Otakon 2024 30th Anniversary Convention Report - Final Fantasy Edition!
/Otakon 30th Anniversary Logo
Final Fantasy Con, I mean, Otakon 2024 took place over the weekend of August 2-4 in its now usual spot in Washington, DC. For it’s 30th Anniversary Special, there was a clear focus on inviting guests from various Final Fantasy games as there were many voice actors and industry guests from the likes of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI, and Final Fantasy XIV such that this year’s Otakon might as well have been called “Final Fantasy Fest”. Fans of the FF franchise were simply eating good this weekend. That’s not to say that Final Fantasy was the only attraction this year, there were other industry guests featuring Delicious in Dungeon, The Seven Deadly Sins, Laid Back Camp, BLUE LOCK, and others as well so there was something for everyone.
Overall, I have to say that Otakon was run very well this year. They had a record-breaking 46K in attendance numbers (up from last year’s 42K) and yet lines going into the convention center ran fairly smoothly and panel lines were managed fairly well as well (even if you did have to line up an hour in advance to have a chance to get into the popular panels). The downstairs area was also fairly clear of congestion that plagued previous years that saw lines going to the Dealer’s Room absolutely clogging up the space there. And speaking of the Dealer’s Room, this year Otakon finally made the sensible choice of opening up the wall that usually separated the Dealer’s Room from the Artist Alley. Gone are the days that you have to go up and outside to just walk all the way around to go back down another entrance to get to the other room. Now, you can just freely walk between the two rooms (provided that Dealer’s Room is open as it usually closes earlier than Artist Alley) and this was a very welcomed quality of life addition.
But, I can’t speak of the Dealer’s Room and not mention the one major blight on Otakon’s record this year: which is the Otakon Merchandise table. The merch booth was an unmitigated disaster and I truly hope that whoever was in charge of running the merch table gets fired and replaced with someone with at least half-a-brain to run it. Let me back up to Friday morning to illustrate how bad things were (note that this first part about the lines doesn’t actually relate to the merch table but simply illustrates a further point of disgruntlement that took place during the entire excruciating process). The Dealer’s Room didn’t open until 12pm on Friday so there was naturally a long line of folks camping out to wait for the doors to open. Once Noon hit the lines started going in but for some reason a portion of the lines in the back were directed to enter via a second entrance which meant that people who got in line later than others were going in and able to rush to the Otakon merch table before others who had actually gotten in line before them and had been waiting longer. This already was not a good look to start the day but things got even worse when it was revealed that the registers weren’t working and thus they couldn’t start processing any of the purchases. About half-an-hour went by before they finally started to move and process the purchases but at first they announced that it would be cash-only. At some point they got the Square card readers working but the way that the booth was set up people were mostly just going through single-file which is an extremely inefficient way to get people through the line. They also had no posters or any kind of advertisement on display to show people in advance what merch was for sale or what the prices were which led to further delays in people deciding on what they wanted once they actually got to the counter. Not having those advertisements up in plain view for people to see also meant that they had no way to announce when popular or limited items were sold out (such as the limited Otakon 30th Anniversary dice set). In the end, people were spending 3-4 hours in line and not even knowing whether or not what they wanted was even still in stock. This is utterly inexcusable and again I don’t speak lightly when I say that someone new needs to take the helm of the Otakon merch table next year.
Now that I got that long gripe out of the way, let’s get back to what was also a good new addition this year: Pop-Up Lockers. Otakon teamed up with a third party vendor that set up lockers that could be rented during the con which was nice for daily commuters like me to be able to rent and stash things during the day (like Dealer’s Room loot). Granted, they didn’t really advertise it that well besides a few social media posts, and they didn’t really give the best directions on how to find where the Pop-Up lockers were located (they were in the 4th Basement Floor of the Marriott). However, they were a good addition this year and I hope they continue to offer these services next year as well. In terms of price the pre-order/reservation price before the con was $15 for a day or if you reserved them for multiple days then there was a multi-day discount applied. I’m not sure what the at-con price was. Keep in mind that while the lockers were sizeable they weren’t so large that you could fit extremely large objects or spare costumes in.
More praise continues to be offered for the cosplay photoshoot coordination as well. Much like last year they had a dedicated area in the Gaming room set aside for the cosplay photoshoots, and also like last year they had a number of absolutely gorgeous backdrops set up for the photoshoots which I absolutely loved to see and hope they continue to offer them in the future.
It’s been a number of years now since Otakon moved from the Baltimore location to DC, but I think Otakon is finally hitting its stride and making a loud statement that they deserve to be recognized as being one of the premiere anime convention on the East Coast. A distinction that hopefully will get major industry players like Sony/Crunchyroll to stop ignoring Otakon like they have over the past 5-10 years.
Just want to end by posting a few screencaps from the videos that I took from the various Final Fantasy panels.
Check out my Facebook page where I posted my photos from the Frieren, Fate Series, Final Fantasy full series, and The Apothecary Diaries cosplay photoshoots.
Check out my YouTube channel where I posted my video recordings of the Final Fantasy XVI voice actor panel, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth cast and developers panel, Final Fantasy XIV voice actor panel, and the complete cosplay Masquerade contest.