Well, it happened. After over a year and a good amount of months, an anime convention occurred in New York this past weekend. Note I did say anime: NYCC did happen in October. But specifically, Anime NYC took place, and if you saw pictures online you’ll know many went to the Javits Center. I was one of those many, and I sure have some thoughts about how this convention went!
The Good
+ Can’t really write about anything else without explaining just how it felt to go back to a convention. In truth, I wasn’t sure how it’d feel after this large amount of time away. Would I even be able to chat with other people like a normal person? But by the end of Sunday, the only discovery I made is I sure need to exercise more. Things have changed as COVID-19 continues to impact everyone, and there’s still much to think about on a number of things in the US and people’s response to events, but as for Anime NYC, it was nice to have it back and still see people generally jazzed about attending.
+ On that note of people, yes, this convention was full. Early Sunday was surprisingly slow going, but by afternoon there were plenty of attendees. The general state of anime and manga enthusiasm has long been going up, and even after all this time it’s grown even more. Still got lots of cosplayers (Saw lots of Tokyo Revengers, Genshin Impact, Naruto to name a few), and was happy to see people still buying stuff. I know Yen Press for example seems to have sold out a lot. J-Novel Club from what I saw had only a few titles left on Sunday. DENPA made some bank on titles too.
It wasn’t just them: going to the artist alley and seeing some prints or items sold out or even an artist selling out of everything they brought so they had a free day was heartening to see. Needless to say, lots of people wanted to buy stuff from fans and companies, so if you had a table over the weekend, there’s a good chance you made a lot of money.
The Mixed
- On the whole the panel scheduling was fairly solid. I can say for Friday and Saturday if things went well (particularly Friday) the events I had interest in going to wouldn’t have been an issue as panels were spaced out properly. The only trouble was Sunday, which had a number of premiere screenings and industry events happening in the 11AM-2PM block. Ultimately scheduling everything is tough, but I did find it unfortunate it couldn’t be as spaced out as Friday and Saturday.
- The guest list wasn’t anywhere as prominent as prior years. Of course, we all know why that’s the case, so they did seem to make up for it with more screenings and ticketed events. I did hear unfortunately the Case Closed: The Scarlet Bullet dub premiere got cancelled and no one said anything unless you went through the grapevine, so that’s not great. But that did premiere on a day where Pompo and Belle and a bunch of industry panels happened, so I wasn’t going to it anyways. Doesn’t excuse the lack of communication though.
The Bad
– If you were thinking the extra space in the Exhibit Hall meant something, I’m not 100% sure. They did have food stands and a gaming space but otherwise it was there to have people sit in some chairs or on the floor, and I’m like, “Are we sure we couldn’t have used this to have more space in the Artist Alley or Exhibitors area for people to walk around?” Yes, lots of people were certainly squished in those particular sections. You can certainly understand that maybe you don’t know how many will attend the convention, but in this case, enough people up top underestimated how many people wanted to go.
– I remember the last time thinking the way panels were laid out was pretty good. But if you happened to go on Saturday — and who knows this could’ve been bad on Friday too — maybe it’s not so good after all. The panels overview post will detail this more, but Saturday had a big issue around 5:30ish. And it’s possible it might’ve been longer.
– As always, it feels like each time you think the 7 train would be a reliable ally in getting to Anime NYC, the MTA laughs and says, “Hahaha, try again, kiddo!” I think it’s more than enough to say that maybe it might be best to add a disclaimer to the ANYC website about how to get there.
The Abysmal
So I suspect you’ve likely noticed no complaints so far about the biggest elephant in the room, and that’s intentional. The reason is simple: what’s 2022 going to look like. If we’re projecting on where COVID-19 policies will fall across the board, it’s unlikely ANYC will have a similar set up as to what they started with this past weekend. So everything they tried to implement or did implement won’t be added for next year’s convention in November. So for general convention thoughts, I didn’t think it’d make sense to include it in the usual section.
That’s why I created a separate section, the Abysmal, because I have lots to say about the incompetence that certainly led to a number of negative experiences for a lot of people.
So to state: in order to get into the convention you’ll need proof of vaccination. You’ll get an orange wristband on your first visit, and once you get it, you won’t have to show proof the entire weekend. This certainly was necessary and was likely the main reason people were comfortable going. So the idea of doing this wasn’t bad.
The execution, simply put, sucked. The instructions weren’t clear, so even as press I would have to get the wristband on line like everyone else. That’s not a problem. The problem is that arriving at close to 1PM shouldn’t mean I get into the convention at 4PM. Yep, the lines were long. I can’t speak to the entire process, but I can only judge on how it ended — by close to 3:30ish a rush of people started walking up front, and whatever line that the attendees established themselves broke down. It eventually broke into a crowded field.
The doors finally did open and we slowly started going in. By then, this was the first time since close to 1 I saw someone who worked at the convention. It was the security guard who saw my vax card and handed us a wristband.
So to be clear, there was no volunteer or security guard instructing anyone between 1 and 4pm. I finally got to the end of the line at 41st and going into 12th Avenue. The Javits Center essentially encompasses from 34th-38th and 11th Avenue, but that’s a long distance to the convention. And then when getting to either 40th or 39th Street, there was another line across the street. It’s no surprise that there was another line since cars got to actually go pass, but does this mean people who didn’t get there before others lined up there? It’s possible one of the traffic guards had to instruct attendees to not line up on the street. But I certainly didn’t know, and suspect the attendees in line didn’t know either.
So it’s possible time was lost. Multiple lines also were created. After moving at a solid pace, the lines slowed to a crawl at points.
Needless to say, it was bad. And then after talking to enough people, this was even an issue on Thursday, where you could go early to get the wristband. If you went early on Friday (convention opened at 10AM), the lines were still fairly long. I can’t imagine if you had a Friday badge you could be satisfied with what happened. In general, the major issue seems to still be a lack of people, as the last ANYCs had this problem. If you leave one or two people to try and instruct a crowd, chances are not looking great for those one or two people. If you have no people? You get the type of lines that happened on Friday. The circumstances are unusual, but it was still surprising for Leftfield Media to have this type of disorganization on Friday. Even moreso since NYCC, in the same building a month ago, had apparently no issues. Just simply a failure across the board.