DeathJester

The value of musical guests are always going to colored by individual preferences so I hope that Otakon never runs an on-site ticketed concert again. If an opportunity like another Anisong Matsuri comes to Otakon, then the event should be held off-site. The acoustics in the convention center are not good enough to justify buying a ticket within a ticket. Even if they get a big name like RADWIMPS then only existing fans are going to pony up extra to buy the additional concert ticket instead of exposing their music to any attendee that is willing to line up. The VIP packages or preferred seating upcharges is a good enough compromise to keep the concerts free while building more capital towards future musical guests. Also, could you imagine the outrage if you had to start buying tickets for individual movie premieres in the video rooms? It devalues the Otakon membership once you have to start asking yourself if the thing you want to do is included in a $90+ weekend badge.

Wikipedia is never a source of primary information. It is a index and summary of information posted elsewhere. Always check the citations if you need to confirm hard facts because if it is not clearly marked where the contributor got their information then it might as well be information that came from my uncle who works at Nintendo. Even if it is not malicious, the Wikipedia 29,000 attendance figure was not properly cited and it referred the total attendance count rather than the unique memberships so it was a misleading year over year comparison.

Always take Wiki information with a grain of salt unless they have a citation source. Since we're on the topic of attendance figures, Otakon "felt" more busy so I wonder if the wider adoption of single day "Trial" badges got more people into the convention center. I would rather see the convention have a steady 10% growth than the claustrophobic nightmare that was the 2013-2014 attendance explosion. Right now there is a good balance between having enough people to make a lively atmosphere and full activities without the problems that come with overcrowding.

https://twitter.com/Otakon/status/1153273603431030785 They have been pretty clear that they are not printing schedules because with the lead time required for mass printing any pamphlet they give out would be inaccurate by the start of the con. You could have just printed your own copy before leaving for the con or use the digital signboards that were all over the con.

Asian Kung Fu Generation. I'm going to keep requesting and hopefully one day it can happen.

That was the RPG Anthem Variations performance for acoustic music fans- Eric Roth of Final Fantasy Distant Worlds ran that panel. There was also a DJ set by Taku Takahashi so electronic music was covered also.

The GOOD: - Everything I went to ran smooth and efficiently. Any panel that was near or at capacity had staff managing the lines so I did not waste any time waiting on something I could not get into. The Friday Nujabes tribute concert started late, but it was only a 20 minute delay which is reasonable given that there were prepping for 4+ sets back to back. - Convention entry management was very smooth, I never had to wait more than 3 minutes even during peak hours. There weren't any places that got cut off due to attendee bottlenecks thanks to the aforementioned line management. - My friends really appreciated the cold brew coffee stations set up throughout the convention to get their quick jolt of caffeine. Ditto for the Wild Bill's soda cups- I saw so many people walking around with those steel mugs. I have a feeling that the "Unlimited Beverage Vendor" idea might offset the stupidly priced $5 convention water bottles. - Cosponsoring the Thursday Hip Hop panel and lawn concert at the Library of Congress was a great way to have an official Thursday activity and was a nice preview of things to come at Otakon proper. I hope the Thursday off-site programming continues. - The tournaments in the game room using smash.gg to manage the brackets is a great improvement. Props to UGL for streaming the Top 8s even though there is now video evidence of me getting blown up. - Heard there was some potential issues with the Arcade cabinets being brought to Otakon, so I am glad to see the issue resolved and the Arcade section was at full force. - Shout out to everyone working the photosuite area. They were great at their job and helped us out when the USB stick we purchased stopped working when we were transferring the files to a laptop. Nitpicks: - There were some odd scheduling choices of competing panels overlapping that I was not sure if it was intentional to avoid overcrowding. For example the Lupin the 3rd fan panel was at the same time as the Lupin movie premiere so I wonder what the turnout for the panel was. In the late night track there was a Shibari panel at the same time as a Shibari workshop, which is what prompted me to think that this might be an intentional crowd management strategy. - Since the smash.gg tournament signups are free please have a tournament check in before the brackets are created. There was a lot of time wasted in round 1 because of no-shows and the players who show up on time should have a higher seeding. - Bag check for the Saturday Dance was very slow- but the obvious solution next year is to hold all my wife's things in my pockets to skip that whole process. The BAD: - I was surprised to hear that people had issue bringing in food or drinks through security. My group got in with energy bars, granola packets, and water bottles without issue. Maybe there needs to be a posted guideline so that Security, Otakon Staff, and the attendees can all be on the same page about what types of food are allowed in the convention center (e.g. sealed bottles are good, loose McDonalds cups are bad). The UGLY: - This is a venue management issue but the convention food is still trash, the prices on everything is trash, and the fact that Aramark isn't paying their workers enough is trash. I wouldn't mind paying the convention "tax" if it meant that the local workers were making good overtime money but seeing their workers on strike outside means there is no way I'm paying for a $12 con-burger.

What would you say is the defining characteristic of a "Western-style anime con"? If you are picturing a mostly fan-organized event then that is what Comiket already is. If you are picturing something that has industry panel rooms, vendor halls, and creator autographs then there are events like AnimeJapan and Wonderfest. If you are picturing something like Otakon that straddles between industry and volunteer efforts, well that might be a phenomenon that is unique to Western audiences because the local fan-generated content is used to fill the gaps that are too expensive to fly Japanese guests for every programming track.

Wrestlers have been making more appearances at conventions between the standard comic-con bookings, Xavier Woods going to Magfest and PAX, and Kenny Omega partnering with CEO. I don't think it is outside of the realm of possibility to invite some indie wrestlers that have or are still working in Japan. In fact I think the STARDOM women's wrestlers would make for a great panel.

Copy Pasting a reply I made in the Post-2018 section because it will be more visible here: That being said, if you are a student with a tight credit limit then OP's suggestion of having an extra $200 available is good advice.