Project A-kon 2014

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usamimi
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Project A-kon 2014

Post by usamimi »

It's coming up sooooooon! Anyone else going this year?
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Kame-Sen'nin
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

Post by Kame-Sen'nin »

I'm actually planning on attending Project A-kon this year! This will be my first time at the convention, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.
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usamimi
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

Post by usamimi »

Oh, really? SWEET! Maybe me and Nitro can say hi or something! I'll be working late-night shifts at the con to try to free up my days a little more...though that means I gotta take some naps at some point, lol. XD Before we leave for Dallas on Wednesday, you should PM me your number or something and maybe we can figure out a meeting place?
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

Post by Kame-Sen'nin »

Sounds good! Hope I get to see you both there!
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

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How did A-Kon go? All I know is that the "25th anniversary" A-Kon panel was cancelled, and that apparently this year access to the Artists Alley was restricted to actual badge-holding A-Kon attendees, which caused some problems for non-badge-holding people apparently.
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

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davemerrill wrote:How did A-Kon go? All I know is that the "25th anniversary" A-Kon panel was cancelled, and that apparently this year access to the Artists Alley was restricted to actual badge-holding A-Kon attendees, which caused some problems for non-badge-holding people apparently.
YEAH, as usual, A-kon has it's good points, but it still seems to have plenty of problems. I was really bummed that that 25th anniversary panel was canceled--since I've only been going 5 years, I would've loved to have seen/heard more about previous ones (esp. the first few!)

As for Artist Alley, I think the reason they were really coming down hard on people without badges was because the way to the Dealer's room was through AA this year. (Also we kept getting people trying to sneak in the dealer's room via the outside doors, so that didn't help either). Not to mention that, even though they moved registration to a larger, better location, people were STILL waiting hours for their pre-reg badges. I heard it was a nightmare. -__- (I'm on volunteer staff, so I don't have to deal with picking up badges, thankfully...but boy, did I feel sorry for people who did.) A-kon's con chairs really need to update the way they distribute badges--it's one of the only conventions I've been to were you can literally miss half the con just by trying to pick up a pre-reg badge. (Might as well just not pre-reg and get an on-site badge instead...a little more money, but I heard the lines for those were MUCH shorter.)

Other than crap like that (which, sadly, by this point? I'm used to) it was a much more fun time than last year for me. And we even did a mini Anipast meetup! Nitro and I met Kame Sen'in! Whooo! We all went to part of the old-school anime viewing room showings together (I made sure to leave copies of the forum fliers I made next to the fliers for the old-school anime showing--I figured if people were interested in one, they'd be interested in the other, right? ;) ) and Kame & I chatted and ate some pizza later (Nitro sadly had to work on his shift at A-kon TV, so he couldn't stick with us the whole time, BOO.) But it was a lot of fun! Yay Anipast friends! :mrgreen:

I was worried I wasn't going to find a lot to buy this year because I didn't have much money, and the first day when I looked around the dealer's room I didn't find much. But I did find a few cool things as the weekend went on--I ended up getting: Phoenix vol 2 (for less than cover price!), Macross 30th anniversary ichiban kuji figures of Sharon Apple and Lynn Minmay, a vintage Genma panda keychain, a Megazone 23 postcard book, a bunch of cheap manga that someone marked on clearance for $2 a pop or $5 for 3 (some Parasyte, Vampire Miyu, Hyper Doll, and Futaba-kun Change), a Lum in a bunny suit phonestrap (it matches my avatar!), and one of my favorite finds: a set of 3 Lupin Castle of Cagliostro dolls/figures--Lupin, Fujiko, and Clarisse. They were gently used ones (I didn't find out til AFTER I bought them that, for example, poor Clarisse is missing one of her hands. Thankfully her sleeves are long so you can't really tell.) but they were REALLY cheap, so I can't complain. They're in decent shape, otherwise. Lupin comes with 2 different heads, which is pretty neat. I also randomly found Japanese vols 1-3 of Patlabor (of all things!) at the Half Price Books we stopped by after the convention. They actually had all the way to vol 12 I think, but some of the books were missing dust jackets (plus my bags had barely any room left by that point), so I just took the first three.

The swap meet was kind of a bust in the respect that this year I don't think I even got rid of half the crap I brought to trade. BUT! The stuff I did get was pretty good, so that made up for it a little bit: a few old furoku posters (Five Star Stories, Wedding Peach, and Tenchi Muyo), a random Clamp no Kiseiki, the Little Nemo NES game, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland DVD, one of the newer volumes of Yotsuba&!, and the best out of all of it--the Irresponsible Captain Tylor DVD box set! :shock: YEAH, I was definitely not expecting to get that! :lol: And it looks like it's in amazing shape--like the guy bought it, watched it once, and never touched it again. (The guy was swapping a whole BUNCH of box sets, I dunno why he hadn't just taken them to Hastings or something, but man--lucky for the swappers! The girl next to me got the Samurai 7 blu-ray box set from him just for 2 random volumes of manga! He was taking practically any deal, lol.)

Ah, there was prolly more I wanted to talk about but I'm still recovering (it was a long weekend, and a long trip home, lol) but I'll prolly add more later.
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davemerrill
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

Post by davemerrill »

Nice to see some swapping going on at the swap meet. I wish we could get that culture going at some of the other cons, but most people are out for the cold hard cash.

It's depressing to see that they still haven't fixed their registration problems. When conventions start getting into the 10,000+ range they really need to start thinking of themselves as what they are -a big festival - rather than the sci-fi con with a few hundred people that they started out as. I don't know what the solution is, but I know this year Anime North did 26,000 people, most of those were pre-registered, and the line never stopped moving. They've got it down to a science. Of course the guy running it does have a degree in nuclear physics, so there's that.

I do love Half Price Books. On my trips to Dallas I always found great stuff there.
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Re: Project A-kon 2014

Post by Kame-Sen'nin »

I had fun at A-kon this year; the highlight was definitely getting to meet up with usamimi and Nitro! I can vouch for the fact that the Lupin figures she picked up look fantastic.

I didn't buy much myself, just a couple of t-shirts from Artist Alley.

I did get to attend the Team Fourstar panel, which was hilarious. We even got to watch their latest creation before it hit the internet! I'd highly recommend seeking them out if they come to a convention near you.

The Robotech panel was also pretty interesting. The representative from Harmony Gold showed some "lost footage" of Carl Macek discussing Robotech: The Movie, then essentially did a "State of the Union" update on the entire Robotech franchise, including the upcoming live-action movie and the Robotech/Voltron crossover comic.
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