It’s not unheard of to have snow during the weekend of Anime Detour; in Minnesota, Spring is often not so much a physical state as it is a state of mind. But as the convention embarked on its first year at a new, larger venue in downtown Minneapolis, the frigid wind funneling down Nicollet Avenue and chapping the faces of cosplayers, gamers, and anime fans making their way to the hotel was in sharp contrast to the warmth of the convention atmosphere and the high spirits of the many attendees.
As a member of Anime Detour’s convention staff and a prolific panelist, con weekend is one I both look forward to and dread each year as it approaches. I never feel quite as prepared as I would like to be and I always wonder why I signed up to present “so many freaking panels,” (*spoiler* it’s because I love chatting about anime with others even if I may be under-qualified in my own mind to do so). That said, it’s also so much fun to see people who I only get to see once or twice a year at local cons and to experience the feeling of being at a great anime convention in a city that I know and love (snowflakes and wind be damned).
The Hotel
Being in a new venue is always a challenge, but something that made the transition a little bit easier was choosing to attend another convention (Furry Migration) that takes place at the same location and to gather an impression of and familiarity with the space beforehand. This helped us have a plan when we met to decide how to utilize the programming space and what we could realistically do with what we had. The hotel itself, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, has tons of space to grow into, with multiple floors of rooms with varying sizes, and very friendly staff. There’s a lot of open space in the hallways, even during the most crowded points in the weekend, and plenty of places to hang out and sit (tables, seats, ect.). One of my favorite spaces was the front lobby seating area, with a lot of seating space and a fireplace. The guest rooms are also very nice, with large bathrooms. While the (affordable, quick) food options in the immediate vicinity aren’t that extensive, one can travel on foot through the skyway or at street level to several places within a few blocks (including a Target, which was really useful considering my sudden last-minute need for cough drops and eyeliner).
The one big downside of the space, at least in its current configuration, was that there was a big problem with sound bleed. During the day this didn’t end up mattering all that much unless someone in an adjacent area was yelling or playing some footage that was really loud. At night, though, with the rave in full swing, both the rooms across from Main Programming as well as those in the area directly above vibrated with so much sound that it was difficult or impossible to hear what was going on. I think some kind of reconfiguration will be in order going forward, especially if we want to prioritize good panel content (which I hope we do!).
Dealer’s Room/Artist Alley/Art Show
I’ve been to some bigger conventions in the last couple of years, and one thing that’s always thrilled me about them is that their dealers areas are so huge and contain so many treasures to uncover. In the last few years it had gotten difficult to move around in Anime Detour’s dealers room just due to space reasons and the fact that it was created from combining two awkwardly-shaped rooms together into one larger area. This year the dealer area was in its own area on the ground floor in one pretty large space (I’m not quite sure how the space compares to previous years in terms of size but it felt bigger) and there was a lot of room to navigate between booths. My only qualm with the area was that, as in years past, I don’t feel like there was enough variety, especially since I like Japanese street fashion like lolita fashion, otome, etc. and there are rarely any sellers at Anime Detour related to that. There was one booth selling general kawaii clothing, but I was questioning the quality of their wares. In any case, I would love to see some more fashion stuff in the future!
Artist Alley was similarly blessed with a lot more space this year, which made it much easier to navigate. I saw a lot of familiar faces as well as some new ones, and loved looking at the art for sale. My one regret is that I was so over-scheduled that I only made it in there once very early on (before a couple of tables had been set up) and didn’t get a chance to go back and buy anything later in the convention.
I was happy to see that the art show had been revived and given its own dedicated space this year. While it wasn’t quite to the caliber of CONvergence’s art show (what is?), it was fun to visit. It made me want to make some art to put up for sale.
Panels/Programming
I’m a member of programming staff at the convention, but the fact is that I tend not to have some of the same responsibilities as other staff members since I’m generally in charge of so many panels/events that it would become a problem to try to do much more at-con. While I love doing a lot of panels and events, I’m sometimes sad that I don’t have time to attend other panels put on by my friends or some of the other frequent panelists who volunteer to provide the convention with its great content.
One of the new things we tried this year were “moderated” panels in the style of CONvergence, and I think they went well. I was on one of them, which analyzed anime through the lens of Murdock’s “Heroine’s Journey” idea. I was really impressed with how J.C. put things together as moderator, as well as the great discussion provided by our other panelists and the audience. I also enjoyed putting on my annual suggestion panels, since I like sharing anime and manga that I like with others. They’re a lot of work and I’ve come to appreciate more analytical panels than ones that just give suggestions like that, but people always seem happy to come and thankful for our lists and handouts, so it doesn’t bother me to keep doing them. I was overtired at some of the panels this year, though, which made it less fun for myself and probably others as well, but I’m hoping to take a slight step back next time and give myself some more down time to collect my thoughts, so hopefully this will be less of an issue in the future.
My other big staff responsibility is running the AMV Contest at the con, which is fun and gives me the chance to see a bunch of really great AMVs. Holding the contest and judging the entries always makes me want to edit some of my own again – we’ll see if I somehow have the patience to do that in the future. It’s easy to have those thoughts when presented with a lot of excellent examples, but actually editing something can be an exercise in frustration. Besides that, I think we’re going to try to do some category shuffling for next year, just based on the number of entries we got for our current categories this year. Trailers seem to have fallen out of popularity for the most part, whereas having an overly-broad category like “Drama” caused us some problems as well in that it had almost three times the submissions as other categories and it made it difficult to narrow things down from the several excellent entries. Anyway, look for some changes in the future!
Overall
There’s always some nervousness that comes with switching to a new venue, and even though I’d seen the space both as it normally is and as a convention space, I still didn’t have a good idea of how that would translate to our convention. While I do think that the space could be allocated differently going forward and I have some qualms with the noise bleed, especially at night, I also got the feeling that our convention belonged there, and that’s really the important point to be made. I think it’s a space that we can grow into and enjoy for years to come.
As for other stuff, I have some of the same regrets as previous years. I’m sad that more people didn’t ask for my picture (though the ones who did seemed really excited about my lolita fashion) – it’s not that I necessarily want my photo floating around everywhere, but I feel like that’s a big way to engage with people at a convention and I feel like I miss out on that sometimes. And, like I said, there are several panelists who do great things at our convention, and I wish that I could do the things that I do and also have a chance to see their good work. I’m not sure what the solution is to that, but perhaps some time in the future I’ll take a step back a bit and I’ll get my wish. Thanks to all the panelists who post their work on the web for download, though! It’s not the same as being there, but at least I get a feel for the things you’re talking about.
I am also beyond thankful for J.C., who somehow manages to tolerate my passion (and tunnel vision) and has also come onboard with providing content. His support is invaluable.
Did you attend Anime Detour this year? Do you volunteer as staff at any conventions? I would love to hear your thoughts!
For those who are interested…
You can find my panel materials Here.
You can find the list of AMV Contest entrants/winners Here.