There hasn't been one, which is good, but I want to ask who is going to the gooner con Waifu/Kimochii con and what thoughts you have on it and the loss of A-kon
I don't know those cons but is anyone familiar with anime Matsuri? I might go there
>>10914875I'm looking to go to Dreamcon happening in Austin. Not sure if i wanna pay for just the friday or saturday badge. Might go for both
For those who went to KimochiiCon, how was it? I was strongly considering going to this a month ago, then completely forgot.
>>10914875AnimeFest, coming up in a couple of months, will be the next test to see which anime con in dfw best fills the void left in the absence of A-Kon. Not optimistic about attendance this year due to: first year at new venue, different city (technically), underwhelming attendance numbers in recent years (~5k-~8k), conflicts with Dream Con again, and meh guestlist (so far), not to mention it seems to be confirmed that you can no longer go into the artist alley without a badge. Hoping it to at least be better than the disaster that was this past WeebCon tho lol
>>10916713went to kimochiicon, it wasn't bad. pretty promising outlook for future years with the guest list, and actually hot girls there. its a small venue, and they got some things to work on but it ran better than some bigger conventions that happened this year (looking at weebcon 2024 mess)
>>10914875Just doing colossal Texas this time
have any of you tried going to anime Midwest event
i'm kind of disillusioned with texas cons right now, so i'll probably only do cctx and san japan this year
>>10915244It's their last year in Austin. They don't know where the fuck they're going to be next year. Who knows if they'll stay in Texas?https://x.com/playthatjohn/status/1793106127594701057
>>10916906just doing afest, afrontier and san japan this year. The first 2 because they are less than 20 min away.
>>10916845Nice. I will probs go next year then.
Anyone here any experience with Ecchi Expo? Thinking of going this year.
Recommend me your texas cons, !zkon is shot down so all I have looking forward to this year is AX
Why do I have a feeling that after Comicpalooza the city of Houston will remind others that Matsuri exists? Mutuals are barely talking about them.
>>10918238People barley talk about anime matsuri because it sucks. The only people still enamored with it are people who have never been to anything that runs remotely on time or people who haven't been enoght years to realize the Leigh's are incapable of running an event successfully.
>>10918549When you tell your attendance base to fuck off and then deal with it they stop coming back. They didn't need to be warned about sexual predators. They needed to keep being a shitty run show to turn off enough people so they tell people its ass.
>>10918238Wouldn't blame Houston if they only care to try to push Comicpalooza as the big thing so they can let Matsuri burn alive. Less drama.
What Texas cons are good these days?t. Made the mistake of taking a job in Louisiana, and trying to get back
>>10918721The mutals seem to think it's cctx for small, afest for medium but not overwhelming, sj for bigger. Since the Akon king has left the building many are picking different ones.
>>10918747I heard Matsuri fell off a cliff since like 2020.
>>10918762Sex predators and piss poor planning don't help
>>10918810Houston should be a slam dunk location for a big con. Fucking that up is astounding.
>>10918997Oni-con should've been the biggest Houston show. AM fucked them then they retreated to Galveston to die off.
>>10918762Most cons are struggling to recover post covid. A lot of them just hemorrhaged staff because all of the sudden these people who were never paid and basically working part time for free had a break and realized how shitty they were being treated. They also can't get general volunteers because people just don't want to subject themselves to crowds. The anime con scene is also notoriously liberal so they all bought into the mask bullshit and are literally afraid to attend cons anymore.>>10919054LMAO oni-con was never going to be big. Their staff couldn't handle that amount of growth.
>>10918747San Japan and then Anime Frontier in that order are the best 'buy anime shit' conventions if you go to the artist alleys and merch sellers, as well. At least, that is what I've experienced. AKON last year was fucking worse than AFEST for shop quality/space.
>>10919179With the yen being so low, I’m fine with mediocre dealer rooms as long as the AA is solid. I liked A-Kon’s AA last year but the dealer room was past mediocre. That was just bad.
>>10919128>The anime con scene is also notoriously liberal so they all bought into the mask bullshit and are literally afraid to attend cons anymore.I remember San Japan being gay about that after others knocked it off.>>10919179What ones historically have the best panels and parties?
>>10918810and then there's this shit
>>10919181ironically A-Kon panels were pretty solid, though others were really hit and miss. I don't mean OR, like good concept terrible execution. However the really good ones also were put in rooms with 30 person MAX seating. For San Japan - You have a great # of panels, though they are also mostly volunteer ran.Anime Frontier - 90% of all panels are corporation/group ran so if you like that they are good for you. Others - I cannot speak to them bc I haven't been to others.PARTY - Ikki??? - It was known as a party con, I don't know anymore.San Japan - Has a rave, has a bar crawl (unofficial but awesome), last year they also had a pre-rave on Thursday at a bar but basically no one went.AnimeFrontier- I hope you like raves 15 minutes away from the con with no way to get there but uber. It's almost an anti-party con.
>>10919407Are you a girl? I can sense it
>>10918238lol, it's already happening! Recent article basically propping up Anime Matsuri.https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/05/24/texas-tops-best-us-state-for-anime-conventions-cosplay-enthusiasts/
>>10919653Since AM is backed by the city, with Comicpalooza now done, they have to fire up the publicity machine once again.
What is happening in Dallas? Akon is dead and Animefedt just announced its done after this year. Weebcon doesn't seem to have a venue signed for next year. Is Anime Frontier all that's left?
>>10920081There are a ton of smaller conventions, which is what AFest apparently wants to do also. I guess they earn more with less overhead. But i agree, this is kind of fucked.
>>10920081I just got done doing the photography for Dreamhack and the anime cosplay was better than most actual anime conventions. It looks like 3 hours to Colosalcon and 5 hours to San Japan is it outside of Anime Frontier for the DFW people since Dallas anime cons died.
>>10920081Never been to weebcon but Afrontier last year was absolute garbage. Small artist alley, decent sized dealers room, panels were shit, game room was a ghetto and nothing to do after 8 since it’s a corpo con
>>10914875>what thoughts you have on [...] the loss of A-konMy buddies and I basically replaced A-Kon with Dreamhack in our rotation and it's been a straight upgrade. Lots to do, the lines are tolerable, the venue isn't a fire hazard, and the cosplay is at least up to par with other cons. The only obvious downside is that it's not primarily an anime con, but at this point neither are most of the major Texas cons which have devolved into just being nerd parties. I thought the merch was kinda lacking too, it felt like most of the artists were just dumping all of their unsold backstock from anime conventions rather than them making new pieces in time for DH.>>10916794What was wrong with the last Weebcon? I was only there for a day, but it seemed like it was at least not worse than last year, I had an alright time.>>10919181I was there during "The Mask Year" and I don't even remember the mask stuff being enforced all that much.>>10920081>Akon is deadA-Kon has been struggling ever since they got scammed by the FWCC. I heard something about them getting shaken out by Anime Frontier, but I don't know the details.>Animefedt just announced its done after this yearThey announced they're scaling down, not that they're "done". They've been bleeding attendants for years now, so it makes sense>Weebcon doesn't seem to have a venue signed for next yearHaven't heard anything about this desu.>Is Anime Frontier all that's left?Dreamhack, baybee
>>10920114NTA but I thought weebcon was fantastic especially since I split an atrium balcony room with 3 others so it was cheap and I didn't have to deal with the horrible satellite parking lot. The cosplay contest was controversial since they didn't hand out any awards so the cosplayers were mad but the show itself was good. Overall if you had the money to stay onsite and be a part of the 2am atrium rave and the 4am bathroom rave, you would've had a good time.
>>10920081>Weebcon doesn't seem to have a venue signed for next yearHopefully it stays that way :3
>>10920114>>Haven't heard anything about this desu.They're openly talking about it on their Discord. Since A-Kon died there will it be 2 for 2 in killing cons?
>>10920157Weebcon sent out a vendor email a few weeks back saying they're going to the Irving CC, but Wild West Weebs is under a lawsuit because they aren't paying their loans so who knows if they'll actually return.
>>10920164Lawsuit? Is that public info?
>>10920162>DiscordExplains why I haven't heard about it>>10920164>Wild West Weebs is under a lawsuit because they aren't paying their loansThis doesn't surprise me, I was always wondering how a small anime shop could afford a convention with such high profile guests, looks like the answer is they can't (assuming the lawsuit thing is real).
>>10919653>MatsuriI get that hate, but I feel like it's underrated. They seem to get more Japanese guests or at least did in years past, and those interest me more than American VAs.I'm trying to decide between it, SJ, and Colossal Texas.
>>10920114What do you do at dreamhack? There's literally no good panels. The cosplay contest was fun, I think, but I would've preferred some skits. I thought it would be fun as someone who likes video games more than anime, but if you're into single player stuff, it doesn't appeal to that really. Also, and it could just be I didn't look further into it, there's lots of stations for two player games but it's so awkward if you're hanging out with 3 or more people, especially groups over 4. There was that smash bros couch which was cool but they needed more of that. and the only cosplay meet up they had was just for cosplayers in general rather than by fandom? I don't know. I just do not care for e-sports and even if I did, I think watching it from home would be more than enough for me.
Here's why Afest has thrown in the towel.1. The staff is old. They founders, along with the directors, are in their 40s-50s. They are too tired for this shit. They weren't going to sell it to someone for the next gen.2. They are hovering around broke. Cons are expensive to put on. Afest didn't charge what it costs to put on a con in the current times. They refused to do add-ons to make more bread.3. Afest refused to advertise to be like Akon. They kept it to their circles but didn't spend big ad dollars. They stuck to anime congoers but never appealed to normies.4. They refused to conform to current trends. This is great for people who want to weeb but no one else. It got too expensive to get Japanese guests, which was their biggest draw. The website looked stuck in 1998, which wasn't appealing.5. Afest didn't make it inviting to the party. The con was an excellent place to weeb but nothing else—no fun nightlife events. 6. Akon fucked up things for everyone else. Word has gotten around that bad anime cons will trash places. No one will work with them in DFW. Anatole, Regency, Omni, all of them told them to fuck off. Gaylord, too, thanks to Weebcon.
>>10920349It's not underrated, it's a shit show. They can't run anything on time to save their lives, they constantly over promise and under deliver and they overcharge for what they ate actually able to provide.If you think AM is good you've just never been to anything better. It's laughable they're still running with how often they screw people over.
>>10920354I found things to do, but I guess YMMV>typical artist alley, though most of it was stuff from other cons instead of new fanart>indie games section in the artist alley, a lot of it is pixelshit platformers but there are a few gems here and there>typical dealer area full of gamer slop>arcade area full of things you'd find at Round One, exciting if you're not local I guess>console and PC free play areasI feel like these are redundant. Many years ago, Dreamhack's main draw was that it was a huge LAN party, but LAN parties haven't been the best way to play games online in over a decade at this point, plus with many games you can't even do genuine LAN's anymore in the sense of hooking up computers together and just set up game modes instead of true servers. So no actual LAN happens. But they have the PC freeplay and BYOC areas anyway that basically end up just being internet cafes. Especially in the BYOC area, I fail to see the point there aside from tradition. But there's something admirable about keeping a tradition going, so I guess just being able to emulate it means a lot to people>separate tiny arcade area ran by Monster Energy>BMX show (!!!) ran by Monster Energy>they just give out free monsters, used to be bawls, not sure what happened since I didn't attend during the bawls era>some DND thing for Critical Role enjoyers (I didn't go to it)>esportsEsports is the current main draw. I watched some Counter Strike on the last day of the con, it was my first time watching competitive CS, I'd say it was pretty fun watching it with a live crowd.It should be noted that I didn't attend on Friday, if I did then I would have likely ran out of things to do like you did.
>>10920412To be fair, I didn't look at anything outside of the big main area. I did see the BMX show, and that was pretty cool.
Yumicon is this weekend. Is anyone bothering to go besides seeing Kaho?
Huh. I used to date a Texas cosplayer and she always acted like she took it super seriously, started getting more involved in organizingocal West Texas cons and then.... Just sort of fell off I guess. Even their insta doesn't show them doing any fresh cosplays in a while. Whole scene in Texas seems to be struggling.
State of danganronpa cosplay at texas cons in 2024? Does anyone want to do a group cosplay. I’m working on a couple.
