Fanimecon - Anybody go?

[sir_integra]

Anybody go to Fanimecon? I would have gone myself but I'm going to San Diego in July for ComicCon.

[lostnomad84]

I worked there as staff. Ironically, I got stuck to man the one video room that had the most issues during the con. I know of a good number of panels that got cancelled due to the lack of the panelists showing up or no one showing up to the panels. All the annoucements were out of Anime Boston and Anime Central that weekend, so no news out of this con. The dealer's room I think was the worst this year out of all the years I have worked and attended the con. All the dealer's seemed to sell almost the same figures, the same DVDs, and all seemed to be overpriced.

Reguardless of the above, the overall feeling I got was that most people enjoyed themselves. Although, to put it in the words of my friend who is high up in the chain of staff, "if it weren't for some of the guests, I would give this con a 2/10. But since the guests were decent, I give it a 6/10."

[sir_integra]

I know a few people, who don't post on these boards, who probably did go.

I agree, the guest list was very good. It's just a shame I don't have an independent income to allow me to attend more of these events.

However, it looks as if Sanami Maitoh (Fake) and Masayuki Takano (Blood Alone)didn't attend. Sanami Maitoh had been announced as long as a year ago. I would have been very disappointed to have traveled cross country to find that these were no shows.

[lostnomad84]

[ QUOTE ]
sir_integra said:
I know a few people, who don't post on these boards, who probably did go.

I agree, the guest list was very good. It's just a shame I don't have an independent income to allow me to attend more of these events.

However, it looks as if Sanami Maitoh (Fake) and Masayuki Takano (Blood Alone)didn't attend. Sanami Maitoh had been announced as long as a year ago. I would have been very disappointed to have traveled cross country to find that these were no shows.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't know the offical reason as to what happened to them, however after talking to a good number of higher ups amoung the staff, I have a good idea what the possibilities were to guests cancelling (note, they were not the only two to cancel). I won't say exactly why, but I will say this, I now understand why some major cons wait very close to the convention date to announce some people.

[catsspat]

For anyone who know me (I guess not many?), I basically followed
around Yamaga team (family name first - Japanese style, alphabetical order):

Mizushima Takahiro (voice actor)
Sanada Asami (voice actress)
Takamura Kazuhiro (character designer for Gainax)
Yamaga Hiroyuki (chairman of Gainax)

and also met Koga Ryoichi (mangaka).

Yamaga-san was as lively and interesting as ever. Takamura-san was
super nice. Sanada-san was cute and Mizushima-san was cool.
Koga-san was really nice, too.

Rest of the time, I tried to get some reading done or catch up on
internet radios. Oh, I did watch some episodes of Densha Otoko
(drama series) and cried a bunch of times (because it was so funny
with some moving moments jumbled in there).

Went to Gamers booth in the dealer room and said, "give me one of
every CD you got there." That got me Sanasa-san's (mini) album and
8 Di Gi Charat CDs.

Sanada-san said she really liked "Saishuu Heiki Kanojo" manga, so I
asked her if she read "Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu." She said no, so
I gave her my novels (4 volumes). I promptly ordered another set
after I got home /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

To summarize, I had a great time!

If it weren't for Yamaga-san bringing people over, people like me
would have absolutely no reason to go to these things. THANK YOU,
Yamaga-san! I hope he brings more people over next year.

--rich

[lostnomad84]

[ QUOTE ]
CatsSpat said:
If it weren't for Yamaga-san bringing people over, people like me
would have absolutely no reason to go to these things. THANK YOU,
Yamaga-san! I hope he brings more people over next year.

--rich

[/ QUOTE ]

Trust me when I say Yamaga-san is the biggest ally to Fanimecon. There is no sign that he won't be abandoning Fanimecon anytime soon. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[PatrickD]

There were others that didn't show up? Which ones?
I'd like to update the AnimeCons.com listing to be correct.

[lostnomad84]

[ QUOTE ]
PatrickD said:
There were others that didn't show up? Which ones?
I'd like to update the AnimeCons.com listing to be correct.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, I'll just give you the quick run-down:

- Guests, to my knowledge all the guests listed on the website that said they were coming to the con, did indeed go. Those who did not go were announced as cancelled on the website. What I stated about the panels is that, mostly on the first day of the con (Friday) some panels got cancelled because either a) no one showed up to the panel or b) no panelists showed up to their own panel. I don't know specifically which ones though.

Attendence: From the staff e-mail, I recieved very specific notes from the "feedback panel" from it I have this:

"There were around 10,000 total attendees:
7,000 onsite, 3,000 prereg."

If I get more specific figures, I'll definitely post it on here if you wish to know.

Hope this helped you out.