Otakon 2024 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[@AnimeGirl4891]

I was just at Otakon as well. And I am so thankful that they connected the Dealers Room and the Artist Alley. I hope that continues for the majority of the Con.

[@esw01407]

I never thought they would do it, and I love the barriers were finally brought down for whatever reason it was. (Probably more Autographs space.)

[@AnimeGirl4891]

Probably. Also, I was confused by the wording when you said “Merchandise booth.” Forgive me, but doesn’t every booth at Otakon sell merchandise?

[@esw01407]

@@AnimeGirl4891 Otakon has a specific merch booth for just the convention, that sells various convention branded items. It was towards the back, and the lines this year were a mess.

[@AnimeGirl4891]

Ohhh. I never saw it, so I had no idea what you were talking about

[@jayg339]

I thought this was a fair review. Some nice constructive criticism and praise of things worth praising. I enjoyed myself 👍

[@itspeepohere]

as always, thanks for making these reviews! i went to the dance and agree that they really need to rework their plan for the future. the Baltimore location’s rave was always excellent. but this one was over crowded, the lights were still on in half of the room which made everyone gang up into the dark half (making the crowding even worse) and the DJ was awful. it felt more like a wedding reception than a “neon crab rave”

[@esw01407]

Thank you for watching! Oh not another wedding, I'm not being best man again! *Jumps out nearest window* I don't know if they need to either go back to two days for the dance, move the lockers to get more space, or what, but it's almost a ground up rebuild that's needed. Hope they have the time/budget to pull it off.

[@TrashQueenAndKing]

It was our first Otakon. Our biggest gripe is that it should have been 4 days

[@BassGal92]

Otakon was 4 days long many many years ago. Otakorp tried it once, but with most volunteers already taking at least a week off work to volunteer, 4 days meant volunteers might not have enough work leave to participate.

[@swordsman1_messer]

I will say this; there needs to be at least one more entrance/exit and official merch location, especially for the latter. I know it would strain personnel resources, but it will improve crowd control and the constant disdain people have for not getting merch.

[@merlin_avalon8232]

Anyone have the opening ceremony for otakon this year?

[@MitchellHang]

This was my 3rd year at Otakon (I started going in 2022) and it went very well for me -- it was the first con in which I attended all three days. I got to meet a lot people in and out of the industry, and the barrier between the Dealers Room and Artist Alley really helped in terms of getting around. I was lucky enough to get autographs from Studio Orange and Trigger this year, especially since many people were flocking over to the latter. One thing you forgot to mention was the return of the Matsuri since it was last held in Baltimore a few years ago. Despite the relatively hot weather (I heard at least one person had passed out from the heat), I thought it was a great event leading up to the weekend festivities and I'm already glad to see it return in D.C. for next year. There was also a pretty infamous situation regarding someone having a famous Japanese VA sign their Funko Pop, and the guy kept arguing until the VA just signed it anyway just so that he wouldn't have to put up with their BS. I'm hoping Otakon takes things like this more seriously when it comes to Japanese talent autographs next year.

[@esw01407]

I wouldn't have minded checking out the Matsuri, but the heat kept me within the buildings much of the weekend. Even as someone who likes Pops, I would not blame most events if they restrict/ban them from being signed by guests.

[@funguslord8202]

Are funko pops not allowed or something? What was the argument about

[@esw01407]

@@funguslord8202 Scalpers getting them signed to put on eBay immediately. Or finding creative ways to get the person to sign the plastic part of the box.

[@kongchow5868]

Do you know the why Otakon dealers room is lacking year after year? The big name industry booths go to big name convention like San Diego Comic Con and Anime NYC. They do not go to Otakon any more.

[@esw01407]

Unfortunately aware after talking to several parties this weekend. I'm actually closer to NYC then Washington, but after one NYCC, I'm good not going into the city unless necessary. At least Otakon has Discotek.

[@toddpeterson8653]

Otakon is big, that's the sad thing. 47k people this year and anime NYC only does 55k lol

[@nicj013]

I spoke to a staff member who had insight on this and he said a lot of the blame fell to Crunchyroll attempting to monopolize big industry names forcing them to only attend big conventions such as SDCC, NYCC and their own Crunchyroll Expo threatening licensing rights for a lot of the would be exhibitors if they attended smaller cons. Apparently this did not work out as they hoped and the Crunchyroll Expo has apparently not gone well, so they're hoping there will be opportunity for larger industry exhibitors to return. The official reason otakon gave at the q&a panel this year was that the pandemic messed things up and it's hopefully slowly returning to normal. Prior to this year, I had heard that the convention center heavily limited the time that vendors had to unload their stuff and that there were heavy fines for going over the allotted time, so smaller vendors with much less equipment and merch could easily unload and bigger names had a much harder time as they typically had large displays etc. I cannot speak to the true validity of any of these reasons, but I've also been wondering the same thing for a few years now.

[@prestonneidig448]

What panel did you do your voice sounds familiar

[@esw01407]

Didn't panel Otakon. I'm part of a panel group (Children Driving Robots) from PA, we do Setsucon, Zenkaikon, and DerpyCon, with random appearances at other cons throughout the years.

[@kmongan711DanielBlacksmith]

Amazing con but I was a little disappointed in the lack of action figure booths was sad, most booths just had the same overpriced statues

[@esw01407]

I have a friend who commented how disappointed he was in the Transformers selection.

[@kmongan711DanielBlacksmith]

@@esw01407 yeah it was a shame, the booths that had action figures had amazing selections but I saw like no figmas or anything. I know the mass of con goers prefer statues. But I’m a big action figure guy so I was like where is everything at!

[@CureCrystal1]

the fact that the people were at Otakon solely for Discotek's panels only to find out they got screwed over by the Pre-Recorded video version of which had more announcements make me think do the Otakon staff really care?

[@esw01407]

It's an odd situation, a lot of the titles they did online only were live action and I'm not sure they were as in demand as what they announced in person. Still would have loved to get the crowds reaction in a two hour super large panel room Discotek day.

[@BassGal92]

I was watching some Otakon videos and someone complained about the music at the rave. Part of her argument was invalid because she spent most of the stream complaining about "normies" (we get it. You were bullied in school), but I heard that most of the music was what you'd hear at high school dances with barely any EDM and the only anime song lasted 30 seconds.

[@esw01407]

It's hard to get the right mix, I've done the walk in and out at more then a few convention dances, but also stayed for an hour because they got that one person that had the right mix.