New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center

After four long years the AnimeNEXT anime convention finally returns to great fanfare but not to great applause. Years 2020 and 2021 were lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2022 was cancelled due to a spat with the Atlantic City Convention Center. For 2023 the organizers of AnimeNEXT decided to move the convention to the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison, NJ. However as attendees learned the hard way, things were not so rosy and fine with the new location.

One of the main issues was space. The NJCEC is quite small compared to the previous venue at Atlantic City. To make up for this, the convention was split between the NJCEC and a second venue at the Hyatt Regency hotel in New Brunswick, NJ. This second venue is a good 20+ minute drive away (barring traffic). The NJCEC housed the Dealer’s Room, Artist Alley, and the Main Events. All of the panel rooms, the video game room, and the manga library was housed at the Hyatt. This split in location turned into a logistical nightmare as trying to commute between two different locations is far from ideal. The convention tried to alleviate this by running a free bus shuttle service but as anyone can imagine, trying to funnel thousands of attendees via a few shuttle buses is absolutely a recipe for disaster. Parking at the Hyatt was also not free so even if you drove yourself between the two locations you would have to pay the parking fee (every time) that you went to the Hyatt. By the time Saturday rolled around a lot of attendees decided that trying to commute between the two locations was a waste of time and effort and just stayed at the NJCEC all day.

Another big issue was communication, or lack thereof. AnimeNEXT did a piss-poor job of communicating the fact that the con was located in two separate venues and how to travel between them. Many folks arrived at the NJCEC completely unaware that there was a second venue and the shuttle bus operation was barely communicated to the attendees at all. The main AnimeNEXT website doesn’t even show the bus schedule and it was barely touched upon and disseminated by their social media channels. At the venues, attendees generally complained about the fact that the staff had almost no clue about where things were or how the shuttle operated. Throughout the weekend the AnimeNEXT social media channels barely posted any information to try to help clear up the confusion.

The convention hosted a number of voice actor and industry guests this year, however perhaps due to the logistical nightmare of the split venue situation none of the guests were scheduled to hold any panels or events. Instead they simply spent the entire weekend at their booths in the Dealer’s Hall. I can’t imagine that the guests were very happy about this arraignment and could very well give the convention a bad reputation that they will have to overcome when they try to invite guests to future shows.

Some additional minor gripes include the (continued) lack of cosplay photoshoot gathering coordination and during the cosplay Masquerade event there was a sudden announcement that video recordings were not allowed at the event (which was not an issue in the past). All in all, while some attendees probably still had a fun time meeting up with their friends and hanging out for the weekend, the AnimeNEXT 2023 convention overall was pretty much a shit show and is probably the worst con that I have ever attended in my 13 years of convention going (which includes the four years that AnimeNEXT was held in Atlantic City). Unless a new and better venue is chosen for this event, this was very likely my last AnimeNEXT.

Photos from the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick: