NipponCon

So, the anime con that I have been waiting for all semester finally occurred today. I have a lot of pictures, so once I have time to gather them all; I will post some for anyone who wants to see them. The con went extremely well. The art students who were selling their work were all pleased with the opportunity and were also glad to make some extra money and to get their name a little better known. We had four different art students who sold some of their work, on top of various other vendors. It was a great chance for them to meet other vendors as well as to show their own work and what they have to offer.

The panels of the convention also went extremely well. The morning few were a little slow as a result of people trickling in late, but every panel had a decent number of guests and they all seemed to really enjoy themselves and the various giveaways that occurred throughout the panels during the day. We had panels on fanfiction, heckling, retro anime, history of anime, and more. All of the guests that I talked to had really good reviews for the panelists and for the event as a whole, so I was very happy as the event coordinator.

We also had various more active events during the day. The day started off with a game of cosplay chess in Red Square. My team won, which was lovely, and it was a lot of fun. We also had a ninja game, a cosplay contest, the anime dating game, and a lot more. All of the different people at the events were interesting and that made even the very classic con games fun. We also had four musicians perform throughout the day and all of them had decent size audiences and made okay sales of their work. The rave performer and DJ was also our on call tech person for the day, and I was very grateful for all of his help. I would definitely be interested in inviting each of the performers back next year, but I know I will have to make a choice.

Overall, the event was a wonderful success. It made the anime club more money than we expected and a lot of the guests, both on campus and off, expressed interest in attending the event next year. I loved the marketplace being near Glar because it allowed everyone to browse easily and I would definitely do it again. I am hoping next year to allow someone else to be the chair, but I don’t know yet. I love planning the event but I had such a great staff this year and I want one of them to have the wonderful experiences I had planning and running the con as well. I got to meet a lot of really interesting people and just overall had a lot of fun!