Anime Vegas 2010 Report: Part 6 - Epilogue

This is my first time ever at Anime Vegas. I heard so many good things about this convention from Erica and Jared, but it seemed that this was an off year compared to what it was last year over at the Cashman Center. Despite all that, I had a good time.

Some positives:

• It's Las Vegas. There's so much to do after the convention day is over, more than what I can do in Los Angeles during Anime Expo and in San Jose during FanimeCon.
• A wonderful Guests of Honor lineup. I'm glad that a convention was able to get so many guests of honor, some that I have seen before but many new faces.
• I like that closeness that these small conventions bring, like Anime Los Angeles and Sac Anime. For every huge convention like Anime Expo and FanimeCon, I need a convention like this that brings the cosplayers and attendees together.
• The gatherings that me, Ryan, and Lucas ran to perfection. We even got compared to the gatherings over at Anime Expo and even then most of them were preferring this convention gathering over the other.

However, I must point out the negatives.

• I didn't like the Alexis Park Hotel outside of its convention facilities and the areas where we had our gatherings. The walls seemed unpainted, there were rooms that were undeveloped, and the lack of lighting at night makes it somewhat of a dangerous spot. 
• I also had an issue on how everything seemed to be separated. The panels area, the Maid Cafe/Artists Alley area, and the Main Events/Dealers Hall/Autographs area were in its own section, and there was a lot of walking between the three. I'm not complaining about the walking itself but how you got from one area to another, which made it seem like the attendees were going out of their way to reach these areas. 
• Then there was the bottlenecks that occurred the convention, which made it sluggish to move between area to area. At first we thought this was going to plague the convention in all areas, but by the time the convention was underway only a few jams were occuring.
• My suggestion is either move it back to the Cashman Center or hold it at one of the Strip Convention Centers, like the Sands Convention Center or the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
• I hate it when panels or autograph sessions get shuffled around and the majority of the convention attendees don't realize it until it actually happens. While this was only limited to Willingham and Mignogna who did his after his concert and not before, it puts a damper to many people plans that revolve around the panels, gatherings, and autograph sessions. I am not blaming staff here as they did a great job in trying to work around this situation and to keep us informed.
• I never got a chance to interview any of the guests of honor during the convention despite networking with the guests of honor to set up interview times. I didn't want to overextend my privileges as press by bugging them over and over once I initiated the conversation, so once I didn't hear back from them I didn't pursue any further. This is a valuable lesson for our staff on attempting to get interviews with guests of honor during the convention. Hopefully we can get some interviews at Anime Los Angeles.

I would like to thank:

• Richard Scott, the chair of Anime Vegas, for accepting our press badges for this year's convention.
• The California Convention Blog press team of Lucas and Ryan. You two made this convention experience much more exciting for me. I'm sorry Ryan that we didn't get to do the B3 Challenge over at Sahara, but don't worry we're going to do it - and you're going to finish that thing.
• The Scarlet Rhapsody press team of Erica and Jared. Thanks for breaking us into the press portion of the anime convention circuit, and we hope to do more collaborations in the near future. It was also fun doing the Las Vegas Strip Mini-photoshoot with you two. And thank you Erica for letting me keep that Walgreens gift card.
• Everyone who came out to the gatherings. You all are the reason why we love to run gatherings.
• The city of Las Vegas for existing. However, I don't think I can live in Las Vegas; I'd be all tapped out in the first week alone.

I look forward to attending Anime Vegas 2011, wherever it is held at.

Well, that concludes my report for Anime Vegas 2010. See you all at SNAFUCon in October up in Mini-Vegas aka Reno!

私のレポートを 読むためにありがとう。
Thank you for reading my report.

-Anime Vegas 2010 Report End-