Otakon 2024: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Revan 45]

Just got back from DC - 7 hours ago I was in the WEWCC, 4 hours ago Union Staiton, now home - and wanted to open it up.

First of all, happy 30th to Otakon! It's been quite a trip for both me and you. I was hoping for a pearl badge holder (being my 30th Ota 😁), but oh well...

Now, on to business. This isn't everything, just OTTOMH.

The Good:

- Getting in was a breeze. The only time I had any hassle was when my umbrella set off the detector on Saturday night. Other than that there was no waiting to get in the convention center.

- I bought a lot (too much) merch this year - I dropped enough to get the pigeon pin without intending to spend $100. I did get the dice (Did they sell out? I heard rumors of limited supply.), and I like the shirt you wear over your t-shirt (I got 2 of them because I wear those kinds of shirts regularly.) I even had a nice conversation with the person in line behind me while waiting. However, see The Ugly below for the serious downside to this whole endeavor.

- Nice to see the Otamuseum expanded to the whole display. It was fun to see the original Day's Inn mapped out on the floor of the exhibition - it brought back memories of the Dealer's Closet. (Was it only 32'x22'?) Though it was still rather sparse for what was presented - not significantly more than the previous museum, but in a larger area.

- Merging Artists' Alley and the Dealers' Room saved a lot of steps going from one to the other. Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience or the endurance to go truly pay attention to the artists' wares after going through the dealers, so I didn't really get the chance to really look at their works to buy. (I only bought from one place, where I usually try to support a couple.)

- The panels I went to were for the most part really fun. I enjoyed some more than others, but overall they were good.

- The stamp hunt was cute. I got even more steps in filling them out.

- The water stations were a blessing (even though they've been there for a while). So much better than trying to find a water cooler w/ a bottle that had any water in it.

- Matsuri was fun, though I mostly walked through it. It's funny, my trivia wheel question was 'Where was the first Otakon?' I told the host 'Days Inn State College', and was told I was the first person all day to actually give the venue as well as the location.

- I had a good talk with one of the staffers and the 30th anniversary exhibition about the early cons (Grognards talking about 'the Good Old Days' of 24 hour video rooms and tiny hotels).

The Bad:

- This was a personal thing, but the 30th anniversary ribbons. I saw people with them on their badges, and I was told that 'someone was giving them out' when I asked about it. I asked the Staff at the Info desks, but no one knew where. The thing that really torqued me off was one person told me he got it when he picked up his badge at registration - those of us who preregister don't get a chance for it, those who get it at the door can get it?! I checked the badge booth area and couldn't find them there either. I searched for 2 days throughout the convention center and never found one - either at a booth or someone handing them out. I was fortunate that my brother found one for me, but still, it doesn't mean I'm not irritated by the whole thing. (I would still love to get my hands on the red and gold one, but it's unlikely at this point.)

- Timing of programming in some cases. The MAT3K retrospective started at 11PM, and since I wasn't at the Marriott this year I didn't want to stay at the con too late and travel.

 

The Ugly:

- Friday's line con for the merch booth. I was in there, and it took me almost 3 hours to go through it. (I timed it: in line at 2:44, got to the 2nd line at the actual booth at 4:40, and finally got my stuff at 5:27. I got from Philly to DC in less time than it took to get from one line to the other - a distance of what, 500 feet?! I'm sure it was better at different points, but I was there at that time and had only a certain window available to me. Throw in the FOMO of certain items (rumors abounded about things like the dice being sold out while we were waiting in line, the card reader wasn't working, etc.) and the sunk cost (we'd already spent an hour or more in line, and the line was even longer from where I got in it.) Maybe there's a way to give people waiting in line a preorder list they can fill out to speed things up? (I understand this doesn't account for impulse buying - I picked up a few things because they were there - but maybe it could help.) Another idea that came up was having the items displayed online or somewhere the people in line could see so they can decide before time. (I don't know the logistics behind it, we were just spitballing during the interminable wait.)

Various and Sundry:

- The weather seemed okay, for the limited amount of time I was out there. (The typical hot and humid DC summer.) The only exception was the rain on Saturday night, but I was already inside by the time it started.

- I'm sure with the weather being what it was, some people wished the room marked 'Staff Pool' had an actual pool in it.

- The 18+  badges were different this year. Any reason for the changeover, or just what was available.

- I accidentally made a smart move for the con. I picked up some napkins from the various food areas that came in really handy when I hit a restroom that ran out of paper and didn't have dryers.

- Did anyone try the Escape Room? I noted it on the map, but didn't really see it until I was near the AMV theater this morning.

 

Edited August 4 by Revan

[Hauser Two 5]

2 hours ago, Revan said:

- Did anyone try the Escape Room? I noted it on the map, but didn't really see it until I was near the AMV theater this morning.

 

I'm sorry, "Escape Room"?????? 👀

[Attendee7000 35]

The Good:

• I liked the stamp rally. I know it was basically a Laid Back Camp promo (taking a cue from the stamp rally in one of the earlier seasons) but it would be a neat thing for Otakon to do in the future. Move the stamp locations year to year so people see different things.
• I never had an issue with a line. Not much more to say about this but it means things went pretty smooth.
• I really liked the open wall between the Dealer's Room and Artists' Alley
• Otakon is still getting good panels, which makes me really happy.
• Great array of guests this year too. Thrilled to see Mangaka which are usually rare to see as guests for various reasons, and their panels were great too. Please, more of them in the future!
• I liked the 30th anniversary museum and the outline on the floor. Amazing to see how small that first year's space was.
• Convention Center Staff. Otakon and the Con Center staff seemed to really be on the same page this year. They seemed better informed about what the con wanted of them this year, rather than barking out vague instructions.

The Bad:

• Maybe we're getting to the point where Otakon will have to chase cosplay photography off that main landing in front of the Game Room. It's just getting too crowded up there now. This was the first time I've intentionally walked through the middle of a photoshoot because at one point there seemingly was wall to wall photography and there was no way through BUT in front of a photographer.
• I said no line issues, but I guess one minor one. Lining/seating for major events might need more time. The Delicious in Dungeon event hit its start time and the room was still only 2/3's full. It takes a lot more time to filter those lines in than they're scheduled for.
• The escalators from the game room landing to the lower level. It's poor design from the convention center only having 3, but it meant the con constantly had to keep reversing the middle escalator up/down, but there were still a lot of times where masses of people were waiting to go one direction or the other. Maybe Otakon has to come up with an entry point for that Northern-half of the building so that everyone doesn't have to use those 3 escalators.
• Speaking of bad convention center design, this was the first year I noticed that the convention center really does not have a whole lot of restrooms. No solution to this really, just an observation.
• The Otakon merch booth was a bit of a mess. And anytime anyone tried to get clsoe to see what was actually for sale, staff would chase them off thinking they were line cutters. So to repeat a request I made in the past, please don't have the merch line cross infront of the merch displays.

The Ugly:

• I didn't really notice anything reaching the level of "ugly" this year.

Edited August 5 by Attendee7000

[TnAdct1 35]

THE GOOD:

• Entering the Convention Center was a breeze each morning, with no lines to deal with like in previous years.
• Like Revan said, opening up the wall that separates The Dealers' Hall and Artists Alley allows for easier access between the two areas.
• Nice to see the arcade section of the video game hall to continue to grow, with the addition of pinball machines and return of the UFO Catcher machines that used to be at the Dealers Hall before the COVID pandemic.
• The premiere of AMV Hell 8 was a fun time for me. Along with seven of the segments I made making the cut, there's some fun seeing the clips that I saw in preview form on the AMV Hell Discord channel make the cut and entertain those in the AMV Theater (as well as informing those on the Discord on which clips made the cut).

THE BAD:

• Saturday afternoon, someone stole my Wild Bill mug after I misplaced it in the Video Game food court checkout/pick-up area. I do have a tendency to misplace my stuff and not notice what I did until I notice I'm missing something, but usually either I return to where I left it untouched or someone had found it, either kept it safe or turned it in to the info area/lost and found, and I got back my item. This time, when I misplaced it, I learned that someone took it and, after filing a lost item report in lost and found and checking back a few hours later, didn't bother to return it to its owner. Given how much it cost and how long it took to get it (an hour wait on Friday), having this happen had caused me to question whether I would even attend on Sunday and whether or not it's time for me to retire from attending cons, especially considering what happened the previous day.

THE UGLY:

• The handling of the Otakon Merch booth on Friday. Between Internet issues that prevented the staff from getting their gear before the room opened up to the public at noon and the people running register not having proper preparation beforehand, the line was slow as molasses, with me basically giving up after 90 minutes and instead waiting until Saturday morning to get my stuff. Next year, either the booth needs to add more cash registers, the merch area needs to move to a place outside of Dealers' Hall, or there needs to be a way to preorder items and pick them up at the con without having to worry about that long wait a la MAGFest in recent years.
• The huge pile of human feces that was on the floor in one of the third floor men's restrooms on Friday night. That sight made me not use that restroom for the rest of the con.

While programming was fine and I liked some changes, the mess of the Merch booth and the actions of some attendees had left a bad taste in my mouth in terms of Otakon this year.

[Clutch 87]

12 hours ago, Attendee7000 said:

The Bad:

• The Otakon merch booth was a bit of a mess. And anytime anyone tried to get clsoe to see what was actually for sale, staff would chase them off thinking they were line cutters. So to repeat a request I made in the past, please don't have the merch line cross infront of the merch displays.

There was a page in the center of the information packet book with available merchandise. However, the pictures were on the smaller side, with no descriptions. I had no idea what the stick in the upper right was. Is that a Crabby soccer ball in the photo? None of the pins appear to be on that page, either. It would be nice to have a web link on that printed page to go the Otakon site for bigger pictures and better details, maybe some scale/size measurements too.  On Saturday, someone was passing a packet of 8 1/2 x 11 pages down the line. Already knew what to get, so I did not look at it.

[xenoglossy 1]

The Good

- Cosplay meetups/photoshoots - I still love the new location (I can get my photos up so much faster when they don't need a ton of postprocessing to look less yellow!) and the mics/speakers this year were so, so helpful. I really hope we can get those again! 

- Like other commenters, I also liked the free movement between the dealers room and artists alley!

- I guess the makerspace has been around for five years at this point, but I'm slow on the uptake and didn't notice it until this year, and I thought it was really good! I love when cons have drop-in stuff like that to fill times when there's no programming that interests you, and I liked the balance it struck with having suggested projects but allowing people to do whatever they wanted.

- I feel like the fan panel selections skewed a little more scholarly this year than in past years, which I personally love, though others' mileage may vary.

- I think having fewer larger panel rooms was a good move, as I had a lot less trouble getting into the panels I wanted to go to than I remember having in past years, especially with popular returning panels.

The Bad

- I really miss the Photo Suite and I hope it comes back next year, though I get that they've been having trouble staffing it. 

- Despite the huge, website-breaking number of guests, the guest programming all seemed to be tightly focused around a small number of properties, with fewer "guest talks about their career in general" or "group of guests have a discussion on a theme not related to a specific series" panels. Since I wasn't interested in any of the specific series being discussed, the guest programming was a total wash for me.

- Now that the panel rooms in the back hallway of the first floor are bigger and more popular panels are scheduled there, that area really, really needs better line management, probably involving defined line areas or at least explicitly marked no-go areas in front of the doors.

The Ugly

- The AV people were AWOL pretty much all the time, and boy was their absence felt. I was lucky that pretty much everything worked as it was supposed to for all the panels I was running, but I can't say the same for the panels I attended. A lot of people seemed to be having sound issues, and in one case an AV tech showed up to troubleshoot said issues about 10-15 minutes after the panel started. I also noticed a consistent issue with a lack of mics (or a lack of working mics) for panels with more than 2 panelists.

- Otakon staff in general seemed to be making a lot of unforced errors. I know they're all volunteers and I try to cut them some slack, and I also know that there have always been communication issues around topics like accessibility policies, but I just felt like I ran into an unusually high number of situations this year where staffers seened uninformed or disorganized. For example:

I spent a lot of time on Friday trying to figure out where to check in as a panelist. Multiple staff members had no idea; finally someone directed me (specifically by room number, so this was not a misunderstanding on my part) to workshop ops. Fortunately the people at workshop ops were able to point me to panel ops down the hall, but it was a bit of a wild goose chase for information that could have just been in the acceptance or comp code emails.

At one panel, a staff member told the panelist she was out of time and had to leave when she still had 15 minutes left per the official schedule.

At another very popular panel, the staffer handling seating just let people sit wherever before the panel started (rather than consistently telling people to move in towards the center or anything like that) and then throughout the panel they were leading people in and trying to seat them in the middle of rows, which was very distracting.

On the flip side, at one point I approached a panel in progress that had no line outside, and as I was walking up, a group of people was exiting the room. However, the staffer on the door told me the panel was full and I could not go in - so either the people who had just walked out shouldn't have been let in to begin with (but only realized that 15 minutes in?) or the staffer turned me away because they just didn't want to deal with seating me.

At one point, after a guest panel in Panel 2, an official photo op with the guests was being run right in front of the door to the women's restroom.

At another point, a staffer doing line management in the back hall was trying to keep people from blocking one door, but the instructions they gave just led to people blocking a different door, which the staffer didn't seem to notice or try to address.

None of this is huge, but these and other minor irritations over the course of the weekend led to a general sense that a lot of people didn't know what they were doing.

I will say, though, that the staffer handling people entering and exiting during Sword Lesbians was fantastic and it all went very smoothly.

[EdKitten 72]

15 hours ago, Chillo said:

I'm sorry, "Escape Room"?????? 👀

Yeah, I didn't get there either.  In the information packet book, it was on the map.  Looked as if you went up the escalators from the Grand Lobby, and the AMC Theater was on your left, the Escape Room was somewhere on the right.

I've never been to an escape room, but there's one in Washington DC and one in Rockville Maryland.  The Rockville one is about 3 or 4 blocks-ish from the North Bethesda Metro, on the Red Line.

 

[EdKitten 72]

Oops -- I meant the AMV Theater.

 

[rotinoma 6]

Good

• Nice list of guests. Nobody I'm super into but lots of great ones regardless. Almost too many guests.
• I love that Otakon continues to deliver on light novel authors and Yurucamp. Yomi HIrasaka is hilarious I hope people got to hear him say funny things.
• The idolspace is better this year for the short period I got to see it
• Faster entrance/exit line and security theater
• The AA escalator situation is nice for the bulk of the con time, but it is congested.
• I didn't know what to expect for the cheki event for Uki Satake but that was a nice way to do it. Seiyuu cheki events are super rare even in Japan after all.

Bad

• The merch booth is super slow and not ready for what they were selling. That line was crazy long all 3 days. This level of bad is inexcusable for a con that is 30 years old, and I don't think there was a worse Otakon line this year. Is it really hard to add more points of sale or something? You had all weekend and it still didn't happen on Sunday. I hope Otakon never asks for donation ever again because literally the merch booth made hundreds/thousands people wait for hours to give the con money. It's as if Otakon did not want any of our money. That said it only took me like 40 minutes, which isn't the worst but that was first thing on Sunday morning, I'm used to 5 minutes at that booth at that time on Sunday. It is also the longest line I waited in all weekend, including autograph lines! That's kinda insane (but also props to the autograph staff).
• The autograph system for oversea guests is still putting life and limb in danger with the crushing crowd it creates. If Otakon wants to be an event that prioritizes attendee safety this has to be fixed. Having to wrangle Otakon autographs for multiple decades now I don't pretend to have a magic bullet. I only have experience to share. In 2024, Animazement, a smaller con, had great guests and great autograph lines because most people were able to be accommodated via a normal, staggered line up method. The guests were able to relay their autograph policy by the start of the day so there are no big questions (see next point). Acen 2024 (about the same size as Otakon I guess) is using Guidebook and digital reservation, that works great with minimal line management necessary. Even AX is using showclix queue-it for pre-con signups for 2024 and everyone is just happy that nobody needs to camp overnight for the most part. The lines are all civil and much smaller/easier to manage. Nobody needs to get hurt. More importantly no staff needed to scream into the crowd to say "don't push"! The way Otakon runs its autograph system is a systemic failure on a design level for safety, and it needs to be redone. We know there is high demand for a limited resource, but if somebody needs to be cut off, it shouldn't be a literal "survival of the best crowd pusher" system. Nobody likes lottery but nobody ever got crushed by one, so I actually rate the current system worse than that! And I would even say the current system can be run much better if the staff is better coached and just make some small improvements. For example, create a guided list to say before each wave of lineups, or stagger the lineup slightly, etc. Autograph staff, to me, seems frustrated and tired, and I think a large part of the fault lies in pre-con planning and the system design. If the autograph staff needs help from an attendee i can dial a lawyer if that's what's needed.
• The free autograph system also has the funko issue, documented in this post:I know lots of people who get Funkos signed are not going to resell but those pops are widely traded goods so it will draw the wrong crowd. And if a guest isn't going to sign figures or Funko or figures, this needs to be made clear and well in advance, just as a matter of fairness and making life easier for everybody. Design your lines so the attendees don't have to do this while the line is already capped lol. Anyways, the funko mafia was here and if you don't want to be overrun by them, please plan accordingly.

Ugly

• The period when the con opens till 1hr after dealers is opened is still kind of messed up, I get it for crowd control reasons you still have to go all the way to the back of Dealers escalator even if you want to go to Autograph or something. Not a Bad I guess but it can also be a bad thing.
• Something about a Flow and Garnet collab???
• Studio alf stuff wasn't really announced well enough in advance, it's hard to get info for their appearances.
• Several guest panels had technical issues with AV which seems odd for a con like Otakon. Nothing huge but those did eat into program time
• Line up for Aya Uchida autograph Sunday was backed into her panel on Sunday by 30 minutes so hardcore fans left her panel early. Are we back in the 2000s again with this sort of thing lol. Do people even remember those years...
• I think Otakon needs to change it up. It's really a middle-of-the-pack con in terms of its topline programming with a really good wide base of variety things. If not for Bandai Namco guests I think this con would have been a lot less hype (and I'm not even into Blue Lock lol). Need bigger splash guests and announcements! As an old geezer who enjoyed the Otakon 30th museum, it just reminds me how good this con USED to be, and how the last 5-8 years Otakon been kind of a well-oiled machine of mediocrity. Maybe bring back L'arc or something.

 

Edited August 5 by rotinoma

[CarolineAndJustine 4]

I spent most of the con with Xenoglossy so my experience wasn't too different, but I'm going to add a few things on.

The Good

- I loved having the dealers hall connection to the artists alley, and I thought both rooms were top notch this year! I loved the variety of stuff on display and wound up getting a bunch of great pins for my collection. 

- Fan panels this year were very much in line with my interests, and scheduling spread things out such that there was always something interesting to do. Guest panels were also pretty spread out on the schedule with surprisingly little overlap given the sheer number of guests this year. That meant if a guest panel filled (as they tend to do) there was always something else interesting nearby.

The Bad

- The number of things to do seemed to drop off sharply Friday night after dinner? There were only a handful of panels on the schedule and most of them filled quickly. Probably an issue with various people's schedules (guests, volunteers, and fan panelists) but hopefully something that can be easily fixed for next year 

- I couldn't find hours for the various dining options posted anywhere? Instead we had to physically check to see what was open and what wasn't. The grab and go stations were open late which was fantastic, but the vegetarian options were limited. If we knew that other places with vegetarian options were going to be closed by the time we were free for dinner we could have planned ahead.

- Panel acceptances went out super late this year? Not sure what was up with that. 

The Ugly

- I've gotta reiterate how baffling it was to have a guest photo-op blocking the women's restroom??? I have mobility issues this year so just finding another bathroom was a non starter. I don't know if this was pre-planned or spur of the moment on the part of the guests and their handler, but even if it was a last-minute idea staff should have intervened and moved them down the hall where there was more space (and better lighting). This was only a small incident in the grand scheme of things but I'm currently dealing with a foot injury and using a cane, so this was a bigger deal for me than it would have been otherwise.

- Carrying on from previous years, Ota accessibility is great but con center staff are frequently not on the same page. Is there anything that can be done to improve this? Once again I heard about incidents where disabled attendees were not given proper accommodations to get into the building in order to pick up their badges and accessibility ribbons, and both heard about and witnessed people with invisible disabilities being harassed for using the elevators. Ota staff is trying really hard here and I suspect this is a systemic issue with the venue staff, but unfortunately this kind of thing can ruin someone's whole weekend regardless of who's at fault so I thought I'd bring it up.

[marii 15]

16 hours ago, Chillo said:

I'm sorry, "Escape Room"?????? 👀

The Abandoned Classroom was the escape room! You had to buy tickets for it at $5 each for a timeslot. I was unwell so I was unable to go but my friends went and said it was a blast! They weren't allowed to take photos, but they said it was interactive and a classic escape room. I hope Otakon will bring them back next year!

2 hours ago, Clutch said:

There was a page in the center of the information packet book with available merchandise. However, the pictures were on the smaller side, with no descriptions. I had no idea what the stick in the upper right was. Is that a Crabby soccer ball in the photo? None of the pins appear to be on that page, either. It would be nice to have a web link on that printed page to go the Otakon site for bigger pictures and better details, maybe some scale/size measurements too.  On Saturday, someone was passing a packet of 8 1/2 x 11 pages down the line. Already knew what to get, so I did not look at it.

I do wish they had the pins listed in the book but if you had the Guidebook app, there was a list of all the pins and where to get them. It was a lot of fun collecting them! I also don't know what the stick was, but now I'm curious!

[windseeker 81]

The Good

- Merging Artist Alley and The Dealer's Room, so nice not having to leave one to get to the other down the hall

- Overall traffic flow

- Glad to see a number of people willingly wearing masks

The Bad

- In the AMV contest, why did the Comedy section of the AMV contest only had 4 entries? Most of the other categories had 6 or  7.

- The Taboo Tattoos in Japan panel given at 12:45 AM timeslot when it wasn't an 18+ panel, why was that?

The Ugly

- Mystery Anime Theater 3000 getting cancelled on Friday, I had been really looking forward to it.

-Tech/sound support issues at panels,  I had a panel this year and fortunately we got there 15 mins early to set up because it took almost 15 mins for the tech issue to be resolved, we just managed to start on time, but I'm aware of other panels that weren't so lucky

[windseeker 81]

23 hours ago, Revan said:

 

- Timing of programming in some cases. The MAT3K retrospective started at 11PM, and since I wasn't at the Marriott this year I didn't want to stay at the con too late and travel.

Well that got cancelled altogether...

[TnAdct1 35]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:04 PM, windseeker said:

The Bad

- In the AMV contest, why did the Comedy section of the AMV contest only had 4 entries? Most of the other categories had 6 or  7.

The way Otakon handles their AMV Contest Finalists is less about how many videos they can fit in a category and more about how many great videos they can fit into a two-hour slot. As such, there will be some years where some categories will not have that many entries in it because other categories not only have more videos that scored high in the judging, but those videos may end up being longer/shorter. Trust me, there's a lot of people who wished there was more comedy in the finals. Heck, my entry was submitted for the comedy category. However, it's also four minutes long. As such, I can see it being cut in favor of videos in other categories that not only scored higher in judging, but also are shorter in length.

[TnAdct1 35]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:04 PM, windseeker said:

The Bad

- In the AMV contest, why did the Comedy section of the AMV contest only had 4 entries? Most of the other categories had 6 or  7.

The way Otakon handles their AMV Contest Finalists is less about how many videos they can fit in a category and more about how many great videos they can fit into a two-hour slot. As such, there will be some years where some categories will not have that many entries in it because other categories not only have more videos that scored high in the judging, but those videos may end up being longer/shorter. Trust me, there's a lot of people who wished there was more comedy in the finals. Heck, my entry was submitted for the comedy category. However, it's also four minutes long. As such, I can see it being cut in favor of videos in other categories that not only scored higher in judging, but also are shorter in length.

[TnAdct1 35]

On 8/5/2024 at 4:04 PM, windseeker said:

The Bad

- In the AMV contest, why did the Comedy section of the AMV contest only had 4 entries? Most of the other categories had 6 or  7.

The way Otakon handles their AMV Contest Finalists is less about how many videos they can fit in a category and more about how many great videos they can fit into a two-hour slot. As such, there will be some years where some categories will not have that many entries in it because other categories not only have more videos that scored high in the judging, but those videos may end up being longer/shorter. Trust me, there's a lot of people who wished there was more comedy in the finals. Heck, my entry was submitted for the comedy category. However, it's also four minutes long. As such, I can see it being cut in favor of videos in other categories that not only scored higher in judging, but also are shorter in length.

[otoxo 13]

These boards keep getting 504 Gateway Timeout errors and taking forever to load. I've been trying to make this post for the past 2 days but kept failing. Why did the boards have to fall apart now of all times, just as people want to write their post-con thoughts? 😢 Ahem, anyway...

Good:

- Cool poster on the back of the awesome sheet illustrated by Studio Trigger. It also appeared on the last page of the program guide. I wish it credited the actual illustrators in addition to the studio.

- Stamp rally was fun to do. (But also see the Bads.)

- At the autograph tables, I like that the names of the guests were displayed on nameplates. Very helpful.

- Great diversity of guest types. Otakon is far and away the best at this. No other con can compare, except maybe that big one on the West Coast. I especially like that Otakon gets both JP veteran VAs and young up-and-coming VAs, authors, animators, etc.

- The Leaptech schedule and its tagging system are very good. There were some neat panels I spotted by browsing the tags that I would have otherwise not looked into. I don't know if Otakon also used Leaptech in past years but I hope its use continues.

- CadmiumCD's Conference Harvester was also very good for displaying the exhibit hall maps.

- Thank you for connecting the dealers room and artists alley. I would like to see Otakon take it one step further by opening it up all the way. There is no need for a divider at all. You can use that extra space as a waiting area for autographs being held throughout the day. No need to "come back 30 minutes before the start of the autograph to form the official line."

Bad:

- There never seem to be enough microphones for all panelists. Even when there are as few as 3 people, somehow there are only 2 mics. e.g. At the Yuffie Doppelgangers panel, which had the EN and JP VAs and the interpreter. And then they had to give up one mic to do audience Q&As. There should always be one mic for every panelist. Always.

- The stamp rally ran out of prizes, which was a Laid Back Camp clear file. There are great pics of it by Chillo in this post. Staff gave me an Otakon 2023 postcard as a consolation prize and told me to write my name on a sheet of paper. I saw that there were numerous other sheets of paper, all completely filled with names. Lots of people didn't get the prize. (By the way, what is Otakon doing with those lists of names?) Staff said that in the future, they will try to have more prizes ready, which means that this event was a success and that they will do it again. In the future, if prizes are limited, please alert participants with a message, e.g. "The first X-number of people to get all the stamps will win the grand prize. Runners up will receive a less cool prize."

- The stamp in the Maid Cafe was really difficult to get. It seemed like the only time you could get it was either at the beginning of the day before the cafe opened, at the end of the day immediately after the last show. Because once the maid cafe opened for business, they were always busy checking people in, and when they were done with that they closed the door and you couldn't get inside where the stamp was. In future stamp rallies, please don't put a stamp there.

- A few people were sneaking into autograph lines by entering from the gap between the waiting lines and overflow lines. Here is a photo of the area. This area was not monitored by the autograph staff the majority of the time. By the way, none of the people pictured are line cutters. The point of this photo is to show the location, not to show the line cutters.

- At Yumi Kakazu's autographs on Friday, the 1-item-per-person limit wasn't being enforced so some people got multiple items signed. The person seated next to Kakazu (Was she Otakon staff?) did nothing to intervene. This caused the line to move incredibly slowly. I think the autograph staff were eventually alerted to this.

- Some Japanese guests seemed to not have interpreters at their autograph tables. Koki Uchiyama, for instance, had people with him behind the table but none of them translated what attendees said. I don't know whether or not any of them were Otakon staff.

- There was no web version of the Guidebook this year. Yes, I am aware that all of the individual pieces of the Guidebook (the schedule, list of vendors, hours of operation, etc.) were all available on their own respective websites and could all be found if we went looking for them, but what makes the Guidebook useful is that it embeds all of those websites into its service for convenient access. So why not offer a web version of the Guidebook too?

Ugly:

- Funko Pop scalpers were everywhere. The worst of the scalpers were those who went out of their way to disrupt autograph sessions to satisfy their own selfish needs. Otakon needs to follow the lead of other conventions and ban Funkos from being autographed by Japanese guests. Apologies to all the non-disruptive, genuine fans who want their Funkos signed but your hobby is inundated with horrible people who cause problems for the guests, con staff, and other attendees.

- Otakon never updated the venue map on its website. It still displays the 2023 version!

[EdKitten 72]

Testing.

 

[EdKitten 72]

Good:

-The line to register moved pretty fast, like every 2 minutes or so, it moved (didn't time it or anything, but felt like 2 minutes).

- Great to see the Awesome Sheet of Awesomeness again (forgive me if Otakon had it last year -- that means I forgot.  But it felt like it was the first time since covid lockdown).

- Always love Otakon's location -- so easy to travel to -- right above a metro stop.

- Love the sinks in the restroom near Ballroom C -- you could wash and dry your hands at each separate sink.  It took some experimenting though since each sink had 3 lights -- left light for soap, middle light for water, right light for hand dryer.  Felt like you were on a spaceship.

- Found a lot of mangas I was looking for.

- Loved having Artist Alley and the Dealer's room in one giant space!  Also saved so much time walking from one to the other.

- Recognized some vendor owners from their Youtube videos -- that was really fun!

- Love the Cosplay Coordination Photoshoots in the Gaming Hall -- and those gorgeous backgrounds!  Holy moly!  Though couldn't hear the coordinator when they were yelling out instructions.  But it was still fun!

- Didn't have any problems asking to use the elevator (for accessibility).  In fact, the staff would tell me where the elevators were before I could ask them!  (Except for once, below in the "Ugly" section.)

Bad:

- Art Show's new location in Ballroom C -- great location, but for the 18+ section, there were quite a bit of stairs to get up there.  Not too bad, but for accessibility, it was a bit rough.

- Didn't get any Otakon merch -- when seeing the line was so long, I didn't even try.

Ugly:

- Friday, arriving at WEWCC, I thought in the past there was a separate disability/accessibility line at the Main Entrance (though I might have gotten that mixed up with other cons).  But I went to the Main Entrance and asked the staff person if there was an accessibility line to get badges.  He said there's no line for people without badges, that you have to have a badge to get into the building.  Even though I knew there was a registration line for people without badges at the L Street entrance, I wanted to make sure, so I asked him if there was any line where I could get a badge.  He said there's no line for people to get badges, that you have to have a badge already to get into the building.  His tone of voice was always nice, but I was surprised he didn't know about the L Street entrance line.  I headed off to the L Street entrance, everything went fine and I got the badge.  Couldn't help but wonder if I'd been new to Otakon if I would've left, thinking I couldn't get a badge at such short notice.

- Gaming room -- the food station in the back.  There were curtains at the elevator to get up there, so you couldn't use the elevator.  The only way to get up there was climbing all those stairs.  This is difficult for people with disabilities.  So, I didn't go up there.  But if it's possible for next year, please let us use the elevator.

- Throughout the 3 days, I'd gotten chicken tenders with fries a lot of times.  (Okay, I'm on a diet now.)  However, I got the food a few times from Hall C and a few times from Hall B's food stations (the permanent stations, not the portable ones).  Hall C always gave 3 chicken tenders, but Hall B always gave 4.  (They were all roughly the same size, so this wasn't a case of "two small ones make-up for a regular size one.")  It seemed unfair that they cost the same, but Hall C always gave one less chicken tender.  Since they were always so busy, I didn't bother asking them about it.

 

I love being at Otakon, just like all the rest of the years I've been there.  I can't imagine all the coordination it takes to put on Otakon, but huge thanks to all the staff.

 

[Just a Lad 3]

Overall just want to say that this was the best Otakon I’ve been to so far, but I do have some feedback. Looking forward to next year!

The Good:

- The panels this year were FANTASTIC.  Well run, lots of interesting topics and very well spaced out , there was never a point during the weekend where I was bored or felt I had nothing to attend.

-  I can’t believe we had so many major industry guests this year, and from such a wide array of mediums and genres. I also really like the focus on interactive panels for the bigger industry guests, like live drawings, Q & A sessions, and especially the Delicious in Dungeon hot pot! It’s way more engaging than the usual PowerPoint lecture setup industry conventions go for, made me feel like I was back at Anime Boston a decade ago.

- The workshops!!! Again, love the focus on interactive programming this year, especially for sewing and crafting. They were incredibly informative, the cut sew panels especially were like taking an FIT course for a fraction of the price. 

- Great Line/crowd management this year, it never took me longer than ten minutes to get into the convention center. Allowing people to sit down for the panel before a major one to avoid massive queues from forming was a great move, also really appreciate that they had dedicated staff to create queues for the workshops with clear start/end markers. 

- Merging the dealers hall and artist alley was a great move, really help with crowd control and exit/entrance lines.

- Game room had an insane amount of arcade cabinets and hard to find games. I spent hours on the love live cabinets alone

The Bad:

- Fan/ cosplay meetups need their own dedicated area. You can’t hear a thing in the game room entrance, and the lighting in there is even worse. Not to mention the crowd control problems the back to back gatherings for major fandoms caused on Saturday. The whole point of a meetup is to meet people within your fandom and make new friends, if I can barely hear the announcer and by the end of it get pushed out of the meetup space by staff to make room for the next group it defeats the whole purpose. I understand Otakon has grown too big and we can’t have 200+ cosplayers meeting at the staircase, but there has to be some group of panel rooms in the Marriott they could book instead.

- As someone who frequently travels for work, the hotel portal needs an overhaul and the con needs better communication with the properties. Many of the hotel descriptions had incorrect information about parking, location, amenities and number of guests allowed per room. Every other professional convention in the DC area knew that Residence Inn and Cambria were going to undergo major renovations in summer 2024 but Otakon happily let people book there just to get an unpleasant surprise months later. Hotels that are infamous for overbooking or charging well over the con rate at checkout (looking at you Eaton and Moxy) NEED to be removed from the hotel block.

The Ugly:

- Staff needs to vet the supplies and setup for workshops before they happen. Went to the DMMD workshop on Saturday night and while it was great overall, they didn’t have the craft supplies prepared ahead of time the way other workshops did, don’t was a good hour before attendees were able to begin working, and some of the supplies provided ( I.e. contact cement ) were dangerous to use in bulk in an unventilated room. Had staff not stepped in and provided Elmer’s glue that could’ve ended in a medical emergency for anyone with Asthma or other breathing problems.

- Staff’s autograph policy enforcement wasn’t great. I was turned away from the signing for Kotoris VA because I had unofficial merch  but another attendee posted on Twitter that they got her to sign the cover from an arcade cabinet without issue. If you’re going to have strict policies on what can and cannot be signed staff needs to be consistent in their enforcement.

- There needs to be a walled off 18+ area for the dealers hall. I don’t want the first thing I see when I go down the escalator to be body pillows barely censored with post its, a MASSIVE banner ad for euphoria with blood and scat, and a group of men begging me to try their “titty milk”. Maybe this makes me a prude but this isn’t an environment I feel comfortable in, with or without kids.

[Krabstarr 55]

On 8/7/2024 at 3:10 PM, otoxo said:

- The stamp in the Maid Cafe was really difficult to get. It seemed like the only time you could get it was either at the beginning of the day before the cafe opened, at the end of the day immediately after the last show. Because once the maid cafe opened for business, they were always busy checking people in, and when they were done with that they closed the door and you couldn't get inside where the stamp was. In future stamp rallies, please don't put a stamp there.

This is interesting. When did you go to get the stamp? If it was early on in the weekend, I think they may have solved that problem mid-way through. By the time I went there on Saturday afternoon, they had a person with the stamp at the table by the place where you go line up for the maid cafe, so you didn't have to go back in that hallway at all.

[otoxo 13]

4 hours ago, Krabstarr said:

This is interesting. When did you go to get the stamp? If it was early on in the weekend, I think they may have solved that problem mid-way through. By the time I went there on Saturday afternoon, they had a person with the stamp at the table by the place where you go line up for the maid cafe, so you didn't have to go back in that hallway at all.

I dropped by twice on Friday at random times during the day. The stamp was located inside the room, right on the ledge of the window next to the entrance door. I could see the stamp sitting there, but the door was closed and there was no staff around that could help.

I returned Saturday morning before the first show. The stamp was still sitting in the same place and the door was closed. Eventually, a man came out of the room to check in the cafe patrons. I waited for him to finish that. Then he stamped my book, went back inside the room, and closed the door.

The setup you describe didn't exist the times I dropped by. There was a table where people lined up, yes, but there was no staff there. I'm glad to hear they eventually addressed the issue by stationing a staffer there. I'm sure that saved stamp collectors a lot of time.

[fuzzy nukes 3]

Good:

-Opening up the wall between the dealers room and artist alley.  I usually go thru both one after the other and it just makes more sense this way.

-Moving the art auction to a separate room.  It was nice that it was given its own area.  The other bright side from this was a lot more room in artist alley for more artists, which is always a good thing.

-Entrance lines were not a problem at all this year.  Only weird thing was when we went to get out 18+ wrist bands Thursday night and they made us go in the reg pick up line instead of in the front.

-Loved the 30th anniversary display.

-Loved all the panels that I managed to get to.

-The addition of the little art displays by the video rooms so you can get a visual of what is showing and the next two things by just a glance was a brilliant move.

 

Bad:

-Missing out on a few panels because of capacity.  There needs to be another panel room in similar in size to panel 1, which we had in the past but got taken away to move AMV into it.  Having 2 big panel rooms will just open things up and be more helpful.

-Missing out on the scavenger hunt thing because I never checked out the book.  That's all on me though.

 

Ugly:

-Nothing really to report this year.