During the drive up to Philadelphia for Tandokucon on Saturday, we kind of expected a lot of disorganization with this being the convention’s first year. It really wasn’t that bad. Fortunately, Tandokucon started out small (I’d guess about 1,500 people were there), basically just renting out half of a hallway within a giant convention center.

Haruhi had nothing to do with it, but Itsuki was there.

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If it weren’t for a recent post over at The Anime Blog I would never have known about Tandokucon 2007, an anime convention taking place in my own backyard of Philadelphia from November 9th to the 11th. I’m surprised that a first year con rented out space at the PA Convention center, which is notorious for being a rip-off for exhibitors. It is however, a superb location and supremely accessible from public transportation, just a few blocks away from the Market Street station (plus the Reading Terminal Market on one side and Chinatown on the other makes eating convenient).

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Not another Otakon 2007 post! Last Otakon post, promise. For all the things at the con that could have been run better, I still had a good time and was glad I made the trip. Most of the panels were amusing or interesting in some way and blowing lots of money on useless stuff in the dealer’s room is always fun.

Free mini pencil boards and Paradise Kiss postcard.

Panel Highlights

The most entertaining panels for me each year are the English voice actor panels. Far fewer people this year asked the annoying question about how to get into voice acting, so the panels really stayed fun most of the time. The guests could just tell stories and be funny. There’s always a few creepy questions asked by obsessed fans that earn a collective what the hell, but it’s funny to talk about it afterwards.

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Every year people go through the trouble of building a costume and wearing it for everyone to see. I really look forward to cosplayers that go the extra step and it’s one of the things I enjoy most about attending. I saw some great costumes at Otakon this year. I wish I took more pictures of them, but really, I hardly took any pictures (~75 shots) because I just didn’t have time and I didn’t feel up to fighting the crowds. Honestly, I feel funny pouncing on someone to ask for their picture (which you kind of have to with this many people milling about) that I just didn’t.

The shows that are popular right now share similar palettes and style cues. I felt this made a lot of costumes blend together in a monochromatic sea where I probably missed a lot of good builds. It’s not just getting lost among other Bleach cosplayers, it’s getting lost among the Death Note, certain Naruto, Advent Children, Kingdom Hearts, and gothic-lolita cosplays all sporting black and black/white/silver schemes. This made up the bulk of the cosplay at Otakon this year.

A couple of times, I did hit the plaza where many cosplayers pose and gather, so I did get a few shots when it was convenient. Here’s a few where the pictures were worth uploading:

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Otakon 2007 killed me. It’s Monday, the day after, and I can still feel it in my legs, that epic climb out of the dealer’s room to the second level where most everything happens. For some reason the Baltimore Convention Center (BCC) staff decided escalators were bad and shut most of them off. On the plus side, the weather outside the convention center was pleasant for a change, which helped keep the convention center at a decent temperature. I’ll talk about the good stuff in a separate post as this one is mainly about the convention (dis)organization.

So uh-huh, the con is done and I had a good time, but Otakon 2007 did not run as smoothly as 2005 and 2006. They changed the layout a little, which was confusing at first. Even the info desk had trouble directing us to the Main Events room on Friday as did other staffers we asked after not finding it. After a while we found the Main Events room was where the dealer’s room used to be (in concept this is actually a good idea), which is a nice central location.

The dealer’s room used to be underneath most of the action, so if there was a half hour in between things you wanted to do it was easy to kill time there. They moved it this year all the way at the opposite end of the BCC, so it just took too long to make quick trips. I could see why they did this since it freed up the old dealer’s room location to be the Main Events hall, which could be expanded to hold massive numbers of people for the concerts and the Masquerade. That’s a change I was fine with, even if it was a PITA at times.

The Pocket Guide, which is the main source of information con-goers have, was almost completely useless. I sympathize that scheduling changes are a fact of running a convention, but the number of changes this year made it feel like almost every panel I attended did not happen when and/or where the guide told me it would. Additionally, some of the guests seemed to not know when their panels would happen and some panels seemed to just disappear without an explanation, such as the Romeo x Juliet panel. I heard a few panels where the guests didn’t arrive until the last few minutes of their panel because they didn’t know about it. I was at one of those where the guests come in apologizing and not really knowing most everyone for their panel left while everyone in the room was actually waiting for the next panel.

Beyond the scheduling problems, the guide didn’t accurately name the rooms, and some rooms weren’t clearly marked early Friday, like the Art Exhibit hall. According to the pocket guide, there were three Workshop rooms, but in actuality there were only two Workshop rooms and another one called The Computer Lab. By the time I figured it out, the Workshop was already underway (if it even was the workshop I thought it was).

If I hadn’t known from previous years the Dub Actors After Dark panels were 18+, I wouldn’t have known I needed a wristband to attend. About half the room didn’t know and had to leave to get a wristband, with many not making it back. This also delayed the start of the panel and was a total mood killer. It’s things like that missing from the Pocket Guide which kept Otakon 2007 from being a great convention.

I think they had certain ideas that looked good on paper that turned out to be awful in practice. The autograph sessions were often scheduled immediately after the guest’s panel. On paper this must have sounded like a great way to maximize the guest’s time, but for the fans it sucked. This meant autograph seekers needed to make a choice of attending the panel or getting in the autograph line. It must also suck for the guests, because then their panel attendance is killed because they’re competing with their own autograph session. Terrible. I heard there was a ticketing system to combat this for some guests, but from what I heard it didn’t work out well.

All that annoyance aside, it was still a good convention and from what I saw the attendees behaved well, were courteous in lines, etc. The Otakon Staff also answered questions in a patient manner, but unfortunately they often had no or uncertain information to give. I imagine they were asked more questions this year due to the mess that was the schedule and pocket guide, so I appreciate they tried to do the best with what they had. I know I hit staffers with a question about five or six times this year.

Now that I’ve got all the crap out of the way, I can keep my next post focused on the good time I had. Hopefully, people won’t be tired of Otakon posts by then.