#J2 and R2M have great chemistry and R2M get to do their own thing. Misha has great chemistry with other cast members

[spacematriarchy]

Creation is going to try out streaming panels!

Pros:

The many people who are too far, not physically able to attend, or not well off enough financially can finally at least get in on the con experience legally. 

More people being able to participate at all MIGHT (i’m not holding my breath) spread the financial burden around a bit and halt the incredible price hikes just to get in the door, let alone get a good seat, at the conventions themselves.

Quality video! With audio from the sound board! Sweet fucking Jesus! My auditory processing disorder will no longer be infuriated by echo-y rooms and loud audience members!

I, for one, would much rather pay a reasonable price for content I love than consume it illegally, and this makes that an actual option.

At current, pick and choose what you want is nice. There’s always that one panel that you end up flipping through your phone during and it’d be nice to be able to avoid that. And also to not pay full price for Sunday when there are only two or three panels.

Cons:

It’s still on their schedule, and that just isn’t going to work for everybody. If you have to carve out your weekend to watch a video on the internet, that’s a big fucking inconvenience.

A 15$ price tag for 45 minutes. Guys, I know this is just a trail run, like NashCon was, but be honest about the fact that that’s not a reasonable price. If I purchased tickets for all four panels streaming on Saturday, I’d be paying 60$ US. I got my general admission ticket for Saturday at VanCon for 70$ US. If it’s not actually a discount to not be there, It’s not an attractive proposition. That 45 minutes is not super content heavy, and it costs more than a 2 hour movie? eeeeee idk

20$ for the SNS isn’t that bad, honestly, but if you’re expecting people who don’t have the cash to travel to 3+ cons a year to start paying to view the SNS multiple times in a year? Guy........ it’s the same concert. It’s a concert I love but a) you have to FUCKING LOVE Louden Swain and b) unless the guest list is really different, it’s a similar setlist every weekend. I paid 15$ for the NashCon SNS stream and that had the same guestlist, minus Jim Beaver, but plus Jensen freakin’ Ackles.

I’m not convinced on Creation’s set up quite yet, and I’m worried that this means those wonderful people who have been dedicated to uploading panel videos all these years will stop, and we’ll be left with an inferior option or no option at all.

Did um......... did any of you guys try the streaming ticket for Ladies of SPN Con? God love everyone involved, they were doing their very best, but if the stream goes down does the convention stop? Do the streaming fans get a refund? Obviously Creation has the resources to fix the problem faster than a teensy fan run event, but I worry about who gets shafted if something goes wrong, because when I think ‘Creation’ I don’t think ‘masters of audio visual presentation’. I think ‘literally name me one day the mics didn’t stop working halfway through a panel’

Stageit isn’t my fave platform. It works for what it was built for, tossing a few extra bucks to an indie band you like and paid pennies to see play in the livestream, but the tipping system is stressful and ripe for the exact kind of money grubbing Creation is known for. The need to buy notes, and then buy the tickets with those notes, is needlessly complicated.

Next steps (IMHO, and before having actually seen how the streaming goes):

A weekend pass to the stream. Maybe a season’s pass to the stream? At a fucking discount, none of this full GA pricing shit.

A streaming library of panels, like Comic Con HQ have. It’s not fucking convenient to block out three days to watch a series of 45 minute videos. Honestly, I watch panel videos in the bath, or I play the audio while I’m driving. It’s also nice to have an archive when, at least for me, the SPN Family is an equal and almost seperate fandom, in which social media and panel videos are the canon. If we’re going to shift over to legal streams, there needs to be an archive, or half the purpose of illegal panel videos is lost. I’d probably pay a few bucks a month for access to a back catalog of panel videos! I’d probably pay a dollar or two a video for older videos. Obviously it would take a year or two to build up a back catalog since they haven’t been recording until now.

I might buy tickets to the R2M and J2 panels, depending on if I’m working that weekend. We’ll see how it goes!