The Old School Otaku Lounge

Blah, and I am currently in a middle of nowhere where I need to drive an hour north for the nearest chain book store, an hour south for the nearest used book store, and an hour north west for the nearest comic book store with a modicum of board games. Oh, and an hour drive if I want to go to the nearest 'Target'..
Blearg.

Ah, I wish all the tiny comic cons I went to in the 90s had badges like anime cons did. Most I went to back in the day were so small, you usually just got a wristband or a hand stamp. I still have my Baka-con & Sakura-con badges, but not 100% sure where they are atm thanks to the move. I also have my one Anime Boston badge & my A-kon & Afest badges around somewhere. I got a pretty nifty enamel pin from Afest for helping on staff, which was a cool extra.

Here's a paltry set of badges I took a pic of earlier this year; we were cleaning the office for some reason before the wedding and I collected everything into my old anime club notebook. Would like to do some nostalgia pieces (probably coming back to blogging, probably physical furniture for the new office/hobby room).


Original

There are other badges, mostly from one-off (Animazement a few years ago) or cons where I stopped by to do some programming as a favor (a couple years of Hamacon in Huntsville) that are floating around, packed in a box or floating around in a car somewhere. Quite a bit of shows over the years (and memories) are on that lanyard though.

These are brilliant, thanks for sharing

I found some badges in my photo archive so thought I would share here too (They're all UK badges.) Ignore the stupid names, they are all injokes from the time, basically!

Left-to-right/clockwise =
DcontANIMETed / maybe 1994ish, my first con! Birmingham
RecontANIMEted / 1996ish, my second! Birmingham
ShinNenKai / 1997, Heathrow, London
AnimeCon UK / 2011, Liverpool
All Ayacon (I did the art at the time for the top-left) badges.
I think the chap who did the 2nd one was Dr Cloud (see DeviantArt), we coincidentally ended up working in the same office a few years ago for the same company! Random!
Minamicon four / 1998, Southampton, Minamicon 8, 2002 (rusty pin badge/button!)
The art on the middle row of lanyard badges is by Phil Laskey and still does art for the con team today.
Digital printing technology had come to the UK around the time of Minami 11+ as every single con pretty much does these plastic lanyard badges now.
I've got some others but they sort of look the same but with different art

Oh darn it the top two pix are the wrong way around! Mods, if you have a mo, please could you swap them around? Thank you

Fixed for you! I like that some of your badges are actual pin badges! That's a cool idea, really. The Ranma & Tenchi ones!

Yay thank you very much! Glad you like them really glad I was able to keep them!

Also AnimeCon UK was actually in 2001, typo time warp

Buttons are a nice way to do convention badging - they already have pins in them to attach to your clothes, they're durable and waterproof. MTAC (a show in Nashville, TN I've been to a few times) used buttons for several years and I always liked the concepts. From a promoter perspective though, if they're the right price, they're too small to be easily identifiable at distance or in crowds.