Anime Speed Dating (Boys And Girls) (18+)

[KingRockyIV]

Welcome to the official thread for AR 2012 Anime Speed Dating, "Boys And Girls"! This is where I'll explain what the event is, how it'll be run, and how you can be a part of it!

For those new to the concept, Speed Dating is an organized social event where participants meet multiple people in rapid succession, getting to know each other as much as possible within the brief "dates" before moving onto the next person. At the end of the event, each participant rates their dates and compatible matches are given contact info so they can meet up at their leisure. It's a great way to meet people make friends in the geek community. I should mention now that for obvious reasons, participants should be 19 years of age or older.

Because of the popularity of the event and the time constraint, availability is limited. To that end, reservations are the best way to guarantee your spot. If we reach the cap early, you can still show up in case somebody drops out and a spot opens up. And if you reserve a spot but change your mind, let me know so I can let someone else in.

It's also important to remember that even if you don't get in, you can always make new friends around AR the old-fashioned way: Just walk up to people and introduce yourself. You never know what you might have in common (like a mutual love of anime, for example). This is just an express lane.
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Rules and Procedure

When you come in, we'll assign you a number, give you a note sheet, and sit you down at a table across from a member of the opposite sex. When we start, you will have three minutes to talk to your date, introduce yourself, learn about them, ask about likes/dislikes, etc. A timer bell will ring to signal the end of the date, at which point all of the male participants will get up and move one spot to the right, sitting down in front of a new date. We'll give you a couple seconds to write down some notes about your date so you can remember them for later. The timer will start again and you'll repeat the process, moving all the way around the room. When you end up where you started, dating will be over, and everyone will be given a sheet with the numbers of each person, along with checkboxes for "Romance", "Friendship", and "Not Interested". Hand it in, and later we'll send you the contact info for all of the dates who thought you were interesting and want to chat with you!

During the dates, it is important for each participant to stick to general conversation topics and refrain from asking personal details. Participants are STRONGLY encouraged NOT to request or provide contact info to/from other participants within the panel, since that’s what the evaluations are for. If you want to meet up outside afterwards and chat more, feel free, but this keeps anyone from feeling uncomfortable if someone gets too pushy. You're making friends, not planning the wedding.

Anyone who refuses to follow the rules or is otherwise rude or disrespectful to other participants or panel staff will be asked to leave and their contact info destroyed. Their seat will not be reassigned to a drop-in because it would be unfair to insert a new participant midway through the event. We'll just have an empty seat for the rest of the event and every round someone will get a little break.
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Reservations

It's a two hour event, so at three minutes per date, there's room for 60 participants (30 from each gender), for a total of 30 dates and 90 minutes of date time. Given that we also need time for evaluations and such, that works out great. If you want to save a spot, then send an email to rockyjlbuckland@gmail.com with "Anime Speed Dating (Boys And Girls) Reservation" in the Subject line and the following info in the body:

Name (first and last, we may ask for ID): yournamehere
Age: youragehere
Gender: yourgenderhere
Email: youremailhere@runningjoke.com

Anyone with questions or concerns about the event can ask them here, or contact me privately and I'll do my best to help you out.

[QuizGuru]

Name (first and last, we may ask for ID): Tyler Cotton
Age: 21
Gender: Male

[KingRockyIV]

Sweet, our first reservation! We'll get more once they start advertising the panels on the main page, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

[QuizGuru]

Oh, God, I'm the first?

That can't be good XD

Any idea when it will take place? (ie, which of the 3 days and what period?)

Actually, when does the overall schedule get posted?

[KingRockyIV]

The event hasn't been advertised yet, so don't worry. When I went to the Speed Dating event at AE09, the reservations were low but drop-ins lined up by the dozens. I'll be promoting this as much as possible, so you'll be in good company before long.

The overall schedule can't be posted until all of the panel submissions are approved, which the Programming staff is already working on. Once we know what we've got, we can start to organize everything into a schedule.

edit: Though I can probably assume this will be a Saturday event, possibly in the early afternoon. I'm planning to have this back-to-back with the other two Speed Dating events for simplicity's sake.

[KingRockyIV]

Hey everybody, just a quick change to the reservation format, now all the reservations will be made via email rather than posted to this forum. A few participants expressed an interest in privacy and didn't want to be posting their personal info. It also made sense to keep that confidential because that's the whole point of doing the event. I edited the first post to reflect the change, but for anyone showing up late, just send the required info to rockyjlbuckland@gmail.com and I'll add you to the list. When the event is scheduled, you'll be notified directly.

[DJ#]

What will you do if the numbers are unbalanced? (i.e. there are far more guys signed up than girls, and vice versa)

[KingRockyIV]

Our reservations so far are somewhat unbalanced, but I'm keeping an eye on the number and I'll cut it off when we hit the threshold. If we're unbalanced on the day of the event, there's always drop-in participants who can fill in any available spots. In the event that we're still unbalanced even after using drop-in participants (which is unlikely), then I'll just rotate the smaller group through the larger one and some people will have to sit out for a round or two. If we have low numbers on both sides (which is very unlikely), then I'll extend the 3 minute timer for each date, or we can just wrap it up early.

[gizmo99]

Hey just saw on the website that it's 18+ and I can see that the title of the topic says 19+. So what is it?

[KingRockyIV]

I specified 19+ wherever I've posted. I'll have to get the listing you saw edited.

Edit: Whoops! Turns out the age restriction has been lowered to 18+ after all. I guess that was done at a higher level and nobody told me. My bad. I guess if you were waiting around for next year, now you don't have to!