In case you missed it [*snicker*]:

Anime Expo, Long Beach, CA. Today through Monday.

We here at the ’snob spend all of our money on beer and comics (and whatever is left over goes to anime, and more beer, and more comics, and then to trifling things like rent and food) so unfortunately there isn’t a travel budget, and I won’t be going to Anime Expo.

It’s not that I don’t like cons. If I won the lottery, I’d go to a different fan convention every three weeks– and more often than that in the summer. Impulse and exhibition must play second fiddle to income and expenses however, at least for the nonce. My next con appearance won’t be until September.

While everyone else is at the con, though… as Simon points out, we have the manganet all to ourselves for a couple of days. [*insert maniacal laughter here*; I may have to start podcasting just so you can hear my maniacal laughter…]

Comicsnob.com’s Contraprogramming, 29 June to 2 July 2007*

Today:
– so, what is a Con, and which are really the biggest manga/anime cons?
Also up this weekend:
– a look at a round half-dozen recently released manga how-to books, with a follow up including a few older titles that remain standing recommendations for this genre
– a quick review of how young people are being introduced to comics, and drafted as consumers of the product. (which may end up just being a lot of my opinions; research is on-going, though, and I may dig up some juicy bits.)
– Monday’s 5by8; I dropped the topic I was going to use, and am casting about for some filler something timely and topical. I guess we’ll see

* subject to me staying sober long enough to type everything up. That, and I have three scheduled work shifts over this same time period. That, and I have two DVD rental accounts, and there are at least 3 anime series demanding my attention. Heck, come to think of it, you people are lucky I post anything at all.
##

So, let’s finish up today’s post –

What is a con? It’s a lot of people, all wanting to do the same thing. Page down past the numbers (and I’m about to drop a whole lot of numbers) for a really good analogy on what I mean by that:

2006 attendance rankings ganked from AnimeCons.Com, which is my first stop (and should be yours) when planning your convention campaign season. [Disclosure: Actually, this top 10 and the attendance numbers are all AnimeCons; I merely added 2006 & 2007 dates, and the map — for the original list and their commentary on the State of the Conventions for 2006, please click the link above.]

1. Anime Expo — 1-4 July 2006, Anaheim, CA; 29 June to 2 July 2007, Long Beach, CA
   2006 attendance: 40,647 total, 32,930 paid
2. Otakon — 4-6 August 2006, 20-22 July 2007, Baltimore, MD
   2006 attendance: estimated 32,902 total, 22,302 paid
3. A-Kon — 9-11 June 2006, 1-3 June 2007, Dallas, TX
   2006 attendance: 12,500 estimated paid
4. Anime North — 26-28 May 2006, 25-27 May 2007, Toronto, ON
   2006 attendance: 12,500 estimated total, 11,286 paid
5. Anime Central — 5-7 May 2006, 11-13 May 2007, Rosemont, IL
   2006 attendance: 11,500 estimated total
6. FanimeCon — 26-29 May 2006, 25-28 May 2007, San Jose, CA
   2006 attendance: estimated 10,000 paid
7. Anime Weekend Atlanta — 22-24 September 2006, 21-23 September 2007, Atlanta, GA
   2006 attendance: 8,949 paid
8. Anime Boston — 26-28 May 2006, 20-22 April 2007, Boston, MA
   2006 attendance: 9,354 total, estimated 8,854 paid
9. Sakura-Con — 24-26 March 2006, 6-8 April 2007, Seattle, WA
   2006 attendance: 8,300 estimated total, 7,500 estimated paid
10. Katsucon — 17-19 February 2006, 16-18 February 2007
    2006 attendance: 6,400 estimated total, 5,664 paid

First impressions on this list:

• The only reason to bring this up now, six months & more late, is to note that, Yes, Anime Expo is in fact the biggest anime/manga fan convention.
• I’d just like to note that attendence numbers don’t necessarily matter much to the overall con experience. In fact, too many people in attendance can be its own problem, depending of course on the size of the venue and the skills of staff and volunteers to keep everything running smoothly. You can have just as much–if not more–fun at a smaller con.
• On the other hand, not all the exhibitors are going to waste[sic] money going to every smaller con. If you want to see it all then you need to go for either Anime Expo or Otakon. [note for publishers: reaching out to even 1000 or so fans is never a waste of money IMO]
• What, 7500 people get to sneak into Anime Expo for free? There aren’t that many exhibitors… and the press only counts if we include bloggers. Hey, AX bitches, I’m a blogger, where’s my press pass?
• Same goes double (don’t bug me with the math) for Otakon… Don’t tell me you had 10,600 six-year-olds coming in free on their mom’s pass last year; what’s with the big differentials between “paid” and total attendence? Hell, I can drive to Baltimore; how’s about a press pass?
• I can’t speak for you, but my high school had ~1600 kids in it when I graduated. At the time my hometown had a population of 22,000, give or take a few. Hell, I didn’t even know, and didn’t care to know, all the kids at school, let alone past that… The major point to make here: some of the very biggest cons have a larger “population” than most towns.

Other ways to put the numbers in perspective, compared to other fandom:

San Diego Comic Con (which has to be the biggest fan con) typically pulls in more than 100,000 folks including all the exhibitors and press (120,000 in 2006 by one rough estimation, though Comic Con International no longer officially releases attendance numbers).

E3, back when it was a public event (now, presumably succeeded by E for All, though we’ll see how that works out) would have roughly 60,000 visitors. Larger regional cons like Dragon*Con in Atlanta will draw more than 30,000 attendees; Similarly, the gaming-focused Gen Con pulls in about 25,000* people, and Star-Wars-specific Celebration IV (which had the added draw of being Star Wars’s 30th Anniversary Bash) had an overall attendance of 35,000, give or take a few stormtroopers. The New York Comic Con back in February? Near as I can tell (via internet searches) ran 20k-25k for the weekend.

Also for comparison, a few other geek fests: the annual Origins International Games Expo hosts 14,000 visitors, the World’s Biggest Star Trek Convention had 13,000 attendees in 2006, and open source software-based OSCON (geeks beyond question) draws about 2500. And then there’s the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con (YouTube link) which regularly draws dozens, or even hundreds of Springfield residents, dare I say every other week.

These are still big numbers; unless you grew up on Manhattan and then went to OSU and are now the facilities manager at the Big House (and we’ll toss in for free the added logical improbability of an OSU grad going to work at U of M) then even just 2000 people with the same interests, all in the same place for one event, will seem a bit overwhelming.

Let me boggle your mind for a bit: For me (and no doubt many others) the high-school-analogy will be most apt, particularly considering the fractious, Balkanized nature of most teen populations larger than 5 (or 2. or 1.)

Imagine everyone you went to high school with: first, agreeing to make the prom anime-themed… and then having not only everyone in school — from the freshmen to the football team — show up enthusiatic and ready to have a good time, but also having the entire junior class show up in costume.

Welcome to the Con, dear heart. We’re glad you could finally make it.

Even a small con can capture this spirit, and it takes fewer people than you think to reach critical-fandom-mass. You don’t have to make it out to the big name marquee events, if there is a perfectly fine regional or local con right on your doorstep. Of course you can write this off as sour grapes, since I’m not in Long Beach this weekend — but before becoming a con master, Grasshopper, you must first learn by taking on challenges equal to your ability.

##

further readings and references:

Wiki: Con
Wiki: Running a Con.
AnimeCons.com 2006 Convention Rankings, and recap
Scificonventions.com, an apparently abandoned site, but still with 2007 information in it’s database. Their forum link is busted, but (after a brief search) forums for Scificon can indeed be found here
Origins 2007 Announcements, via Spewgilist.com
Dragon*con historical attendance numbers
SD Comic Con attendance, 2006
Gen Con attendance numbers, and the wikipedia footnote on the difference between turnstile numbers and actual attendance.
Celebration IV
LibraryJournal.com on New York Comic Con. Bob was also there.

##

stupid con tricks
one take on “convention rules” found via wikipedia. While I might object to the presentation, I couldn’t find a fault with any of Neonengel’s (is that a person or just the blog name?) recommendations.