Cloud, Why Must You Always Frown?
This year, I attended the AX at Long Beach, and I was at AX the year before when it was held in Anaheim.
The AX on the West Coast is certainly big: usually full of ridiculously long lines and overcrowding, but that is to be expected with something successful, right? My major complaint about the conventions that are held over here is that they are utterly unorganized and rely heavily on volunteer fanboys and girls to make adult decisions. Two examples come to mind. The first one is an Anaheim one, and the latter will be a Long Beach incident.
I stood in line for the Anime Music Video contest for two and a half hours only to be turned away like hundreds of other people. It turns out that no one organizing the event had thought of getting a seat count before seating the pre-purchased ticket holders, and a mere ten more people were allowed in. I should note that, this year, the guy responsible for holding the videos lost them and the event had to be cancelled on its scheduled day. Completely unprofessional and utterly avoidable.
The second example is this year's cel collecting panel. Apparently, the Sunday presentation was cancelled and moved to a different date. The organizers failed to let anyone know about it. All the digital read-outs still had it on for Sunday, all the AX staff thought it was still Sunday, all the techs showed up and set up the equipment, and many of us interested parties sat in a conference room only to sit in front of an empty panel.
I do like the dealer room, although I am not interested in purchasing a movie or series there since I can almost always get it cheaper elsewhere, and the "rare" stuff is always available online. Almost exclusively, I graze the production cel booths for a hidden, great buy.
I have been to some fun events, too. Voice actor panels for Hellsing and others, and had the opportunity of meeting some of the actors and other production people involved in some personal favorite series. Unfortunately, far too many of these panels this year were cancelled at the last minute, and the convention seemed unable to enlist the big names as they were able to previously.
I am not at all interested in cosplaying. Hey, if people have a good time doing it, more power to them, but I find that far too many people dressing themselves up as giant Wii controllers or Inuyasha take themselves WAY too seriously. I had thought dressing up as anime and video game characters would inherently come with a certain amount of self awareness, but I must be wrong.
Anyway, cheers to fellow AX chasers!
