Anime Expo is one of the biggest Anime events these days, not just in California but around the world, the name constantly reaches new places and people every year as reports are sent out about the con, in past years the Expo saw a growing attendence that broke the 10,000+ registered visitor mark, this year the Expo breaks new ground with a record shattering 25,000+ in 2004, the expo indeed does grow but was the event up to handle the new attendee's? Lets check it out and see!
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Anime Expo for quite some time jumped around from location to location, first in hotels like the Anaheim Marriot where halls would be opened up completely for the dealers hall and off in the old convention center they would allow video viewing. Now the old CC isn't even used and the Marriot halls accomidate things such as the video rooms and the Karaoke open mic. These days AX expands to all areas around it involving the Hilton, Marriot, Coast Anaheim Hotel and of course the newly expanded Convention Center and it's 3 massive levels.
The show hosted new features this year, workshop programs to teach various items such as character design, how to play go, mecha cosplay techniques, traditional japanese dance and other things. Live programing was expanded to make use of the huge amount of room that the convention center provides. Concerts were held for J-Pop artists on Floor 3, focus panels with japanese voice actors, directors, artists and other key workers were held on floors 2 and 3 as well, the convention took things to a new level since in prior years these items were spread out all over the place and recieved little attention. In addition to these items things such as the console gaming room returned but with its own dedicated room (even though a bit dark) this left the tabletop gaming fans with a room of their own gave everyone pleanty of space for lines or room to watch when the tournaments started.
Now that we've covered some of the interesting items that are featured here, lets talk about the terror of every Anime Expo. Registration, yes I said it, the R word, Registration. Those who have attended as pre-reg or as an at con registration know this horror all too well, every single year the visitors grow in numbers and as a result the amount of hours spent in line expand as well, this year was no exception, as an attempt to relieve some of the traffic they opened up registration on Thursday from 5-10PM, for those that made it this was a bit helpful to say the least even if it was a 2 hour wait, Friday greeted many 8AM registration people with one nightmare, a group that decided to give out t-shirts randomly to the mob of people, as a result people charged forward to get a chance at those 100% cotton freebies to supress their anger of waiting in line for so long, the result was the lines that were formed got completely destroyed and set many back even more hours, some waitied 3 hours to register, some waited 4-5 and others went even longer than that. Trust me people, pre-register, just do it, save yourself and your friends the torment, even if you have to have them pay you afterwards, just pay ahead of time. I love writing about this part though, it's a classic piece of AX history.
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