ANIME CONVENTION FACTS OF ANTHONY!

1. How many times have you been to a convention? More than 20

2. Do you sleep at conventions? At the convention center, no.

3. Do you eat? If I didn’t, I would probably be dead.

4. Are you shameless at conventions?: Hell no.

5. On average, how much money do you spend?: Usually no more than $100; that’s how much I spent at AB.

6. Do you go to conventions to pick up people? No

7. Do you go to conventions to bang people? OMG NO!

8. How much cellulite do you see when you go to conventions?: I don’t care.

9a. Do you cosplay?: Rarely, don’t have time to make the cosplay.

9b. Do you watch skits on youtube?: No, I watch them on Vidgle!

10. Does your cosplay show a lot of skin? Why?

11. Is your cosplay the epitome of badassery?: No

12. Do you wait in line for things?: I don’t normally wait onlines anymore; in the old days yes. But now since I cover the cons under press, I don’t.

13. How many friends have you met from conventions? Several.

14. Have you ever been drunk at a convention?: No

15. Name your conventions (the early years I am lost at, i think we went to I-CON 21):
2002:
Anime Expo NY
I-con 21

2003:
Big Apple Anime Fest
I-con 22

2004:
I-con 23

2005:
I-con 24

2006:
Otakon

2007:
I-con 26
Anime Boston
Otakon
MangaNEXT
New York Anime Festival

2008:
I-con 27
New York Comic-con
Otakon
MangaNEXT
New York Anime Festival

2009:
I-con 28
New York Comic-con
Otakon
Anime Boston
Katsucon
Zenkaikon
New York Anime Festival
AnimeUSA OR Another Anime Con

16. Do you go to conventions alone or with a bunch of people? Usually with friends

17. Get your own room or mooch off of someone?: Have own room

18. Ever partied hard with a voice actor?: No, I just keep in touch with them.

19. Taken a picture with Silent Bob? I even had an interview with him! That idiot never said a word!

20. Jay too? Nope

21. Gotten home to find out you’ve lost weight from walking around so DAMN much? I probably do with all the stress.

22. Hugged random people? No

23. Kissed random people? No

24. Stalked someone who was cosplaying your favorite bishi character? No

25. Gotten a g/f or b/f out of a convention?: No

26. Hooked up with someone?: No

27. Tell the truth now… : No

28. Had a temporary convention love that ended by Monday morning?: No

29. Raved until you fell over? : No

30. Flirted with a dealer to get a discount?: Yes… that’s why I have so much free stuff in my room! jk

31. Taken pictures of people?: Yes

32. Had your picture taken?: Yes. Including people taking pictures of me wearing a mario hat with the BSOD shirt!

33. Gone to a photoshoot?: Yes

34. Planned a photoshoot?: No

35. Been stalked?: Yes.

36. Been annoyed by someone?: Yes.

37. Done the annoying?: I hope not.

39. Had such a miserable time you wanted to leave but didn’t?: I-CON 28, and thank god I didn’t. Stayed the entire day into the morning!

40. Gotten in a fight?: Not a physical one, possibly a verbal one but I don’t remember

41. Tried to stage a fight? Yes.

42. Success? Yes.

43. Freaked out when you saw one of your most favorite characters?: Nope

44. Someone freaked out when they saw your cosplay? Yes

45. Hung out with random people that you’d just met? Yes

46. Reunited with a friend? No

47. Broken off with a friend? At a con, no I don’t think so

48. Cried at a convention? Yes.

49. Saved trash from stuff you bought?: No

50. Eaten ramen and drunk ramune like they were air?: I have high blood pressuer so I can’t eat ramen.

51. Slept in the same bed as someone you’ve only known a few hours?: No

52. Made any money? With Vidgle’s Con Goer, I wish

53. Made someone else money? With interviews on Vidgle, maybe.

54. Sick of this survey? It was nice knowing you!

55. Okay…last question. Favorite convention you’ve ever been to?
I would say Otakon 2006.

Vidgle’s New York Anime Festival coverage has begun! To meet expertise, we will be updating our videos twice a week instead of one (from Otakon) in an experiment for next year’s Con Goer coverages. The twentieth episode of the Con Goer is up right now, and that’s the Friday Out and About edition. We will also bring you the World Cosplay Summit panel in its entirely this Sunday!

If you have subscribed to our podcast, you should have it by now, if not, UPDATE IT! You can watch it on the Vidgle website by clicking here, checking out the Vidgle Channel on Veoh, subscribe on iTunes, or check out the podcast page to subscribe! (Yes, a lot of ways to check us out) You can see the complete coverage of NYAF by clicking here.

We will be covering MangaNEXT next weekend, I will be reporting with Louis.

It’s the first night of New York Anime Festival. So far everything seems fine. However, the concern about last year seems to be this year’s as well. The convention ends to early in the evening, 9pm, which is not a late convention compared to other conventions that usually ends at 2 in the morning (such as Otakon and I-CON). Then again, in its New York City, the city that never sleeps!

I did last year recommend Reed Exhibitions, the operator of NYAF and New York Comic Con, to leave the Javits Center and move to another location. The suggestion of location was Time Square, such as the Marriott Marquis. Anime Expo and Big Apple Anime Festival were there and I thought it was at a great location I expressed to them. There are Pros and Cons with the location, such as the Javits is closer to Penn, and Times Square has more hotels and places to eats. I think you would say that to any con, large and small, there is going to be pros and cons.

We were unable to do the first podcast because the Con Goer’s podcast co-host, Fred, was not able to show up Friday. We will be doing a podcast tomorrow right from our hotel room. In February, we are planning to record audio podcasts at the convention floor of New York Comic Con at the Podcast Arena.

Vidgle’s Otakon Coverage Can Be Found at www.vidgle.com/congoer/otakon.

All I have to say is “wow” about our Otakon coverage two weeks ago. As the leader with four reporters, four photographers, producers, cameramen, and a few contributors; we had a total of over 3,000 photos and eight hours of video coverage! Otakon marks as the largest coverage that we’ve done with our “Con Goer” series; Con Goer is the most viewed series on Vidgle. The photos has been posted, and the video podcast episodes are coming in weekly since Otakon.

I would like to thank Jen, Sarah, I-hsiu, Kim, and especially Jon Ko who have taken pictures of Otakon like mad! Most of the pictures are up, but the ones missing are most of the masquerade photos. Those will be up very soon. You can take a look at our pictures here.

With the video podcast coverage, we are getting many hits with our current two episodes. We are planning to launch the Friday episode in a few days! There will also be a Saturday and Sunday Out and About coverage, and a wrap up report in the upcoming weeks. We will have videos of the Phoenix Wright Trail panel and JamProject’s press conference as well. Again, you can watch the videos here.

We did run into a mic issue when we were interviewing with a  Mr. Game and Watch cosplayer (which will be on the next episode). It turns out that one of our reporter microphones died so we got stuck with one and prayed that the second one won’t die for the entire weekend. We normally bring extra microphones but the connector part from the microphone to the camera broke, so a microphone replacement won’t do and a trip to the Best Buy down the street won’t do either since the part is not found in stores.

We will be publishing a review of my Otakon experience in the upcoming week on the Vidgle blog and everyone else will be a writing a response as well.

Our next con coverage for the Con Goer is New York Anime Festival in September. The final con coverage for this year will be MangaNEXT, which will take place on Halloween weekend. We will then have the “Best of 2008″ in December as the reporters and crew sit down at our studios and discuss their favorite cons of this past year.

During the New York Anime Festival, it was Santa-Con that took place in Manhattan, which hundreds of Santas came together. But this gathering is a little different, instead of Santas walking around, it was “No Pants Day,” that took place on Saturday. Hundreds of people came together at a Subway station by wearing no pants. According to Improv Everywhere, the organization that held the event, said there was an estimated 900 participants in the event.

“It was basically like a sci-fi convention with people wearing costumes, but instead, it was people wearing no pants.”

The group splits into three different subway trains and took the subway from downtown Manhattan to Union Square.

You can see pictures from Steph Goralnick on Flickr by clicking here.

This is my first chart ratings of the anime cons I’ve been too this past year. So here are my ratings of the cons I went to, as 5 being the lowest to 1 being the best!

5. New York Anime Festival

4. I-CON

3. MangaNEXT

MangaNEXT was hard to decide with either the second or third place slot. With its attendance reaching to not even 3,000 people, there is not that many panels or things to do, making it more of a relaxing con than any other. If the fire alarm doesn’t go off again at 4 in the morning, I won’t mind going again.

2. AnimeBoston
What a great convention. With its great location at the Haynes Convention Center in Boston, it made it easily accessible to the attached mall of the convention center and other nearby attractions. It is definitely a convention I would like to go again next year.

1. Otakon

Otakon, once again, is my favorite con of the year two years straight. The convention has a great location at the Baltimore Convention Center, which has a variety of hotels, restaurants, and a mall right across the street. I can’t wait till Otakon in August for next year’s visit.

Posted in Anime Boston, Con-Going, I-CON, MangaNext, New York Anime Festival, Otakon, Top 5 Cons of the Year, WRAJ Internet Radio | No Comments »