convention drama

The Rise and Fall of Anime Expo
http://pub130.ezboard.com/fanimeexpofrm4.showMessage?topicID=128.topic

I've been to this thing twice. I advise everyone out there to go once, just to see it before collapses under its own weight.

The first time I went was 2000, where I stared in bewilderment at the awful mismanagement and asked every senior veteran person I could find, "Where's all this money going?"

I went again in 2001, only because some friends really wanted to go. With the interesting half of the events broken or 2+ hours late, all staffed by poorly trained and poorly educated 13-year old children, it dawned on me: Someone's on the take.

After reading this (all of it), now it's really obvious: They're all on the take.

News that shapes your world. I'm curious, what do you think?


jn

This does sound pretty messed up to me. Isn't Anime Expo in California? I'm an east coast gal myself so I can't get to those conventions. The only one I could go to was Otakon (Baltimore MD), which was pretty nice and well organized, despite the fact that it had NO good anime or manga artists. I guess that was to far for people to want to come from Japan, sorta disappointing though.

You're in luck then, because I haven't been to many cons but Otakon is by far the most well-organized and most fun out of all the conventions I've seen. Everyone who wanted to got to meet the two or three Japanese guests. Dealer's room had plenty of space to walk in the aisles. Events started mostly on time. Nothing was cancelled without a really good reason.

The only drawback is that Baltimore just isn't a tourist city. Not in the way that New York and LA are tourist cities, at least. Anime Expo has all of the credentials to attract star guests, but very little to make it actually fun. I think that guests and "some other friends are going" are the only two reasons left to go.

If you like waiting in lines, waiting in outdoor lines during a rainstorm, waiting for things to be cancelled, having guests spirited away by ill-trained volunteers before the guests themselves want to stop talking to fans, or watching 1 episode of every bad anime you've ever considered avoiding from the current crop of new licenses by American publishers, then this also may be the con for you.

The guests being kept from fans thing was particularily annoying. Mahiro Maeda (Blue Sub 6, Animatrix) and Yasuhiro Nightow (Trigun) were guests in 2000, and they had to sneak away from their "handlers" to talk to fans. Maeda could speak quite a bit of English and mentioned to a small group of fans that he had to autograph and doodle quickly before he got in trouble with the convention staff. In another situation, I don't remember his name, but another guest overruled his handler out of (what appeared to be) outright frustration and asked a fan to bring her item back for an autograph after being brushed off by the volunteer.

The point is (tying it with the payoff scandal issue above) is that it's apparently been quite some time since Anime Expo has paid any attention to what its fans, veteran staff, and even guests want.

Don't worry. You're not missing anything. Go to Otakon. Last I checked, it still paid attention to its fans. I sincerely hope they overtake AX in head count one day so they can have a statistic to throw out to prospective guests.


jn

And I use to feel unlucky because I hadn`t been to any anime(USA)cons... Now, I feel relieved.

I get the greed part, the rivarly, the struggle with incompetence,the struggle with poor management, even the apparent fiscal corruption (Many usual corporate expansion problems, when there is no structure set up for scaling up)

But, what really shocked me was the misuse of anime guests, fans, and customers (the very heart and soul) and even down to the confiscation of sketches and artwork intended for prize winning fans. If true, that is just down right dirty, low down, and unforgivable. I for sure will not be putting any money down for any (Anime Expo) anime cons that exploit the very fans that it is meant to serve.

"That's all I have to say about that" (Forrest Gump)

E