Tales from an Otakon 2010 survivor
1 August 2010 | 9 comments
You’ve probably heard that Otakon was crazier than usual this year. Let’s go over some of my personal highlights:
Panels
Between the fire alarm and standard rescheduling, a lot of the panels I wanted to attend were moved around considerably. As a result, I went to hardly any of the panels I blogged about before. I barely made it to Anime Journalism, getting only the last five minutes of the panel. But afterwards, I got to introduce myself to the Japanator staff, so it wasn’t all bad. Next, I went to Alex Leavitt‘s panel on anime introduction and ending themes. He does a great job combining information and humor, and this panel was no exception. In the evening, I attended the Ultimate Lolita fashion show, and especially loved the variety of styles shown by Oso. From my experiences talking with local lolitas so far, there seem to be so many rules to the fashion. I’d say all of them were broken here.
On Saturday, I attended the Funniest AMVs panel and didn’t find any of them funny, so let that console you if you were waiting in line to get in. They were all about fan service, not humor. In the evening I went to the Fanthropology panel, which was a true success, being that I learned plenty and the panelists never even showed up! Thankfully, there were some very talented people in the audience who took the stage instead.
Meetups
More than anything else, my favorite part of conventions is meeting people. I got to see Scott, Jon and Ernie again, whom I met at Anime Boston. I met some people I had only talked to on Twitter before, including Calaggie. I made a new friend, too, Charles Dunbar, the Anime Anthropologist, whom you might know from his famous Modern Mythology panel. Thanks for a fascinating discussion on some of my favorite topics, blogging and fandom studies! In general, I caught up with friends from college, high school, and even elementary school! I’ve known Amanda (below) since we were single digits.
I wanted to talk to more people, but I guess I just ran out of time! If I missed you, sorry about that– we’ll have to try again.
Anime USA Booth
I said I wouldn’t be working, but it’s always a good time to pimp out my favorite convention. The booth was lively and ran out of fliers by Saturday night, probably thanks to the music and dance performances by the AUSA hosts. I spent some time doing video interviews with maids and hosts for our blog, which I’ll update later this week. I took a group shot of all the fantastic maids and hosts who took the time to make our booth look (and sound) fantastic:
The evacuation
I was in the dealer’s room, video taping one of the hosts, and we kept restarting the interview because this beeping noise kept starting up. I figured it was a vuvuzela or some other banned noisemaker. But when Otakon staff told us to evacuate, I realized it was something more. I kept filming the entire time, but judging by twitter, so did everyone else.
I’m very thankful that there were no serious injuries that I know of during the evacuation. The Otakon staff did a fantastic job evacuating everyone quickly and orderly and attending to attendees that suffered heat exhaustion. We didn’t know it was a false alarm for a while, so one attendee shared his theory:
Overall
Otakon was my first convention ever, and it’ll always hold a special place for me. No matter what happens, I keep coming back. I’ve even booked my hotel room for next year already. I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
It was an intresting Otakon that’s for sure… not sure that I really enjoyed it though. I had more fun getting dinner with you and going to the Aquarium then at the Con it’s self. I guess that’s not totally true but it’s hard to top an archer fish…
That aside I just feel like there are too many people to enjoy myself. I’m not a fan of cosplay… I admire great outfits and I saw some, but it’s not something I aspire to do myself. I’m more interested in going to good panels and watching obscure things I’ve never heard of before… this my viewing highlight was Gundam Unicorn (Which I already own) and didn’t see anything scheduled or get a chance to watch anything else really intriguing.
I’m willing to give it another shot… but perhaps size isn’t everything when it comes to conventions…
That makes me feel better about Fanthropology, which I missed completely. The same thing happened for the Feminism and Fandom panel.
DId you catch the Anime in Academia panel? It was definitely one of the best of this year’s crop imo.
Kim, unfortunately I didn’t catch that one. I planned on it, but I didn’t plan on the line for Subway being so long. Hopefully they’ll do it again.
I wanted to go to the Feminism and Fandom panel, but I ended up not going because I was worried it would be trolled. While that sucks about the panelists, I’m glad that wasn’t the case.
Otakon for me is always a place where unique guests and creators are. It is where I help find unique programming items for T-MODE or to introduce myself to a webcomics guest. It will always be a place where I get conrunning work done and alot of conrunners are there. It also holds a special place in my heart because it is my local convention (from Aberdeen, MD) and my first convention.
Tom, that’s awesome that we have the same first con! I’ve always heard that Otakon is a bad one to start with since it’s enormous, but it certainly didn’t scare either of us away from the fandom!
John and I used the opportunity to network with potential panelists, guests, artists, etc. as well, but for Anime USA.
re: long line at subway
There’s a Potbelly’s just 2 blocks down the road past the Hilton, it was empty (and has great milkshakes!)
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Great review! Wish I had been at that fashion show, I caught the 10am one on Saturday
I do love those milkshakes, but I’m on a diet and Subway was one of the only places I was willing to eat up there. (Though I did have some great sashimi on Saturday). So you can imagine my disinterest in eating at a place called Potbelly’s. Also, Fat Burger. Why do they name these places like that? I worry I’ll come out of them that way!
The fashion show was quite interesting. I especially liked how the model with one arm accessorized her steampunk dress with a fake bronze arm ending with a hook. I heard the Saturday morning show was a lot more intense.
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