Madison E. James - ETSU-Con 2023

For all fans of anime, comics, video games, and more…
ETSU-Con is one of ETSU's largest annual events
celebrating all things pop culture !

Nowhere else will you witness the paths of education, fandom, and community merge into what we can only describe as a weekend to remember!

ETSU-Con celebrated it's eighth show on April 1-2, 2023 with featured guests Grey DeLisle, Kira Buckland, and Alejandro Saab. I was appointed as Con-Manager for its tenth year, alongside holding my position as Marketing Director, and Social Media Manager.

Since this was my seventh year involved with the event, I was involved in event budgeting, marketing, designing graphics, community outreach, sponsorships, contract writing and negotiating.

Designing an event with a $42,000 budget

For this year's ETSU-Con, I worked alongside Con-Chair, Hanna Sigmund, to design the event and curate an opportunity for the community unlike anyone in the Tri-Cities had ever seen before.

When Hanna and I started ETSU-Con, we both agreed that we wanted to bring back some aspects of the show that was important to us personally. This included- but was not limited to- campus involvement, student recruiting, and professional development opportunities for students that they would not otherwise be able to have outside of the area.

My industry job at the time was at The High Road Agency, a full-scale branding and marketing agency that focused in events and tourism.

Experience Focuses:

1. Heavy emphasis on community involvement
2. Mentoring students for event & leadership roles
3. "One-of-a-kind" event ; "unlike any other ETSU-Con" before
4. Rebranding to feel more professional
5. Setting a standard for future events

"Student experience" is a phrase that I take pride in, considering how this event was something that I was involved in as a student. Student organizations at ETSU are allowed to participate in tabling events hosted by Student Activities & Organizations, in order to recruit students to participate. Through my role as Marketing Director, I noted through my years that personable tables that were unique in design and activities allowed an opportunity for students to engage with the organization.

The more of a memory we could make, the easier it would be to foster involvement.

From pop culture trivia with prizes, to panning for gold during "Western Week", ETSU-Con saw a variety of students with an array of backgrounds and histories... all whom came together for a common narrative of a love for pop culture, or the fun they had with us.

Student recruitment began shortly after the Fall 2022 semester began in order to grow a new team of students for our eighth show.

ETSU students attended various interest meetings and learned about leadership roles they could take on for 2023, as well as ask questions about the show.

Students who signed up for leadership roles were competitively interviewed via Zoom, and placed in positions where we deemed was best fit for their abilities, and skill sets.

In November 2022, I had selected eight undergraduate students from various programs across East Tennessee State University to mentor them on my social media & marketing team.

My students attended bi-weekly lectures about the introduction to marketing, social media management tactics, learning industry words, as well as understanding the new brand identity for ETSU-Con.

Students respond positively when recognized for their efforts, or for new roles that they've worked for. We designed special "award" events for students, recognizing them as new Staff members of ETSU-Con.

We spent endless weekends and nights negotiating with agents to fit a niché that our area, and students, deserved. Our tactic was selecting voice actors that were not common to the area, as well as obtaining sponsorships from outside sources that were inside and outside East Tennessee State University.

The hardest part: finding agents that would also agree to our policy for one (1) free autograph for attendees, since roughly a third of our attendees were students from various financial backgrounds. Since this was a core motto that had been integrated since the beginning of ETSU-Con's conception, I fought hard for our community.

Kira Buckland and Alejandro Saab both agreed to this for our students, while Grey agreed to a discounted rate to help our students.

Geofenced voice actor announcements for ETSU-Con 2023, happening in Johnson City, TN- with sponsorship logos
(designed by me)

Student social media posts (designed by undergraduates on my marketing committee)

A focus on cohesive branding, across all social media. Students on the marketing committee worked together with me to learn about how to read a brand guide to create designs similar in nature- while reducing my workload for social media and design.

ETSU-Con 2023 had partnerships with Visit Johnson City, and Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association to market the event to the Tri-Cities as an event welcoming families across the region.

By being listed on these calendars, it also helped drive ticket sales for the April event. Our event was put on these calendars around November.

Visit Johnson City helped market ETSU-Con through collaborative Instagram posts up until the event in the spring.

News Interviews on WJHL (2023)

ETSU-Con Partners Released

We needed help marketing the event, but when working with students I had heard several times about the stories of student organizations having to shut down due to the lack of involvement with club members. I sought out various student organizations on East Tennessee State University to partner with our 2023 event for the chance to market their organization in exchange for hosting a panel, an event, or MC'ing for our guests.

Ten student organizations ranging from the Buccaneer Anime Club to ETSU Buctainment joined us for this event, filling up our schedules, and giving the chance to promote themselves to 2,000+ people during the weekend event.

Marketing committee mentoring continues...

As we get closer to the event, my students start designing panel graphics for our ETSU-Con Partners for
additional experience, as well as for their portfolios.