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Nice article . I was curious how this con would turn out . They had a few too many things going against them . The age limit was one thing . But the pure cost of it all added up was just too much for a 1st year con .
The Providence Anime Conference kicked off this past weekend in its inaugural event. The conference – a convention by any other name – was put into reality by the people behind the New England Anime Society. Though that name may not be too familiar, they do get involved in a number of things around the region. In particular, they’re involved with Boston’s First Night event where anime is shown and promoted in the city. They’re also known for this little known convention called Anime Boston.
The Providence Anime Conference is something that isn’t all that common among conventions. While we have had 18+ conventions before, playing around specific things like adult conventions and yaoi, there hasn’t been much of a push in the 21+ realm. The Providence Anime Conference, PAC, decided to try this particular idea and there’s certainly merit to it if you go by the general response to it. PAC has the problem that most conventions have these days in that there are too many of them. Vendors in particular can attest to this, good and bad, since they’re on the road regularly and can almost hit a new one every week. This is good for them since they’re able to box up stuff and just move it to the next con where it’ll sell. It’s a bit of a downer for the fans looking for bargain priced Sunday deals…
PAC has a few things going against it from my point of view. The first is that as much as I like the 21+ idea, the loss of that group under it is admittedly a sizeable portion. There’s also some amount of negativity about it that’s created by those fans since they want to be included. Of course, there are plenty of under 21 folks who want to go to bars and strip clubs as well, but hey, you can’t have everything. I was under 21 once, under 18 once and under 16 ones. Good things come to those who wait. The second thing, and the more important one I think, that impact PAC was the lack of one day passes available to attendees. You either ponied up the money for the full three day pass or you weren’t going. Many fans only go on Saturday to begin with so this cuts out a large chunk. And when you add in that most people in the 21+ group work for a living, they’re not interested in Fridays.
Add in the general feeling of the economy these days as well and most people in the 21+ category are being a bit frugal, even with their passions.
That said, there’s a lot of things going for a 21+ convention and it was definitely apparent at PAC this weekend. Taking aside the lower attendance numbers and the ghost town feeling you got at times in the large open areas of the Rhode Island Convention center, when you had panels with a good attendance in it you got excellent questions and discussion. In speaking with Chris Ayres, one of the guests of PAC, he commented several times on the way discussions were more intelligent, avoided common questions that long time attendees have heard many times over the years and were able to engage with the attendees in more detail.
And there was a whole lot of swearing.
That varies from panel to panel of course, but there was more liberal dialogue between panelists and attendees than you would normally get. In my previous panels where I ran the AnimeOnDVD panel for many years, I always had to be cautious about what I said and how I said. This is awkward since we cover adult material and it comes up in discussion. Many times when it veered in that direction, people who were there with kids would take them out of the room which was good. I’d do that with my kids. That issue wasn’t a problem here however and we were able to talk liberally about things. Some panelists were more liberal with the language side of it, but no more so than a standard discussion you’d have among friends who don’t feel they need to filter or censor themselves with you.
The adult content side of it came to the fore during my first panel of the weekend with the Back in My Day panel. Running at 10:30 Friday night, I sat with David Williams of ADV Films and Kevin McKeever from Harmony Gold. We were able to talk about how things have changed over the years from our different origin points. Of course, we started with “Back in my day, panels were held during the day! Dontcha know we’re old?!” For my part, my origins in anime came with Robotech and then a bootleg of the Macross movie back when it came out in the mid 1980’s. From there it went to Cream Lemon and other adult raw anime releases. Some people were obviously and understandably uncomfortable about it, but for many fans it is a point of origin and it was certainly liberating to be able to say it without wondering if there were any kids too young to be there in the audience.
Panels were familiar for the most part even though it’s a “Conference.” Industry panels were light as only two were really in attendance with David Williams from ADV Films and Adam Sheehan from FUNimation. David Williams wasn’t able to talk about anything in regards to where ADV Films is going with their upcoming release plans, backing or even things mentioned at Sogen Con the weekend before. The discussion was more back and forth with fans about what they’re seeing, what they’re looking for and more. It was an engaging discussion that talked about the future of digital distribution, issues within, what people were looking for in speed of releases and other such issues. The lack of questions about specific titles was surprisingly pleasant as it focused on the industry in general and how things are transforming once again. Like a giant robot.
Later in the day, I moderated the State of the Industry panel which had David Williams, Kevin McKeever, Tom Wayland of Tripwire Productions, Chris Ayres and Adam Sheehand on it. Similar to the ADV Films panel, it covered a wide range of topics and had generally engaging and intelligent questions offered to the panelists. The diversity of the panelists helped a lot in that these weren’t all the usual PR guys or those who are the top. Chris Ayres work as a director and voice actor has him in different areas while Tom Wayland was similar as well as being in New York City. Kevin McKeever was able to bring some different thoughts into the discussions as well due to his time at Harmony Gold in talking about how contracts work and the kind of cross pollination that’s going on with the big companies.
What was a regular point of discussion is where the industry is likely to have some major successes in the coming years. While everyone is chasing the next big Naruto or Evangelion, they may actually already be sitting on it. After the success of Transformers in the live action arena last year, especially on home video and worldwide, Hollywood went knocking on just about every Japanese door to find a giant robot show to license. David Williams commented that interest in the Evangelion live action movie went through the roof and this likely explains the immense difficulty in getting the new anime movies from the franchise licensed in the US. The Japanese obviously see big money potential in Hollywood and are slowing down or stopping various licensing deals that were in the works in order to see if they can get a far bigger deal that would cover a lot more material like merchandising with a Hollywood studio. And with Viz Media offering their manga franchises through Viz Pictures and their offices in Hollywood now, the potential for a massive draw-in of an audience when anime goes live action could be sizeable.
One of the best things about PAC – and any convention that I go to if it’s there – is when Dick Tripwire runs his Hentai Dubbing panel. This was done at PAC as well, though earlier than its usual late night time, and watching audience members get up and get involved in some fun mock dubbing is always a good time. I continue to recommend people checking out this panel if it’s being run by Dick Tripwire at any convention you go to. It’s funny, it points out some of the hilarious things that are done with adult dubs and Dick was also able to show off some new pieces to the mockumentary that he originally started back in 2002. Being a fan of adult anime, seeing this send up of it and then having people get into the spirit of having fun with acting themselves makes it all highly enjoyable. It was once again a high point of the convention for me.
The Providence Anime Conference is going to be an interesting animal to examine. It obviously had low attendance and didn’t meet its membership goals. You can imagine that the dealers weren’t too happy with it, especially because of the lack of one day passes. But at the same time, attendees by and large came away with a very positive experience. The lack of long lines, the ease of registration, the intelligent discussion and more made it all a lot of fun. It was a more personal and relaxed convention and really did have that conference feel. PAC will be better served (if there is a) next year by just working within the hotel itself and not the convention center. The convention center was fantastic and I loved the layout, but PAC doesn’t merit it at this point. Beyond that, I would wholeheartedly endorse another round of it with some minor tweaks and a lot more advertising. This is the kind of convention that would feel different from others for a number of reasons and the diversity is rather welcomed.
Nice article . I was curious how this con would turn out . They had a few too many things going against them . The age limit was one thing . But the pure cost of it all added up was just too much for a 1st year con .
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