News
Tokyo's Wonder Festival to Continue in New Venue
posted on by Egan Loo
A recently released flyer has announced that the Wonder Festival garage kit convention will return on July 26 in a new venue, after the Winter installment was cancelled due to an escalator accident last August. As the world's largest garage kit event, Wonder Festival used to be held at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center twice a year with many models based on anime, manga, and game designs. However, 10 attendees of Wonder Festival 2008 Summer were injured — none seriously — last August when a four-floor-high escalator stopped without warning and changed direction. The cancellation of the February 15 event was caused by the continuing investigation into the accident's causes.
The Makuhari Messe convention center is located in the prefecture of Chiba east of Tokyo. The Comic Market dōjinshi convention was once held there in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Comic Market is now held in the roomier Tokyo Big Sight, and it took place in December as scheduled despite the Wonder Festival's elevator accident in the same location. The only major effect that the accident had on Comic Market was the staffers' stricter enforcement of rules on the attendees; staffers were continuously warning people not to run or overburden the escalators. Kaiyodo's official website for Wonder Festival has not yet posted the announcement of the relocated summer event
Source: Pinky:st. news, honeykicker.com via New Akiba, Ryuyukan
