Forum - View topicNEWS: 22,302 at Otakon 2006
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The Seventh Son
Posts: 380 Location: Where your missing socks end up. |
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wow. i was overwhelmed when i went to animeNEXT, cause it was my first con. that many otaku in one place......wow. thats just plain overload, unless youve been to some of the bigger cons before.
im still gonna try to go next year 
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rkenshin21
 Posts: 32 Location: N.C. |
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I think personally this small increase was due to the restrictions. Many people are afraid to go just because they dont think they will be able to get in. These restrictions are understandable but are IMO hindering the growth of the con and turning new people away from going. Anime expo doesnt have a cap and has grown even more. Even though they raised the cap it still scares alot of fans away. Another problem I think is the hotels. They run out so fast. Many fans get multiple rooms for friends and the likes. This causes hotel rooms to run out very fast and gives the impression that the con will sell out. I can say some of my friends didn't go because of this reason. The fear of traveling hours to get to a hotel and go to a convention with the possiblity of being turned away scares many normal con goers away. It would be a huge waste of time and money to make that kind of trip just to be told you cant be admited. I think they should play with the idea of getting ride of the cap this year to test what might happen.
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dramzan
Posts: 6 Location: Bronx, NY |
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I went this year and a major problem was all of the Yankee fans booking up hotel rooms. If some west coast team played the orioles at least 200 extra hotel rooms would have been open and otakon probably have hit the cap. Also the heat wave probably turned off any people who were making last minute plans to go to otakon.
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Dellchat
 Posts: 8 |
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As an Otakon registration staffer, I can say there were two complaints that attendees kept saying that slowed down the growth.
1. The $10 jump in badge cost (which adds up quickly, when there are a lot of people in one group) 2. Hotels were sold out The Yankees playing next door helped a little because to kill time, we had a lot of baseball fans walk in to the con. Also, most of the Yankees fans came for the Saturday afternoon game, and left right after, so they didn't take as many hotel rooms as people thought. Also, people going to Otakon had first shot at hotels, because the MLB didn't announce schedules for ball games until a few months after Otakon dates were announced, so Yankees fans didn't even know what days to book hotels. The cap wasn't even close to being reached, so next year will probably stay somewhere around 25,000. Also, there were hundreds of pre-reg badges that weren't picked up, so next year, those could be freed up. Hopefully, we won't have a heat wave hit us during the Thursday afternoon registration next year and have otakus fainting left and right. Last edited by Dellchat on Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:39 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1598 |
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The Yankees thing was probably the biggest factor in hindering grownth (although, considering how quickly the con is growing, a one-year respite from major growth may not be such a bad thing. It'll probably keep the cap the same for '07.) I know several people who wanted to attend but simply couldn't due to hotels being sold out for the baseball games. Usually, Otakon is the only big event in town during the weekend it happens, so the vast majority of booked hotel rooms belong to con-goers. This year, that might not have been the case, as every hotel was brimming full of anime AND baseball fans. Which resulted in lots of funny stares when the cosplayers began roaming the lobbies.
Price increase was probably not too big a factor. Most people spend $2-300 total to attend Otakon so ten bucks probably isn't a dealbreaker, so long as the price doesn't go up too often. I don't think the cap was a factor either, especially since it wasn't reached this year. The cap seems to make people want to register more, because they know that if they wait too long there might not be room left. My guess is that the cap will be reached once again next year. A lot of the people who didn't get to go this time will be extra-eager to go in '07. And hopefully it won't be as hot. --;; |
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Busaiku Chama
Posts: 65 Location: There |
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So how big is Otakon compared to other Anime Conventions around the country?
Sounds like one of the biggest to me, but then again, I don't make an effort to go to Anime Conventions. |
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v1cious
 Posts: 6229 Location: Houston, TX |
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yeah i was wondering the same thing. how much did Anime Expo pull in? |
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Dellchat
Posts: 8 |
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According to this: animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=1842 Around 41,000, making it the biggest. |
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Wyvern
Posts: 1598 |
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Otakon is the second biggest convention in the US. It's still quite a bit smaller than AX, but that might be due to it placing a limit on how many people can attend. Two years before they capped their attendance, Otakon actually beat AX by about 300 atendees. |
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lheiskell
Industry Insider
 Posts: 234 Location: Fort Worth, TX |
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Otakon has been a de facto pre-reg con due to the capacity limits of the Baltimore Convention Center. Otakon is a very well run con that would reach much larger attendance numbers, but the current attendance ceiling is due to the facility. The 22,000 cap might be the fire code limit handed down by the convention center. Lance Heiskell Friendly Neighborhood FUNimation Guy |
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Dellchat
Posts: 8 |
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I would agree with the fact that a cap is preventing growth, but as said before, we still had thousands of spots left at the end, so it couldn't have been that by itself. Of course, it will be amusing next year when AX and Otakon are on the same month.... EDIT: Oh, and the above post is right. The 22,000 is for fire hazard purpose, but with the use of the arena, they were able to kick up to about 25,000. |
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starcade
Posts: 204 |
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They get rid of the cap, and they get shut down. It's that simple.
The reason the cap is there is to do exactly what happened here -- LIMIT any increases. I was surprised they actually never reached the cap (esp. after watching AX go through the roof), but still... |
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v1cious
Posts: 6229 Location: Houston, TX |
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couldn't they just move it? or am i missing something here. |
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necrosis
Posts: 6 |
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Move? To where? Otakon staff has said numorus times they do not want to move from the region they are in now. Its easy for many people to get there. Also, not to many bigger places on the east coast to house the con.
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PatrickD
Posts: 95 Location: California |
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In the interviews I did for this article, almost everyone mentioned that as why they thought attendance didn't go up much. (All but one, actually.) I speculate that if Otakon didn't have a cap in 2005, they would have had at least 23,000 people (since they hit that 22,000 cap early on Saturday). ...which would mean that 2006 would have been SMALLER. It's clear that Otakon continues to have problems it needs to overcome. Hopefully it will address them rather than write them off. For example, one relatively minor issue that I noticed was multiple people complaining that staff were difficult to spot in black shirts. (I heard this from multiple people including one friend's LJ post during the con.) Someone else brought it up in Otakon's message boards, but the thread was locked with no reason stated and they seemed unwilling to discuss the issue other than to say that people wear all color shirts. In my own personal observations, black or white seem to be the predominant colors and anyone wanting to blend in should wear one of those. However, I've been to cons where staff has colors like blue, green, yellow, red, or orange (depending on the con) and it DOES help staff stand out. |
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