SacAnime Summer 2016 Community Review - My Personal Experience and Opinion of SacAnime by Austin

A panoramic of the autograph line. (Photo Credit: Matthew Miranda)

Editor's Note: The second in our community review series comes from Austin Guerra and focuses on a convention that embodies the origins of the California Conventions Blog: SacAnime.

Wow, where to begin? I can start by saying that I honestly had a great time at SacAnime even though I spent most of my time in the Exhibit Hall. I am still a rookie when it comes to conventions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a good time or have an honest opinion on how the con was ran. I think the best place to start is with the positives on the con.

To start with I have only been to one other con and that was Sakura Con 2014 as a graduation present. My experience there I can say that for a smaller con the atmosphere reminded me of Sakura Con. Everyone was excited be there and the positive attitudes was a great thing to see. Going through the Exhibit Hall was what I expected: stalls were everywhere and each had a different feel even though most were selling the same things most of time. In my personal opinion, the Artist Alley was the best part of hall.

I honestly spent almost all of time just going down the aisles on Artist Alley looking at all of the wonderful art from local artists. Ranging from tame to risque to just adorable, anyone could find something they liked, and I did with one artist by the name of "The King of Disguise." Out of all of the art there I particularly found myself attracted to hers. Yes there were other artists that were better, but her’s just kind of spoke to me like how one would adopt a pet from pet shop. Being as unprepared as I always am, I had little money to spend and not much I could with it, but when I saw her art, I immediately wanted to get something from her. Looking through the drawings that she had out a picture of Undyne from Undertale took my interest. I am a big fan of Undertale and Undyne is high on my favorite list. I then saw she did commissions and that is when I knew what I wanted.  I could have asked for her to draw my favorite character which is Mettaton, but I asked her to draw me her favorite character and as I guessed it was Undyne. When I got the drawing the next day, I could not help but be in awe on how beautiful it was, and I praised her happily even if it was just a basic pencil sketch. I now have it in a frame and I can’t help but still love it.

Now on with the opinion on the negative of the con. The first critique I can say is that the autograph sessions should have been a little different. From what I have been told by my friends and my personal experience, the autographs were ran more like business. Now I understand that all of the guests had only so much time and, for times sake, had to cut down on autographs and interactions, but it could have been a little more personal. What I mean by this is that yes they were limited, but could have been a little bit more personal with everyone. Not saying that they weren’t because I saw that they were, but it was in bursts and not with everyone. Then the tickets they gave out for free autographs which, again, was issued out for time limitations. Which now leads to scheduling.

The scheduling was really an issue in my opinion. Things were clumped together and left little time to get from one thing to another if you wanted to several things in the same day. If you just wanted to do a few things then it could be done, but my friend Ryan had a full schedule due to press and had to almost be running from one thing to another. My schedule was, at first, full but then I had to really cut down due to time and wanting autographs.

All in all I still had a good time even if I spent all of time in the Exhibit Hall. As a rookie I still need more experience for a more educated opinion, but from what I know so far I think I made a good synopsis. If SacAnime had done just a little better job on scheduling in general it would have been a better con. Like I said time was a big factor in a lot of that and needs to be addressed. Nonetheless I had a great time and would love to again even it still had issues and would recommend this con to anyone and I would highly recommend Artist Alley.