I love giving panels and being the attention whore that I am I double love it when I get big crowds. One thing I've noticed is that panels in general have a hard time building an audience. What I mean by this is that your numbers highly fluctuate with each con and you can fill house at one show but then get pitiful numbers in another only fill up seats again. It's vary rare that a panel can build its numbers up from con to con. Sure you can advertise at the con and on social media but it seems your at the mercy of the attendees. Even if you promote AND do a good panel, its no guarantee that your next outing is going to be as impressive. Meanwhile doing the same panel at the same con the following year will yield similar numbers.
The reason why I ask this is that I notice that panels like the cosplay wrestling federation are one of the examples of a show that can walk into any con and fill its seats. Not to mention on repeat cons in following years they've actually manage to out grow their rooms and get placed in larger venues. Obviously the panel's quality has helped in its popularity but when it comes to promotion, they don't seem to do be doing anything really unusual and employ the same strategies as everyone else. Is it simply word of mouth that's attracting people and the CWF is fortunate enough to have passionate fans? If I want to have a panel who's numbers actually GROW, what would I need to do?
Obviously I can't expect myself to get results similar to the CWF but I'd at least want to outgrow the 20/30 person rooms I'm in
Well what kind of panel are you running? Is it fandom specific? Niche?
I've done a panel on speedruns that got 20 people and I've done a Homestuck panel that filled a 200 person theatre.
A lot of it depends on what your panel is
It might just depend on the programming as well. At what time was your panel held? Did it overlap with other events or panels that are relevant to your target audience?
If you can compare this data for each panel you did, maybe you can see a pattern.
>>9076030
If your panel sucks, no amount of promotion or word of mouth will help you.
Check your panel titles also. I won't check out a panel if the title of it isn't interesting or attention grabbing.
>>9076189
I kinda have the same question as OP as usually I do lecture based panels analyzing certain media influences on anime or going over director styles.
I can understand how a Homestuck or a Jojo panel will pull in good numbers given how the fandoms are still pretty hot right now. However how did non fandom specific panels manage to grow their ranks?
It really depends on what your panel is. If you're doing a basic lecture panel like one on cosplay prop-making or an intro to visual novels, you're probably not going to get a big audience no matter how informative you are. People come to cons to have fun, usually those who go to lecture panels are either a small niche of people who are genuinely interested in the topic or bored attendees looking to kill time.
Lecture panels are a dime a dozen, and are just as common as fandom panels, except unlike fandom panels they don't have a large fanbase to ride off of. I think that's the key here- you keep mentioning the CWF, and I think the main reason shows like that one, Anime Hell, and Banzai Arcade aren't successful just because they have a fanbase, but because they provide something different: entertainment. These panels are more like standalone events at the convention they're at, and that's why they can travel all over and be given large panel rooms for their shows. Even Homestuck Q&A panels succeed because they still promise a form of entertainment for the attendees.
So maybe if you offer a level of fun, interactivity, or competition for the audience in your panel's title or description, it may attract more people to attend, at least over the five other lecture panels going on at the same time.
>>9077115
This is a very good answer. Thank you so much for posting it
>>9076030
make a Trump panel.
