Later Fandom

[Heero]

I think the only segment of the anime fan world that continues to survive and to thrive is the anime convention scene; most anime cons continue to see increased attendance. I've been predicting attendance would level off for something like five or ten years now, so I'm pleased to be wrong, but other than "the things are fun and relatively cheap" I have only murky theories as to why this is.

Here's my guess on anime cons based on what I've seen over the last 15-20 years plus extrapolating what cons are doing.

In the early days (early/mid 90s) anie cons were the analogue of early SciFi cons. They were focused, niche, older and (notably) VERY male. I'm not saying that was "good", merely that it was true. Anime cons hewed very close to the "Trekkie"/D&D gamer stereotype of college-aged male nerds who live with their parents. The pivotal moment came mid/late 90s, when Sailor Moon came out. This was important (moreso than DBZ IMO) because it drew FEMALES into the fandom. Suddenly you had an influx of girls/women and for a short period anime was still a nerdy hobby, but more "acceptable". Con demographics went from 90/10 to more like 60/40.

And then it all went wrong, much like "ladies night" at the club, guys (read: not anime fans) realized that women were attending conventions. And what's more, they were often cosplaying in order to draw attention to themselves. And thus began the influx of DUDES (by which I mean, guys who didn't really give a rip about anime, but were heterosexual males ok with any opportunity to meet women). This is how anime cons began the gradual transition from "anime-focused" to "whatever gets butts in the door".

Now don't get me wrong, cons bear a lot of blame for this. ACML still has discussions about how anime cons need to "adapt" or they'll die out. But the problem is that "adapt" seems to be "market to whoever pays the most" rather than "convert people into anime fans". Anime cons have (continued) followed the SciFi con model in that "CreationCon" kind of direction. Sadly, many American anime voice actors now charge "appearance fees", cons have already been adding "tiers". I can only assume the only thing keeping attendance from trailing off is that teenagers are willing to shell out mom&dad's money for a party away from the parents and the parents are ok paying the money for a weekend of cheap "babysitting".

[davemerrill]

I had a big long reply that I stupidly lost, so let me try this again.

Every anime con has to deal with people who might just be there to 'hang out' or because it's a convention and that's what you do, go to conventions.

What shows need to learn to do is to manage expectations- be up front about the purpose of the convention, here's what we're here for, if you are here for something else, that is not our problem. This way you eliminate the people complaining about the lack of big musical acts, raves, drama competitions, etc. Here are our rules on how to behave, and you're expected to follow those rules.

It was hard for fans of my generation to learn to be exclusive. There was a time when nerd-dom was small and everybody felt threatened and scared of the big bad mundane world, and so fandom had to be accepting of everybody and their bad behavior, even if they were smelly or abusive or prone to criminal acts. We had to learn to put on the big-boy pants and be the grownups in the room.

Atlanta was lucky in that we had Dragoncon to siphon off the fandom-fans who just want to stand around and ogle the Slave Leias; we did get an influx of "just here to wander around the lobby" gate-crashers in 2003-2004, who expected the same parade of storm troopers and Klingons they got at Dragoncon. And we do get our fair share of Indiana Jones and Iron Man attention-desperate cases. But for the most part, if you aren't at AWA for some kind of anime thing you feel out of place.


Texas hasn't had a big all-inclusive convention since Larry Lankford's Fantasy Fair went bye-bye and Project A-Kon took up the slack, which benefitted their attendance numbers but made the show unbearable from an anime fan perspective. I know Anime Central took a strong move towards dances, raves, DJs, and musical acts, and while that's great for them and the people who want that, it's not what I go to anime cons for.

I know at AWA we specifically had to eliminate the word "rave" from any of our publicity or advertising, even our message board. You can't use the word "rave" on AWA's message board. This is because of the vast legion of whiny people (I can't say teens, some of these people are long past teendom) who constantly referred to the dance as a rave, who complained about the dance because it didn't fit their definition of a rave, who repeatedly suggested improvements or changes to our rave, and who would not shut up about AWA's rave, an event we never advertised, was never described as such, did not host, and did not ever exist. (Also the hotels are not big on "raves".)

I mean, honestly we had a fan stating straight out that "the purpose of AWA is to promote diverse musical acts and bring them to Atlanta", and that is absolutely not anything the convention ever set out to do or claimed to do. It was at that point that I realized perhaps the show had been remiss in getting its mission statement out to the public. You have to be up front about it, "We're here to do X", and stick to it.

There's always a healthy debate between anime and non-anime programming, what defines anime programming, how much non-anime programming is good for a convention, does Japanese cultural programming count, does Asian cultural programming count, etc. And that's how it should be, these questions don't have hard and fast answers and should always be debated. It's an art, not a science.

I'm on record as saying that I would be fine if anime conventions re-focused themselves on Japanese cartoons, even if it meant they had a fifty or a seventy-five percent drop in attendance. I've had fun at small anime cons and at large ones. At the same time I'm against the "us versus them", "fandom versus mundanes" mindset that fandom sometimes still holds - I believe that Japanese animation is mass-media popular culture that can be enjoyed by everybody. You don't have to be in the special club for special people to be an anime fan.

[Heero]

Every anime con has to deal with people who might just be there to 'hang out' or because it's a convention and that's what you do, go to conventions.

I agree, but I think the problem with American cons now is that this is MOST of the people that attend. I think most actual FANS don't attend much anymore because of these people and cons catering to them more and more. Like most cons not even trying to get anime guests from Japan because they're not "worth the money".

I know at AWA we specifically had to eliminate the word "rave" from any of our publicity or advertising, even our message board. You can't use the word "rave" on AWA's message board. This is because of the vast legion of whiny people (I can't say teens, some of these people are long past teendom) who constantly referred to the dance as a rave, who complained about the dance because it didn't fit their definition of a rave, who repeatedly suggested improvements or changes to our rave, and who would not shut up about AWA's rave, an event we never advertised, was never described as such, did not host, and did not ever exist. (Also the hotels are not big on "raves".)

We literally printed on our website in bold, red letters that we were not having a "rave" OR a dance (haven't had any kind of dance for the last 3 years and honestly, haven't missed it in the least). I STILL had 1 guy (thankfully, it was only one) show up "stringing" in the lobby at 9:30 IN THE MORNING. I asked some of my team what I could do, short of punching him in the face, to tell him "this isn't your scene".

[Heero]

Japanese shows tend to be very organised and a certain behaviour is expected.

I've been to Comiket several times, and I'm consistently impressed with how organized it is considering how many people go through.

[davemerrill]

I agree, but I think the problem with American cons now is that this is MOST of the people that attend. I think most actual FANS don't attend much anymore because of these people and cons catering to them more and more. Like most cons not even trying to get anime guests from Japan because they're not "worth the money".

well, I haven't been to every anime con, but the ones I have been to in the past few years seem to be pretty well filled with people who actually watch and enjoy cartoons. I mean, we can't mind-ray everybody and tell if they're REALLY fans, but the panels seem to be full and when we show a new Yamato thing at AWA the room is full. Of course, you do have to have people staffing the show that want to keep the convention focused on anime. I don't know if, say, A-Kon, has anyone on staff that feels that way.

I do know quite a few anime fans who simply don't attend any conventions whatsoever, and I don't blame them; the things can be stressful and annoying. Of course I knew anime fans who, before there were anime conventions, didn't go to club meetings or do any sort of social fan thing whatsoever, so there will always be fans who make that choice. And of course there will always be people at cons because their friends are there or to hang out or whatever; their money spends just as well, and as long as they buy badges and don't cause any trouble, fine, might make some new fans that way.

As far as Japanese guests go, I think I said a while back on the ACML that sometimes our job is to educate the community on these Japanese industry figures. If a convention brings over a Japanese guest that nobody cares about, part of the problem might be they chose a guest that didn't work on anything people are interested in, but another part of the problem is that the convention doesn't "sell" their guest choice to the attendees. There's a balance that needs to be struck between the perhaps whimsical and fad-driven requests of the attendees, and the cultural and artistic standards set by the convention itself. It's an art, not a science.

We literally printed on our website in bold, red letters that we were not having a "rave" OR a dance (haven't had any kind of dance for the last 3 years and honestly, haven't missed it in the least). I STILL had 1 guy (thankfully, it was only one) show up "stringing" in the lobby at 9:30 IN THE MORNING. I asked some of my team what I could do, short of punching him in the face, to tell him "this isn't your scene".

That's terrific. Flat out NO DANCE. This is exactly the way to handle the issue. The deal with the guy raving in the lobby at 9am, that falls under the category of 'disruptive behavior', I should think.