Toko ’17 T-Minus 5 Weeks: The Houses Explained
That’s right people, there are less than 5 weeks left until Tokonatsu, and, that means only 5 weeks to either get a ticket or Just over 2 weeks topre-order one of the fantastic T-Shirts / Hoodies that are available this year. (Note, all pre-orders need to be in by 10th July 2017)
Most of you will already know all about Tokonatsu, and have been attending for years, and so you will also know all about how we have grown, and the new events that we have to offer. However, if you are new, if you are a friend of someone reading this, and thinking “What is Tokonatsu?” then we plan to help you out with posts covering the key sections of Tokonatsu over the weeks leading into Toko!
Tokonatsu is the longest running outdoor anime festival in the UK. Running in our current format since 2005, we have been year on year adding to what we have to offer for our attendees, these will make up the topics of my posts over the coming weeks.
We try to strive to be a community, and not just a standard convention. We care about our attendees, and we care that they have the best time while they are with us. One of the ways we look to engage in this is via the use of the House system.
Houses
The easiest way to explain how the house system works is probably to liken it to Harry Potter. There are 4 houses with 4 colours associated with them, Green, Blue, Red and Orange (poor Hufflepuff…) and as the event goes on, you take part in activities, you earn points for your House.
As with Harry Potter, the house with the most points at the end of the festival wins that years House Cup, along with the pride and gloating rights of being in the winning house.
In previous years, your house would change year in year out, but now, to help foster the spirit of community and competition with your fellow attendees, once you’ve been “sorted” into a house (you can choose on registration, but you may be sorted if numbers are unbalanced) you will be in that house forever, representing your team each year.
Leading your Team will be your Captain, whom represents the soul and body of what it is to be in your house. They will always be the most outstanding member of your team from a previous year, having gained the greatest number of house points, as well as proving themselves in other ways throughout the festival leading up to their Captaincy. It will be their job to inspire you, to round you up, and to get you to events. How they do all this, well, that’s up to them, but we’ve seen capes and head bands employed to name a couple!
As per our post on the houses, this year the houses will be the four major Houses of the Japanese Heian period. Being that Tokonatsu is all about Japanese Culture, you will have the opportunity to learn a bit about your house during the festival, or you can check out our post on them here for those eager to know more now: http://192.168.0.22/2017/tokonatsu-2017-house-names/
Every year, the competition is close, so close that last year the winner was decided by the roll of a die (#bluedragon, #neverforget13 #notbiasedatALL). So it makes it all the more important that you take part and cash in your house points for the glory of your house!
You may be wondering what I mean by cash in, aren’t the points just automatically awarded to you? Well nay, that is not the case. You will be awarded a number of tokens (as little as one, but can be many more!) for turning up and taking part in most of the events run at Toko, and winning teams at the events are liable to earn more.
With your newly won tokens, you can choose to exchange them directly to house points at the designated zone, or you can have them converted into perks cards. These will have effects that can either boost your team in an event at a specific time, or that will cost another team if used wisely.
Any tokens that you do not hand in by the deadline, will not be counted. This can and does make a difference, make sure you get them in, as you don’t want to be the one standing there with the key token in your pocket as your team loses by one point!
So that pretty much sums up the houses, if you want to join in on the fight head over to Tokonatsu Registration now and get your place reserved! I can guarantee, Tokonatsu wouldn’t be the same without you!
~ Rezal
