Warning:
This is a repost version of this recap that made by me and my friends because i will only start writing article pnly in this blog
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19GUhnm2fs5hs-i0RjwqxNZHMb7VghTXwJZ9u7_WGUlQ/edit#heading=h.h5d4zkvis0ba
^it will be closed
Hello and welcome to the english version of Confess event’s recap.
For those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. My name is Adenuar Purnomo (https://www.facebook.com/adenuar.purnomo) , an university student in Surabaya, capital city of East Java Province,Indonesia. I’m just a normal person that loves to attend a japanese event.
let’s cut to the chase…
first of all you must know that in the last event(CoNFess), I only came as a visitor, and I attend this event purely because most the guests are my friend.
This report is a compilation of what me and my friends were experiencing. And what we know from many sources about this event.
PRE EVENT
1st problem occured when the event maker or The Leader of Violence Ent EO (we should call him Rohaz) told me about this event, he said that he gonna invite many guest star to this event and he “said” that among those many guest star, 6 of them already confirmed their appearance to this event. Those six are Angie0_0, Ying Tze, Franzeska Edelyn, Clarissa Punipun, Matcha Mei and Jeanice Ang. Then I told my friends in the CRK group chat. One of the CRK member then contacted Angie, and we got the info from Angie that she hadn’t confirmed her appearance in that event. In fact she hasn’t even heard anything about there is gonna be event like that which wanted to invite her. You can guess how shocked we were when we get this info.
2nd problem is when the EO posted the guest star poster, looking at the first problem, CRK member asked the guest star if they already knew about this thing, and also if they’ve already signed the MoU. Majority of them said that they had yet to sign the MoU. also some of them didn’t even know that the event exist.
3rd and 4th problem is related. it’s about preparation of the dinner. First dinner lineup for the third dinner (sunday) is Jeanice, Edelyn, Kirie, Yuki, Jiaki, and Ying Tze.
So up to this point, we realized that Kirie, Edelyn, and Jeanice had to attend all 3 days (based on the EO’s dinner announcement). As their friend, we immediately asked them themselves whether its true that they will come all 3 days when we are about to pay them for the dinner fee. And as you may guessed already, Kirie, Edelyn, and Jeanice all said that they were only being asked if they could attend “Dinner with Fans” for friday, but they didnt got asked anything for saturday and sunday. Yet the EO already put them as confirmed coming to saturday and sunday dinner without informing them or seeking their consent. After they protested this to the organizer, both parties agreed that Kirie, Edelyn and Jeanice didn’t need attend the third dinner. 4th problem is about the organizer edited their post and DIDNT MAKE ANY ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THEIR CHANGE and only posted an announcement after some of my friends complained them (https://www.facebook.com/CONFESSBY/posts/324904377851421). The EO deleted their comments afterward to save their face.
So up to this point, we realized that Kirie, Edelyn, and Jeanice had to attend all 3 days (based on the EO’s dinner announcement). As their friend, we immediately asked them themselves whether its true that they will come all 3 days when we are about to pay them for the dinner fee. And as you may guessed already, Kirie, Edelyn, and Jeanice all said that they were only being asked if they could attend “Dinner with Fans” for friday, but they didnt got asked anything for saturday and sunday. Yet the EO already put them as confirmed coming to saturday and sunday dinner without informing them or seeking their consent. After they protested this to the organizer, both parties agreed that Kirie, Edelyn and Jeanice didn’t need attend the third dinner. 4th problem is about the organizer edited their post and DIDNT MAKE ANY ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THEIR CHANGE and only posted an announcement after some of my friends complained them (https://www.facebook.com/CONFESSBY/posts/324904377851421). The EO deleted their comments afterward to save their face.
@credit to Yefta Sutanto, thanks for the pict. Two of the comments got deleted by the organizer (Kent and Suryadi’s comment). So basically if you have paid for whats lost in the 3rd dinner (if you seek to have dinner with kirie jeanice and edelyn on sunday), then you can only feel like you’ve been tricked by this EO.
First DINNER (Friday)
5th problem is about the dinner location, in the post (https://www.facebook.com/CONFESSBY/posts/324904377851421)
the location was supposed to be at 6th level of the hotel. but when I came to the location, the only thing I saw is empty multifunction hall (wth is this). After I asked to the hotel’s employee, they said that the dinner location is changed at the hotel’s restaurant. Which is located in the lobby level of the hotel.
6th problem. There were none of the staff/committee there at the dinner location to organize the dinner. Fortunately, my friend Hushkey which is also supposed to be one of the staff is at the location. He is Edelyn and Jeanice Liaison Officer. He inisiated to organize that dinner (even though its not supposed to be his job to manage and oversee the dinner).
7th problem is about guests’s flight. The organizer / staff should give detailed information of the flight as in the airport name, flight time, the airline to avoid miss-information due to fact some place like for example Thailand and Jakarta, have more than 1 active airport. Most of the time the guest will assume the organizer will issue the flight from a bigger / more widely-used airport.
EVENT DAY 1 (Saturday)
8th problem Meet and Greet. There are two sub problems , 1st sub problem is about the location of the meet and greet ticketing booth. AFAIK the booth should be at the right side of the stage, but when i checked it again, the booth location is changed from what they announced on Confess’s page. 2nd sub problem is the meet and greet queue. I find it hard to distinguish the difference between people who are queuing for M&G and who are not because there are no clear line or sign and they managed this Meet and Greet very poorly, they didnt even assign enough ppl to handle the meet and greet (because the meet and greet needs ticket, there should be at least 1 person assigned to each guest booth to tear the ticket or anything). IIRC there are only 5 staffs for 10 guest (??? is that even enough?) and I’ve been to all booths, talked with 3 of the staffs which are supposed to take care of the meet and greet, turns out that they are totally clueless about the meet and greet system, and they asked us instead about how usually these things are done (omg), seems like only few of their staff got briefed by their leader.
9th problem is about merchandise selling. From my experiences from coming to the convention, the one that selling the guest’s merchandise is the committee, not guest’s fans club or their friends. But things that happened in this event is like this.
- Edelyn’s merch sold by her friends
- Jeanice’s merch sold by her boyfriend
- Matcha mei’s merch sold by her brother
- Ying Tze’s and Punipun’s merch sold by Ying Tze Indonesia Fan Club’s member
- Kirie’s Merchandise wasn’t taken care of and had to be handled by Hushkey for a while and then was put at the same place with Olivie/Luffy’s Merch
These ppl didnt even get listed as their staff, they only supposed to be NORMAL visitors, and yet, suddenly they need to handle the merchandise selling and they need to take care of the money ppl paid to them because the real staffs who were supposed to be in charge of the merchandise selling gone somewhere and dissapear (??? dude these visitors got millions of your money you’re supposed to give back to the guests). We all can see how messed up and unresponsible these EO’s staff are. And their leader didn’t even do anything about it when he actually knew about this.
10th problem When Meet and Greet session started, I saw the guests are accompanied by either other guest, friends, visitor who helped, but Kirie was left alone with no LO to help her. and the fact that her merch wasn’t showcased until sometime later makes it worse as people asking her where her merchs were. no one could confirm about it until later because they didn’t prepare enough place to put all the merchs. in the end the merchs were placed altogether with Olivie’s and Luffy’s and not even all of them are properly showcased.
11th problem is about the second dinner. The location got changed (again). And there is 2 Malang guys that sit with Yuki and Jiaki. One of them already feels uneasy when they couldn’t find the staff. That time we have been waiting so long that even the restaurant owner keep pushing us. The restaurant was booked at 7PM and we haven't ordered anything until approx. 8PM. The restaurant owner might feel loss because he kept shoo-ing other customer. We were afraid to make any action because it might worsen the problem. Until finally a staff named Marvin comes and become the poor scapegoat.Just to found out that this Marvin guy knows nothing about it.The head/lead organizer want to handle all stuff by himself so bad till his crew knows not a thing that has been happening (That’s how that EO’s Chain Commannd works, FYI). Those Malang guys got angry and ask Marvin to let him meet the lead organizer. Marvin approves and after a short while, the head organizer comes.The head organizer ask Yefta (one of my friend) to organize the dinner (throwing responsibility to others as always). Yefta politely refuse that by saying that he's just a participant of the dinner. That Malang guy immediately asked him to go together with him to the parking lots (seems like they want to talk with their fist) but he insisted that they will talk there (because got many ppl including the guests, and obviously this leader is a pussy and he is afraid of the malang guy), they talked for a while but it seems that they cant reach the win win solution for both party.
One of the dinner participant asked Luffy and Olivie on their opinion about this event.They say in normal situatuon, it should be a very nice and pleasant trip. They got hotel, food, transport, etc.Just that there is some sad point as in they cant roam freely around the venue in their free time instead of just sit down and do almost nothing. Also it's hard for them to see the stage due to the amount of people queueing in front of them (because the EO didnt manage anything to disperse the crowd or handle the crowd flow, so they just stand idle in front of meet and greet booths even after they have done with it). They also feel bad for the fact that the organizer set a ticket system for photo and signing when it's quite rare for them to be able to come. Lots of people didn't take pic with them because either they didnt get ticket because it ran out or they feel its too expensive to buy the ticket. (There are 10 guests, and the meet and greet ticket price is the same as entrance ticket which is 25K IDR, so if you want to take pic and sign with all 10, you already spent 500K IDR for 2 days event which most of ppl would find it too expensive just to take pic with their idols).
EVENT DAY 2 (Sunday)
12th problems guests’s food, this is the problems that made me “coup d’etat” the event and take over some of the staff jobs. I knew this problem from the guest that is at same group as me, also my friend told me too that the guest feel hungry. I told Hushkey ASAP about this and we were starting a journey to search the guests lunch. After we get ping-pong’ed from one staff to another, and finally we found that their lunch is already at the backstage, but the amount of their lunch weren’t enough to accomodate guests’ assistants and friends. I also heard that there are guest stars that didn’t get their lunch.
13th problems and the last problems that I recapped (there are too many problems, trust me it is MORE than 13, but these are the major ones that you should know), day 2 meet and greet. there are three sub problem in this meet and greet. First is about the queueing system, unlike the day 1 meet and greet, the system in this day meet and greet makes you queueing only in one lane for all guests. this makes the Second sub problem, which result in uncontrollable crowd. this crowd makes the visitors feels uneasy and created a chaotic situation. Third sub problem is the sponsor guy forced the meet and greet session to be continued even though it’s break time already. Maybe he wants to disperse the crowd as soon as possible, but he forgot that guests are still human being who needs food.
EO’s pros and cons :
Pros : None as for now
Cons :
TOO many but i will try summarize into points some of the major flaws, from what we observed from past events held by this same EO (Violence Ent/Rohaz) we can conclude that :
0. As we have mentioned above in the 1st problem, this EO has 1 fatal characteristic, that is to put up anyone they want to invite on their posters and POST IT before they even made contact and ensure they accept their offer and CAN come to their event. (Dunno how Rohaz’s logic works)
1. This EO never handled guests well, all guests invited in the past, the responsibility of handling the guest were nonchalantly given to random ppl or fans.
Fact : Ive seen my friend been asked by the EO leader to deliver a guest to the airport on their flight back date, and no member of the EO accompanied them, IT IS okay if you guys need our help, but dont abandon your responsibility and drop them to others just like that)
2. There is no fixed positioning on the organization body. All staff can be assigned any roles, and from CONFESS, I can conclude that they didnt have anything like technical meeting prior to the event date.
Fact : me and my friends were confused as so many of the volunteering staff are our friend, when we asked them about how is the system of the meet and greet session, or what is your job on this event, they said didn’t know because they didn’t get briefed by the leader. Even some of the staff that supposed to be higher-ups also said that they didn't know what are they supposed to do too.
3. This EO always take their job lightly and underestimating their job and roles.
Fact 1: like we mentioned above on 9th problem. The real staff of Violence Ent who were supposed to handle the merchandise selling leave his post and pass the responsibility to us and our friends who were coming only as visitors. We would like to say to those staffs who leave their post : Just because we are an acquaintance with you, doesnt mean you can pass responsibility of your job to random ppl, furthermore if it involves millions IDR amount of money. You can easily blame us if anything happened.
Fact 2: the fact that chihiro cant fly is because the one who bought the ticket for her misspelled her chinese name, resulted in her being not allowed to fly. (Why they didnt even double check for the name or at least confirm with her if her name already written correctly or no?). It’s funny how they can get her flight to KL right but KL-SBY wrong.
Fact 3: 2 of the guests from jakarta were heading into the most common airport used these days, called Soekarno Hatta Airport, only to found out that the ticket they were given is a flight from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport (old airport), which we also mentioned in the 7th problem. Soekarno Hatta Airport is in west jakarta, while Halim Perdanakusuma Airport is in east jakarta. In real time, it should be around 1-2 hrs to reach the other airport (info based on another guest from jakarta who already arrived in surabaya and having dinner with us), but it became 3-4 hrs because its a rush hour and it’s raining that time. Resulting in these 2 guests missed the flight and need to take another flight in saturday morning. (made them very tired because they go back and forth to 2 airports and reach Surabaya by the morning of the event date and already have to prepare for the event). The EO claim that they didnt even know about that. (sigh)
4. This EO always blame other innocent ppl for what should have been their responsibility (scapegoating), should something bad happened like ppl rage to them for being not doing well in their job.
Fact 1: there is 1 pattern that this EO always did almost in every event they made. They made a bunch of random visitors becoming instant volunteer to help doing whats supposed to be their job and responsibility, then when they are not performing well (always) and people rage, this EO suddenly claimed that it is those volunteers’s vault.
Fact 2: as you all may know already, that Thailand cosers Jiaki Darkness and Yuki Godbless are 2 of the overseas guests in CONFESS. You can see on their post about how dissapointed they are that this EO broke most of the contract and plan both party have agreed.
Jiaki’s post : https://www.facebook.com/jiakidarkness/photos/a.266893499989004.75551.139445679400454/1244978258847185/?type=3
Yuki’s post :
https://www.facebook.com/YukiGodblessCosplayer/photos/a.228620673816380.68242.128280893850359/1250293541649083/?type=3
and whats more, in the confess’s official video uploaded in youtube, its clear that they have stolen the video yuki used as background video for her anisong performance, yuki give me this link and she said you guys can see from this vid in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bovSm1r8Nk , try see 5:30-12:08 and compare with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfleNnGeO3I <-- this is a visitor’s recording of her anisong performance on sunday, how do you think?
5. They never follow their own words, or any schedule they have made, everything is easy and can be compromised with ^^
is how their leader always depict of how he work. And he always make that face of being really lax like everything is always under control while theyre actually not. Many times their asses were being saved by extra instant volunteer such as my friends (which also helped them this time because they cant leave the guests who are their idols and also friendsalone and let them caught up in this fucked up turn of event by this EO)
Pros : None as for now
Cons :
TOO many but i will try summarize into points some of the major flaws, from what we observed from past events held by this same EO (Violence Ent/Rohaz) we can conclude that :
0. As we have mentioned above in the 1st problem, this EO has 1 fatal characteristic, that is to put up anyone they want to invite on their posters and POST IT before they even made contact and ensure they accept their offer and CAN come to their event. (Dunno how Rohaz’s logic works)
1. This EO never handled guests well, all guests invited in the past, the responsibility of handling the guest were nonchalantly given to random ppl or fans.
Fact : Ive seen my friend been asked by the EO leader to deliver a guest to the airport on their flight back date, and no member of the EO accompanied them, IT IS okay if you guys need our help, but dont abandon your responsibility and drop them to others just like that)
2. There is no fixed positioning on the organization body. All staff can be assigned any roles, and from CONFESS, I can conclude that they didnt have anything like technical meeting prior to the event date.
Fact : me and my friends were confused as so many of the volunteering staff are our friend, when we asked them about how is the system of the meet and greet session, or what is your job on this event, they said didn’t know because they didn’t get briefed by the leader. Even some of the staff that supposed to be higher-ups also said that they didn't know what are they supposed to do too.
3. This EO always take their job lightly and underestimating their job and roles.
Fact 1: like we mentioned above on 9th problem. The real staff of Violence Ent who were supposed to handle the merchandise selling leave his post and pass the responsibility to us and our friends who were coming only as visitors. We would like to say to those staffs who leave their post : Just because we are an acquaintance with you, doesnt mean you can pass responsibility of your job to random ppl, furthermore if it involves millions IDR amount of money. You can easily blame us if anything happened.
Fact 2: the fact that chihiro cant fly is because the one who bought the ticket for her misspelled her chinese name, resulted in her being not allowed to fly. (Why they didnt even double check for the name or at least confirm with her if her name already written correctly or no?). It’s funny how they can get her flight to KL right but KL-SBY wrong.
Fact 3: 2 of the guests from jakarta were heading into the most common airport used these days, called Soekarno Hatta Airport, only to found out that the ticket they were given is a flight from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport (old airport), which we also mentioned in the 7th problem. Soekarno Hatta Airport is in west jakarta, while Halim Perdanakusuma Airport is in east jakarta. In real time, it should be around 1-2 hrs to reach the other airport (info based on another guest from jakarta who already arrived in surabaya and having dinner with us), but it became 3-4 hrs because its a rush hour and it’s raining that time. Resulting in these 2 guests missed the flight and need to take another flight in saturday morning. (made them very tired because they go back and forth to 2 airports and reach Surabaya by the morning of the event date and already have to prepare for the event). The EO claim that they didnt even know about that. (sigh)
4. This EO always blame other innocent ppl for what should have been their responsibility (scapegoating), should something bad happened like ppl rage to them for being not doing well in their job.
Fact 1: there is 1 pattern that this EO always did almost in every event they made. They made a bunch of random visitors becoming instant volunteer to help doing whats supposed to be their job and responsibility, then when they are not performing well (always) and people rage, this EO suddenly claimed that it is those volunteers’s vault.
Fact 2: as you all may know already, that Thailand cosers Jiaki Darkness and Yuki Godbless are 2 of the overseas guests in CONFESS. You can see on their post about how dissapointed they are that this EO broke most of the contract and plan both party have agreed.
Jiaki’s post : https://www.facebook.com/jiakidarkness/photos/a.266893499989004.75551.139445679400454/1244978258847185/?type=3
Yuki’s post :
https://www.facebook.com/YukiGodblessCosplayer/photos/a.228620673816380.68242.128280893850359/1250293541649083/?type=3
and whats more, in the confess’s official video uploaded in youtube, its clear that they have stolen the video yuki used as background video for her anisong performance, yuki give me this link and she said you guys can see from this vid in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bovSm1r8Nk , try see 5:30-12:08 and compare with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfleNnGeO3I <-- this is a visitor’s recording of her anisong performance on sunday, how do you think?
5. They never follow their own words, or any schedule they have made, everything is easy and can be compromised with ^^
is how their leader always depict of how he work. And he always make that face of being really lax like everything is always under control while theyre actually not. Many times their asses were being saved by extra instant volunteer such as my friends (which also helped them this time because they cant leave the guests who are their idols and also friendsalone and let them caught up in this fucked up turn of event by this EO)
Fact 1:
This event supposed to start at 10am, but i arrived there on 12, and the main gate to the venue still hasnt been opened yet. And as you may guessed, all these schedules didnt mean anything because the EO themselves didnt even follow the schedule they made and posted.
This event supposed to start at 10am, but i arrived there on 12, and the main gate to the venue still hasnt been opened yet. And as you may guessed, all these schedules didnt mean anything because the EO themselves didnt even follow the schedule they made and posted.
Fact 2:
The dinner supposed to be handled profesionally, yet this is the reply that my friend got for messaging the Contact Person in charge of the dinner, which later we found out that that number belongs to Rohaz himself.
The dinner supposed to be handled profesionally, yet this is the reply that my friend got for messaging the Contact Person in charge of the dinner, which later we found out that that number belongs to Rohaz himself.
Some of you indonesian who understand javanese must have understood, that we send this message to the contact person to sign up for the dinner with the guests, WITH FORMAL MESSAGE FORMAT. Yet he replied rudely and underestimating what it means being a contact person, when he himself who handle the page have posted it.
Fact 3 : 1 of their biggest negligence was that they buy Jiaki and Yuki a flight back to thailand WITHOUT ANY BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE.
Our friend Steven buy them the bagagge that the EO didnt buy, it cost a total amount of 1,2 million IDR and didnt get reimbursed by them at all. Basically this EO’s logic is that these guests only need their clothes which they wear, back to thailand and dont need to bring anything else right? (source : https://www.facebook.com/Arrakhis/posts/10154301570592870?comment_id=10154301687167870&reply_comment_id=10154302028102870&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D)
here is some proof that may help ensure you that these EO didnt buy any baggage allowance for their return flight
Conclusion :
We strongly recommend for anyone who will come as a guest, invited by Violence Ent/Rohaz, to think twice before accepting it. You have read this report, and now you know how they are as an EO. The decision is always yours to make. And it would be better if you have an acquaintance in the area/city/country who understand about japanese/cosplay conventions and events to be asked of “how does this EO fare” (feel free to ask me if it’s an event in Surabaya, I’ll gladly answer your question) , so that at least know how the track record of an EO before you accepted any offer they made. We have tried our best to prevent any further tragedy like this happened to our beloved local/overseas guest. The most victims are overseas guest because they dont know how the EO is. Finally, all we can say is, may God Bless this guy
