Really? It seems like no matter what AB or PAX will prevent us from going to Zenkaikon 2012 then... -_-
We are looking at different venues so there is hope.
I know there is a convention center in the city of PA. We went there for that crappy Wizard World Philly. It would also be super convenient since it is in a city, it would be easy for us to get to.
I know there is a convention center in the city of PA. We went there for that crappy Wizard World Philly. It would also be super convenient since it is in a city, it would be easy for us to get to
Yea, think about this for a second. There is this Huge convention center probably bigger then the Balitmore convention center near Otakon and they have never moved there... There might be a reason for that :-p
The reason is they are a big pain to work with.. No anime convention that has moved into the Philly convention center has ever had a second convention. It's litereally the black hole of convention centers.
I know there is a convention center in the city of PA. We went there for that crappy Wizard World Philly. It would also be super convenient since it is in a city, it would be easy for us to get to
Yea, think about this for a second. There is this Huge convention center probably bigger then the Balitmore convention center near Otakon and they have never moved there... There might be a reason for that :-p
The reason is they are a big pain to work with.. No anime convention that has moved into the Philly convention center has ever had a second convention. It's litereally the black hole of convention centers.
While not a city conducive to gathering people under 21, Atlantic City has a convention center. I think it recently underwent some new construction or renovation.
While not a city conducive to gathering people under 21, Atlantic City has a convention center. I think it recently underwent some new construction or renovation.
heh, by the same measure we could go with the Wildwood NJ convention center :-p
All of these suggestions are nice, but the logistics of changing conventions centers is more than you might realize. There's also the fact that most convention centers don't scale well up OR down from their expected use numbers.
heh, by the same measure we could go with the Wildwood NJ convention center :-p
I was going to suggest this.
I didn't even know they had one. You learn something new every day.
Here's another random idea I've had in my head about cons that I just need to dump out into this thread. I used to work for Princeton University doing event planning services. All sorts of different clients would come in. Big conferences like the American Chemical Society or NCAA Referee Summit, all the way down to high school sports camps would show up throughout the summer. They'd get assigned one of the educational buildings where they used the biggest lecture halls for large presentations, and classrooms for breakout meetings. Some of the conferences even had small expo halls or scientific poster presentation areas. They'd also get assigned a dorm where all of the attendees got their own rooms, and meal passes to the closest campus cafeteria.
While I have no idea how much something like this actually cost (probably prohibitively expensive), how awesome would it be to hold a summer weekend gaming con where you just showed up to a college, got your own dorm room and provided food, and just gamed your ass off and went to panels for a few days?
All of these suggestions are nice, but the logistics of changing conventions centers is more than you might realize. There's also the fact that most convention centers don't scale well up OR down from their expected use numbers.
While I have no idea how much something like this actually cost (probably prohibitively expensive), how awesome would it be to hold a summer weekend gaming con where you just showed up to a college, got your own dorm room and provided food, and just gamed your ass off and went to panels for a few days?
Basically impossible to pull off. We tried at RIT, but renting the dorm rooms for that over the summer was enormously expensive. RIT Anime thus just founded a straight-up con on-campus without any concern for where people might sleep. It works well if the college will let it happen.
Well, one thing I'm going to be trying to do at PAX is get an idea of the demographics of PAX's attendees to try to get some sort of better idea as to how much AB would be hurt. While there is certainly an overlap between the two cons, there are almost certainly gamers who don't care about anime and anime fans who don't care about gaming. There is also an age difference as PAX's crowd does seem to be somewhat older than AB's on average.
The general feeling among most of AB's senior staff is that PAX tends to have a much higher proportion of older and male attendees when compared to AB. The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees to remain viable enough to weather the 2012 PAX storm and survive until 2013 and beyond.
Older, yes. Female, I'm not so sure. PAX definitely has the highest female attendance of any gaming con, but I'll admit my anime con experience is limited to the point where I couldn't make a fair comparison of the two.
Well, one thing I'm going to be trying to do at PAX is get an idea of the demographics of PAX's attendees to try to get some sort of better idea as to how much AB would be hurt. While there is certainly an overlap between the two cons, there are almost certainly gamers who don't care about anime and anime fans who don't care about gaming. There is also an age difference as PAX's crowd does seem to be somewhat older than AB's on average.
The general feeling among most of AB's senior staff is that PAX tends to have a much higher proportion of older and male attendees when compared to AB. The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees to remain viable enough to weather the 2012 PAX storm and survive until 2013 and beyond.
Yea, that's a smart move. I've been discussing this topic with my convention we are going to try our damn hardest to not be Apiril 8-10th.
The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees
I wouldn't mind this.
edit: As long as they're both. I don't want more teens unless they're the opposite sex.
You do realize that by "younger," we mean 13-17 or so, which people feel is a core demographic at AB. Now, I don't know how old you are, but I'm not sure that's the age of females you want to go after...
The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees
I wouldn't mind this.
edit: As long as they're both. I don't want more teens unless they're the opposite sex.
You do realize that by "younger," we mean 13-17 or so, which people feel is a core demographic at AB. Now, I don't know how old you are, but I'm not sure that's the age of females you want to go after...
I'm 16, so 15-17 is my age range. 13 and 14, not so much.
Well, one thing I'm going to be trying to do at PAX is get an idea of the demographics of PAX's attendees to try to get some sort of better idea as to how much AB would be hurt. While there is certainly an overlap between the two cons, there are almost certainly gamers who don't care about anime and anime fans who don't care about gaming. There is also an age difference as PAX's crowd does seem to be somewhat older than AB's on average.
The general feeling among most of AB's senior staff is that PAX tends to have a much higher proportion of older and male attendees when compared to AB. The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees to remain viable enough to weather the 2012 PAX storm and survive until 2013 and beyond.
To be honest, I think that the audiences for both conventions don't overlap as badly as we might assume. PAX does skew older and male. AB would likely be losing most of the fans that visit the video game room and sit there for the entire weekend, as well as some of the older anime fans. However, I'd like to say that most of the younger fans will still stick with AB, especially because it's less expensive than the 3-day pass for PAX. Even for college-aged friends of mine, PAX was too expensive, and they're holding out for AB, especially because most of their friends are going.
As for me, it'd probably come down to panel acceptances. I've given a talk at each PAXeast -- therefore ensuring a comped badge every year. If I didn't get in for free at PAX, I'd still probably skip the entirety of Saturday of AB to go over there.
Have there been any thoughts about slightly lowering the price of admission to Anime Boston in 2012 (eg., minus $5)? That may be a strategy to retain attendees if both conventions fall on the same day. It might even encourage attendees to pay for both events, meaning that AB would have less people on site (with double attendees moving back and forth) but still bring in money.
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The reason is they are a big pain to work with.. No anime convention that has moved into the Philly convention center has ever had a second convention. It's litereally the black hole of convention centers.
Wait! There is always the Fort Washington Convention Center and that place where gamecorcon and toomanygames uses as alternatives.
Here's another random idea I've had in my head about cons that I just need to dump out into this thread. I used to work for Princeton University doing event planning services. All sorts of different clients would come in. Big conferences like the American Chemical Society or NCAA Referee Summit, all the way down to high school sports camps would show up throughout the summer. They'd get assigned one of the educational buildings where they used the biggest lecture halls for large presentations, and classrooms for breakout meetings. Some of the conferences even had small expo halls or scientific poster presentation areas. They'd also get assigned a dorm where all of the attendees got their own rooms, and meal passes to the closest campus cafeteria.
While I have no idea how much something like this actually cost (probably prohibitively expensive), how awesome would it be to hold a summer weekend gaming con where you just showed up to a college, got your own dorm room and provided food, and just gamed your ass off and went to panels for a few days?
The general feeling among most of AB's senior staff is that PAX tends to have a much higher proportion of older and male attendees when compared to AB. The hope is that AB can still get enough younger and female attendees to remain viable enough to weather the 2012 PAX storm and survive until 2013 and beyond.
edit: As long as they're both. I don't want more teens unless they're the opposite sex.
As for me, it'd probably come down to panel acceptances. I've given a talk at each PAXeast -- therefore ensuring a comped badge every year. If I didn't get in for free at PAX, I'd still probably skip the entirety of Saturday of AB to go over there.