules are pretty much the same, other than the odd cosplay rule there isnt a real point in forming this organisation. And even then there are no same issues that you can pinpoint to keep uniform other than the obvious that all cons have. And unless it becomes such a big and obvious issue that it needs to be addressed on a national level, i dont see why we can't address it on a local level instead maybe only animania and smash! (and they have the same rules anyways since the board member who was originally part of the formation of animania, is also part of the formation forr SMASH!).

God matt. Is there something up your shaft that makes you feel the need to be so irritatingly unneccassary?
Do you see all the Universities around Australia working with the same enrolment systems? No
Do people get confused? Yes!

Tough god damn luck! It's life! HAVE A CRY ABOUT IT.

You go to an event, you read the rules! No confusion. Simple as that.

Try getting every convenor of every con to meet up once a year to discuss rule when they have a solid set to work with already? Get the hell out.

Go find a hobby other than harassing these pages with your condescending attitude. The poor SMASH committee really hasn't done anything to deserve having to put up with you.

matt... can you please explain what this 'pressing issue' is? At the moment, I cannot seem to understand what the problem is, or if a problem even exists. And, as they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Again, this boils down to common sense. The if there IS a problem, it's not with the rules. It's with the idiots who break them.

once again for the record - Avcon was not shut down at any point last year by the police. That is a rumour that got out of hand thru the grapevine. They were just doing a usual inspection, and had some queries about a few events that seemed questionable in their eyes. But that was it.

As for uniform rule across australia, there pretty much is already. Most cons use the same rules for thier own events (which most the time is just plain common sense), the only really variance is props and weapons, which is vastly different from state to state and even venue to venue.

one other point i would like to state is that Attendance wise, the amount of ppl that travel interstate for cons is a TINY percentage of actual attendance of any con. less that 5%, and that is being generous. Even less of that are cosplayers. So having national rules across the board, whould be a lot more hassle than it is worth. Especially since most the ppl who do travel interstate to other cons are higher than avg con go-ers, who pretty much know all the generic rules and know what they can and can't do at a con.

Like i said, most the rules are common sense.

And to add the vendors. =P

If there is anything, maybe its the 'harshness' of how the rules are applied at each con?
I had a complaint this year by a few attendees that "Oh...Animania would let this slide. You guys are so much stricter than Animania..." and such.
But to be honest...I really doubted them due to what they had were illegal in the country itself... (I think they were replica hand guns that didn't have the orange cap and other metal weapons)

I'll back Aymie with the general common sense missing this year as I'm very aware that many of the cosplayers this year with conviscated weapons were not even in the competition and had EXTREMELY large weapons. *points to size rule*
I will also add to appologise to those cosplayers who had props which were within the limit conviscated just because police were called in and they were being more paranoid than usual. (I speak of canes which were not even 1m by just sight)

Basically, the point is that people need to be aware that their causing alarm of police can ruin the day for others who follow the rules, so please read rules and try to avoid carrying around things in the sight of the public which may alarm people.

As for a national meeting of board members:
If this Animania thing I mentioned is true, and keeping in mind that our rules are virtually the same, then it means that it is an uncontrollable matter as the need for the rules to be exactly the same would be to have the same set of people running and monitoring each event - even within the same state.

Even in Japan and its really strict rules for cosplayers, they are a set of common sense and manners, and therefore there is no 'national set rule' (just one convention usually just follows another especially if they are small) but a bunch of people who are trying to make sure they don't cause too much trouble to have some national ban on cosplayers as a whole.

If anything, this is probably something we only need to address if the courts jump onto now, but for now all we can do is ask that all cosplayers (of any level) have some common sense to read and follow rules so they don't destroy the experience of fellow cosplayers and in turn the whole of the cosplay community.