The Anime NYC convention returned for its fifth show during the weekend of November 18-20, 2022 in New York City. After years of ups and downs in how things are run, ANYC once again made some big changes this year in attempts to address the issues from the previous year. Some worked well, some not so much. Overall the convention this year was run better than last year although there are still some question marks that blur the overall experience.

Over the previous four conventions Anime NYC had struggled mightily with the logistics of handling a large crowd and with line management. Last year they had to handle both record attendance numbers (over 53,000 according to Wikipedia) and also handling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However it was universally agreed that last year was a massive disaster in how people had to wait 3-4 hours in the freezing cold to get into the building and how people had to line up many hours in advance in order to get into the popular panels and events. In response to these problems ANYC instituted many changes for this year’s show.

The first change was that all ticket sales were done online this year to eliminate the need of onsite registration and badge pickup. They also capped the sales at a lower number to reduce the crowd although I haven’t seen yet an official number on what the attendance was for this year. ANYC moved the COVID vaccination checks to an offsite location across the street from the Javits Center and set up different entrances depending on whether you were a general attendee or an industry personnel. All of this was to make the entry into the building faster and smoother. Finally, they instituted a change with the large panel and events to require an online ticket to be able to attend in order to prevent people from having to line up hours in advance.

Health Check Entrance

View From Exit

These changes did help to make things run smoother but not without creating its own set of issues. The strict cap in the number of 3-day passes caused them to sell out almost immediately which was a disappointment to many people as buying three one-day passes was many times more expensive than the 3-day pass. ANYC tried to curb scalpers by partnering with Lyte.com as the official ticket reseller for people that decided to return/sell their tickets, however the sale price on Lyte was so ridiculously high they might as well have been officially-sanctioned scalpers. For the panel and event tickets, they first tried to set up a first-come-first-serve ticket reservation however that blew up in their face when Growtix (the ticketing service) crashed and caused the convention to delay the ticket reservation. They later decided to change the ticket reservation to a lottery system which is similar to how they do their autograph tickets. This helped to make the process smoother however this lottery system meant that people would not be guaranteed to be able to attend an event that they absolutely are dead set on attending. For instance, if someone wanted to attend Anime NYC for the sole purpose of meeting one guest or attending one high-profile event then they weren’t actually guaranteed to be able to attend it, no matter how willing they would be to wait in line for it.

This ticketing system also was problematic in that some of the events didn’t even check people for their tickets and just let people walk straight in. For instance, the Sword Art Online event that was scheduled on Friday was running way behind schedule and once they finally opened the doors (well after the scheduled start time) they didn’t bother checking anyone for tickets (and also decided to start the event when half the attendees were still outside waiting to get into the room). The same thing happened at the Kaguya-sama Love is War panel on Saturday, while it wasn’t running late like the SAO panel did they didn’t check anyone for tickets for that event either. Anime NYC’s attempt to resolve the line waiting issue was really a mixed bag as it achieved its goal of eliminating the need for people to line up early in advance but it also causes other problems in its wake, especially if they don’t bother to honor the ticket system and just let anyone and everyone in.

Speaking of not enforcing their rules, Anime NYC repeated over and over that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that there was a mandatory facemask policy for the convention. However that policy was not enforced at all. Between the attendees that didn’t bother to wear masks, the convention staff themselves, and even some of ANYC’s own staff that walked around without a mask on, I probably saw maybe anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the people in the building without a mask on. Regardless of how you feel about the state of the pandemic at this moment, you can’t announce (and repeatedly remind people) of a policy like this and then just blatantly ignore to enforce it.

Another issue that I want to touch on is the line system that they had to enter the building. They enacted a multi-entrance system where each entrance had a color designation based on your status. This worked well to get people in the door faster however there was no general line management for the lines. For example, the general Green line where the vast majority of attendees had to be in started at the side of the Crystal Palace but then went across the street and this is where it devolved into chaos as no one really knew where the end of the line was or how it was supposed to wrap around. It resulted in a mass of humanity that was basically an unmanaged blob.

Chaos

Convergence

Where to?

One Direction

Home Stretch

Almost there

Finally, the last thing that I wanted to touch on was the location of the cosplay photoshoot gatherings. This year they decided to move the photoshoot to the Crystal Palace lobby. This was good in the sense that there was a lot of room for the crowds however this area was outside of the security checkpoint so many attendees were reluctant to go to the photoshoots because they didn’t want to have to go back through the security checkpoint to return to the convention.

Overall, the convention this year did in fact run more smoothly than previous years due to the changes enacted, however they also caused their own set of issues. For me personally since I have a long commute up from Maryland in order to attend the convention, the inability to be guaranteed to be able to attend a panel or event that I want to is kind of a deal killer. Anime NYC will still be a convention that I will consider going to in the future, however it no longer is a con that I consider to be a must-go convention for me every year.

Just going to end with a small gallery of photos taken around the convention.