The Colossalcon East anime convention and pool party returned for its fifth outing this past weekend from September 9-11, 2022 at the Kalahari Resorts in Pocono Manor, PA. I missed out last year so this is actually the first time that I’ve been back to CCE since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I feel that this convention has grown and matured a lot since its debut back in 2017 and am definitely looking forward to returning next year.
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The inaugural Asia Collective Night Market was held on Saturday, August 20, 2022 at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland. The concept was to hold a food festival to mimic the famous night markets from Asian countries. Rows of food stalls would be available for attendees to sample foods from various Asian ethnicities in the same vein as last year’s DC REDEYE Night Market event. Unfortunately, the Asia Collective Night Market ended up being either just as bad or even more disastrous than its DC counterpart.
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The Otakon anime convention returned in 2022 and ended up breaking all of their attendance records by a mile. The 28th Otakon took place from July 29-31, 2022 in Washington, D.C. and unofficial attendance numbers put them over 40,000 attendees for the weekend which is a major leap up from last year’s 25K and well above their previous record of 34K back in 2013 when the convention was still held in Baltimore. Large numbers of people however meant long lines and densely packed crowds wherever you went.
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After taking 2020 off and holding an online-only convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Anime NYC promised to return bigger and with a bang in 2021. They were certainly bigger as they drew 53,000 attendees (two-and-a-half times larger than the 20K crowd from its first year in 2017) and they certainly had an impactful bang, just not the kind that they wanted. Everywhere you went there were lines, lines for miles, lines for days.
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It’s been almost 18 long months since the last anime convention, but here we are at last! The COVID-19 global pandemic and subsequent lockdowns made the world grind to a halt last year and caused the cancellation of just about every major event. While the pandemic is unfortunately still ongoing, Otakorp made the decision to go ahead and hold this year’s annual membership gathering (a.k.a. convention) during August 6-8, 2021 and had just 78 days to plan and organize the event. The result was a resounding success.
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Forty-six thousand people. That was how many otakus crammed themselves into the Javits Center in New York City last weekend at the Anime NYC 2019 anime convention that ran from November 15-17, 2019. The 46,000 number should move Anime NYC to the #2 spot as the second largest anime convention in North America. That’s quite amazing considering that this convention is only in its third year. ANYC started off with 20,000 people in its first year (hard-capped), grew to 36,000 last year, and now added another ten thousand this year. That is just remarkable and goes to show that if you build a convention and do it right then people will surely come.
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This past weekend I traveled down to Hampton, VA to attend my second NekoCon anime convention which took place from November 1-3, 2019. This year NekoCon 22 was scheduled for the same weekend as Anime USA which I had been attending annually since 2011. It was a hard decision to make as to which convention to go to but in the end I chose to go to NekoCon just for one day on Saturday.
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Last weekend from July 26-28, 2019 was Otakon’s third year in the nation’s capital. Since moving to Washington, D.C. from its longtime home of Baltimore, Otakon has been able to better serve its attendees the anime goodness that was sometimes lacking in Baltimore due to its over-crowded nature. Besides some minor hiccups Otakon ran pretty smoothly and was a great time for everyone.
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Sigh, where do I even begin with this convention report? I recently attended the Anime Midwest convention held in Rosemont, Illinois (outskirts of Chicago) from July 5-7, 2019. This is the first time that I’ve been to this convention as it is outside of my usual travel radius for cons. However, when I saw in the news that Japanese singer and songwriter Lia was invited as a guest of honor I quickly made travel plans to be there. Lia is best known for her vocals on various Key/VisualArts anime shows like Clannad, Air, and Angel Beats. I absolutely love her voice and had always hoped to see her invited as a guest to a convention in the US so I knew I had to jump at this chance.
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I went to my fourth AnimeNEXT anime convention that was held this past weekend from June 7-9, 2019 in Atlantic City, NJ. At this point people have pretty much made up their mind as to whether or not they like the new-ish location of the convention in Atlantic City (as opposed to its previous location in Somerset, NJ). Some people like the beach-side location while others continue to stay away from the casino city like the plague. Either way, AnimeNEXT continues to offer something for everyone as they offer a wide range of guests, panels, and events.
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