Last night I preregistered for Anime Expo 2011 and booked a hotel for my stay there. Even though the con is still months away and hardly anything about its events is known yet, I can’t contain my excitement and am already making tentative plans in my head. It also got me thinking that, despite the fact that we all love anime, fans have a variety of reasons for why they go to conventions…
Some fans go to cons strictly for the guests – seiyuu, directors, singers, or whoever – and will wake up at the crack of dawn and stand in line for hours just to attend the guests’ events and get autographs. Whether favorable guests will be appearing or not often determines if they’ll even go to the con. Others go mostly for cosplaying and prefer hanging out in their costumes over going to other events. Still other fans go just to buy things in the Exhibit Hall or Artist Alley (I believe they used to sell passes just for those places). Casual fans of anime might spend most of their time playing video games in the arcade or console gaming room, or watching whatever anime is showing in the viewing rooms. Others make sure to attend all the industry panels because they’re interested in all the latest news from (what’s left of) the American anime companies. And still others care mostly for the big events like the AMV Contest and Masquerade, or making the cut in AX Idol. It really is interesting how there are so many reasons for why people attend big anime conventions like AX.
My reasons for going to anime conventions has been pretty steady for the past few years. I mostly enjoy perusing the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley for hard-to-find anime characters goods. Seeing cosplayers and snapping photos of excellent ones is fun too. If there are panels and guests I’m particularly interested in, I’ll work them into my schedule but they’re not the deciding factor for whether I’ll attend cons or not. I’m only willing to go so far when it comes to waiting in hectic lines for hours when I could be using that time to enjoy myself elsewhere at the con. It has to be something I’m dying for if I’m going to sacrifice many hours of my time at the con in line (also why I don’t have much motivation to attend the AMV Contest or Masquerade even though I love AMVs and seeing cosplay). Thus, as much as I loved May’n and Megumi last year, going to their concert was enough and I wasn’t going to jump through hoops to get their autographs (I don’t ever want another AX ’07 experience). If people like Nagaru Tanigawa or Satoshi Tajiri were guests however, that would be a different story XD
Buying goodies and attending events I like are major reasons I go to cons, but lately my main reason is to do something I rarely get to do otherwise – meet up with lots of friends and fellow anime fans in person. Since 2006, I always run into at least a few people I know that I wasn’t necessarily planning to meet at anime cons. At AX ’07 I coincidentally met ten people from high school or college that I hadn’t seen for years, and last year I managed to meet up with just about all my friends from my university anime club. Also at AX ’10, there were two meet-ups specifically to bring together blogger and Twitter anime fans. One was a larger, general one organized by Debi Aoki, and the other was a smaller one specifically for anibloggers organized by Shinmaru. If Shinmaru doesn’t want to organize another blogger meet-up this year, I’d be happy to (though it would probably be better for someone who will have Internet at the con). Hopefully everyone who came last year – omo, Neo-Shonen Fujoshi, zzeroparticle, CCY, Mystlord, and the staff of Anime Diet – will be able to meet up again. And I know f0calizer and Ultimatemegax would like to join too, and perhaps have a karaoke session in Little Tokyo =D
During every summer starting in 2005, I had either a trip to Japan or Anime Expo. Since I doubt I’ll be going back to Japan anytime soon, I want to make this AX ’11 one to remember! I was originally going to stay only three days until I realized that the 4th of July will be a Monday this year, which means I shouldn’t have work. So perhaps I’ll be able to stay the full four days after all =D It’ll be hard to make any concrete plans for a while until AX gets their schedule together and people know whether they’ll be able to go or not, but it can’t hurt to start thinking ahead ^.^
I know we’ll have a decent Nihon Review crowd there — myself, zzeroparticle and (I think) Kylaran will be back, and Eternal is coming down from Canada for AX. Should be good times! I’ll definitely arrange another meet-up if nobody else wants to step up, but I’ll need to see if I can find a better meet-up spot lol
That’s great news! ^_^ I’ll be looking forward to it.
Count me in, Shinmaru! =D This time I’ll try to stay more than 8 minutes or so… ;)
I guess half of the fun in a trip is in the planning :) I hope all your plans go well, and you get to go and have lots of fun! I’ve never even seen a one of those conventions, so I have no idea what I would look forward to…
Thanks~
Where do you live? There’s a possibility there could be a convention near you. And if not, perhaps if you travel somewhere you’ll find one ;)
AX is the biggest gathering of anime fans in the U.S. … I think the two anime blogger meet-ups last year also really shifted my perspective on how I want to spend my time at AX. I will be on my own for some things, just doing my own thing, but those meet-ups were great & I will definitely make time for as many of them as people want to do. ;)
Cool! I assume you’ll be commuting the four days? Even though I meet a lot of friends at cons, I too like to do my own thing most of the time since it’s rare for everyone to want to spend their time there the same way. But I hope to meet up with you at our blogger meet-up at least ^.^
You remind me that I need to get cracking on cosplays for this years’ AX and step up my saving to go spend in the Exhibit Hall for like, the first time in several years??? Seriously, I never feel like my con experience is complete without finding and buying a special something (like the set of Rozen Maiden character keychains I picked up at AX ’06; LOVE those!). XD
But if you can, please do keep me updated on your plans so we can meet up at some point during the con, okay? I’m not 100% sure I’m going to be able to afford to go yet (my job sitch is kind of shaky atm), but I’d love to hang out and see you if I do. ^ ^
I’d love to see you too~ I’ll let you know about meet-up plans and you let me know about whether you’ll be able to attend =D
I’ve never been to any convention of any sort, only conferences for presenting academic papers :p Stuffy, yes. I’m hoping to go to Comicon this year in Chicago, but after reading your blog here, it sounds like AX is definitely more up my alley. Maybe a first time trip warrants the full 4 days, but if you go often, do you think 2 days is enough for just the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley?
Comicon (at least the one here in San Diego) is a much more general con that includes American comics/animation just as much as anime/manga. Because of this, it’s a lot harder to register, get a hotel, etc., since it has more attendees (from what I’ve heard at least as I’ve never actually been to Comicon). Anime Expo on the other hand, is just for anime and manga.
Two days would definitely be enough if you just want to peruse the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley and not attend any major events. I went two days last year and was able to do just that, plus a bunch of others things =) I would recommend going the first two days of the con and getting into the Exhibit Hall as soon as possible since the good stuff tends to run out by the time the con is over.
AX will be the big summer con for me too. I’m really hoping they get a fabulous musical guest after May’n and Megumi Nakajima’s appearance last year. We can see cosplayers and buy merchandise at other venues, but concerts are a rare experience!
Another unforgettable concert would be great…though I don’t know who’s left that I would be dying to see. I doubt Megumi Hayashibara will come XD I’m not sure if there’s anyone I want to see enough to buy a concert ticket – but I could be pleasantly surprised!
That sounds cool. I wish i could go, i’ve been wanting to go to Cali for a while since some relatives invited me over there. I was going to go to an Otaku Fest at a school nearby but now i can’t go becuase of a track meet. (Invitational actually.) And i know that my coach would figure out a way to leagally kill me if i didn’t go. SIGH. Well hope you have fun!
bye.
–End–
That’s too bad, but I do hope you’ll be able to go to an anime gathering of some sorts one day, whether near you or in CA =)
This will be the first year I go to more than one convention (Anime Central AND Sakura Con!) so I’m pretty excited. Don’t know if I’ll ever get to make it to Anime Expo but have fun!
Thanks for all the kind words! We do have some pretty amazing concerts planned for this year. One that will be amazing, from a “Special Guest”that has never before “performed” in the US. Good luck trying to figure that one out.
Hope to see you there.
– Marc