Forum - View topicINTEREST: NYCC's Inaugural Anime Fest Draws Mixed Reception From Fans, Vendors
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Durdanios
 Posts: 5 |
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They've had something similiar to this in the past. It seems like they just discontinued their original idea, renamed it a bit, and re-released it and still got similiar results.
I attended their "New York Anime Festival" back in 2007 which also included access and admission to New York Comic Con, I think it was the second year NYCC was in existance? The anime portion of the convention was pushed into the lower basement-like levels of the Javitz center while NYCC got the prime real estate, and I remember it being sparsely attended with few dealers and panels for anime fans. This was also the same year that the American Anime Awards was held in the New Yorker hotel. I think "New York Anime Festival" only ran for 2-3 more years before it was removed. Looks like even after 10 years they are kinda fumbling with anime fandom. |
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R. Kasahara
 Posts: 704 |
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Quick heads-up: "Javits" is misspelled as "Javitz" a few times in the piece.
I remember hearing about that (lived in the NYC metro area up until around 2011). It seems like anime conventions in NYC have never lasted much longer than a few years, and NYCC's own efforts appear to pigeonhole and segregate anime/manga more than anything else. It's almost like there's this curse with New York City and anime conventions, which is a shame since there are tons of fans in the area. |
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dragonmastr
 Posts: 208 |
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Thanks for reporting on this! I was wondering how this cash grab of an event turned out.
You should check out Anime NYC in November if you haven't already planned to. I went to their debut last year and it was pretty amazing. Given the number of attendees and the positive vibe that came out of it, I don't think they'll crash and burn like the ones managed by ReedPOP. |
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GhostStalkerSA
 Posts: 425 Location: NYC |
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Gigantic pet peeve of mine, people spelling the Javits Center with a Z. It's named after former Senator Jacob Javits, no Z. It's not that hard to keep straight!
NYAF and NYCC were combined in 2010 (coincidentally the first year I worked at the con, and have been since). And yeah, NYAF was shoved into the basement that year. Next year had arguably the best location upstairs in the River Pavillion, but the next year I think was the last time they used a separate NYAF branding and NYCC just swallowed it all. I worked Anime Fest in at the Info Booth all four days in the afternoon after usually working Artist Alley at Javits every year since 2013, and yeah, it was pretty dead there, especially Thursday and Friday. Who decides to put the info booth at the exit to the venue and not the entrance? The location and venue did not help at all, and the shuttle buses NYCC had provided which were supposedly running once every half hour only leaving when the driver's determined that the buses were full instead of on a set schedule, plus the traffic on the West Side Highway not helping things. And they only ran until 6pm, which was dumb, when the venue was open until 7, so us Crew members couldn't even take advantage of it to get back to Javits after. Saturday and Sunday were ok, but nowhere near the madhouse that is Javits every year. And yeah, we got the complaints as well, but we couldn't do anything about it. I spoke to a vendor from Maryland on Saturday that said that they only broke even that day and would've lost money had the crowds not picked up; they normally did the Javits side but were convinced to come over to Pier 94 instead. They told me that ReedPop had said to them earlier in the day that they had sold 20k badges for the weekend, and that it was on the vendor if they didn't make their money back, which seems really off base. From my vantage point working the info booth, there was no way that 20k badges were sold. According to my old boss at Artist Alley, he put together the Anime Feat Artist Alley lineup in a week because it was so last minute. Yeah, Mike Negin has a great comic Rolodex, but his anime connections are sorely lacking, no offense to him because he's admitted it himself to me when I asked a couple years back, and the fact that anime artists have been disappearing from Artist Alley for years now. I don't blame him, guy has to do what he knows best, and now that he's also running C2E2 and every Charity Auction at Reed shows in the US to raise money for St Jude's Children's Hospital ($46,750 raised on Saturday night!), he likely doesn't have the time to develop the connections with anime fanartists he needed to make the anime side Artist Alley better. He told me that looking at the pre show numbers, 15k badges had been presold for all 4 days. I did hear that a large number of badges were never picked up despite already being paid for, so there's that too. A couple of vendors came up to me at the Info Booth on Thursday asking if I thought that the attendance would pick up the next couple of days and that Reed had sold them a bill of goods if it didn't. Luckily, Friday seemed like it picked up a little with the Cowboy Bebop event and Saturday, while not spectacular, still drew a large number of people, especially for the Overwatch and MHA stuff. Fan meetups didn't work out too well though. Also, the operations people never got the ATMs working, and there was no free WiFi for vendors, so that didn't help. The biggest booth there was run by BiliBili, the Chinese version of Crunchyroll/NicoNico, so it wasn't surprising to me to hear more Mandarin than Japanese during the my time sitting at the Info Booth. Not to mention us getting a number of complaints from other vendors about a certain vendor selling bootleg merchandise (a vendor that we had to kick out of Liberty City Anime Con in Times Square two months ago for doing the same thing) in violation of con policies, and bring those complaints to Reed Staff, only for them to do nothing and them continuing to sell merchandise (mostly those ahegao shirts and daikimakuras) all weekend. A vendor also complained to Reed Staff that they expected better polish out of a Reed show, not the semi converted warehouse that was the venue (it really looked more appropriate for the raves that are often held there instead of an anime con). All in all, working Anime Fest was an experience; some good, some bad. A lot less stressful than my usual NYCC time working at Artist Alley, but not all entirely in a good way. Way too small, way too far away, and not enough to do. If I was offered the opportunity, I would agree to work it again next year if it comes back, but not without reservations. A bunch of us Crew members had a lot of recommendations for Staff, and we'll see if they take them under consideration. Still, I had fun doing it. |
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Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
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So what, essentially NYCC bought out an anime con and then sabotaged it to get rid of their competition?
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R. Kasahara
Posts: 704 |
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Well, as I said, I no longer live in the area. I'm on the West Coast now, so that's a bit of a hike for me! I do hope it does as well as you say it did last year, or even better, and continues for years to come. NYC anime fans certainly deserve it 
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GhostStalkerSA
Posts: 425 Location: NYC |
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Nah, they revived an old con they had previously killed (I'm sorry, merged with NYCC) half a decade ago. The guy who ran that con, Peter Tatara, left Reed a couple years ago and founded the company that now runs AnimeNYC. |
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Zerreth
 Posts: 210 Location: E6 |
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I admittedly don't know the upper management of who owned what, but what I can say is that NYAF looked like it was going to pick up steam on its own but then was managed directly by ReedPop and then thrown to the wayside as it consumed NYAF under the guise of "co-hosting" and then treat anime fans like 2nd class citizens by detaching everything anime related sans industry panels off to southern end of the convention center.
First year was really bare and somewhat quiet but it had a nice atmosphere of a local con despite being in NY. I think overall, people didn't do TOO great but it was finally an event that anime fans could go to. Second year, I remember Takehito Harada randomly sitting around holding onto a dealer's booth, which was mildly mindblowing as it seemed like no one recognized him since he was selling artbooks of his lesser known and original work. A signed artbook of his original work sits on my shelf in a plastic wrapper. This was also the year larger names in the industry came in. Bamco, and Funimation took up large spaces and it was significantly busier but luckily (or unluckily) still not Times Square sardine packed busy. Unfortunately, this was also the year of the really obnoxious shout wars no thanks to a certain dealer, the promotion of their toxic behavior, and their paddles. Year 3 was when the Starcraft 2 IEM tournment was being held in the same space so there was an interesting mix of guests and Dealer's room booths, but I remember a bunch of artists that year hit a heavy black margin and things were looking up... and then NYCC ate them. Overall it was frustrating to watch an event that looked like it was growing (at least from a outsider's perspective) only to be consumed like a typical corporate takeover where the smaller company gets dissolved out of existence. From the looks of this article, it sounds like nothing's really changed since then. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Counterpoint: I went on Friday. No crowds or lines at any Comic Con event is kinda awesome. I couldn't get into the Cowboy Bebop panel in the Javits on Thursday, but I got a second row seat at the Anime Fest Cowboy Bebop panel, and (free!) autographs from everyone on the panel, plus a (free!) autograph from Tony Valente, all with less than a half hour wait.
In conclusion, ReedPop sucks, and this was a cash grab, sure, but I got to say "arigato" to Keiko Nobumoto, so I'm happy! 
Nope, they made their own thing to compete, announced it too late and it didn't go well. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
 Posts: 329 |
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It has been ages since I've been back to NYC, and for a convention goer who has yet to go to a convention in the Big Apple, the closest thing I've got was the news and the word of mouth of the low down. Thanks to Agent 355, GhostStalkerSA, and Zerreth, I finally got the real clue of why NYCC flounders hard with its anime section.
Granted, it's not done out of malice as far as I know, but still, how NYCC handles its anime portion is pretty poor PR on their end. I'm happy to hear however that Mr. Tatara has brought the true NYC anime convention back in a new convention itself. I was even planning on visiting AnimeNYC for a day after the US Anime Industry Conference until funds were inching to the red and scheduling conflicts popped up. Glad to know that a light is at the end of the tunnel for NYC anime conventions. Have fun at AnimeNYC everyone. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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So they had about 30 badges available? 
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DoctorScorpio
Posts: 15 |
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Reminds me of the 1st year of PMX
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Stampeed Valkyrie
 Posts: 856 Location: PA |
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From what I hear this was a mixed bag.. I had some friends there on Fri and Sat.. I was told that Friday it was dead.. and that they were told by NYCC staff the wrong pier location for the event. When they finally did get over to the site it was VERY dead. However they still had a good time, and said Saturday was pretty much a full house.
Personally I'd have passed.. I don't care much for Comic Cons.. and the Anime side would not have been worth the trip to NYC. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2656 |
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While I'm an AX fanboy and attendee, from what I've read about AnimeFest/NYCC I hope they eat sh*t and die of it. Crunchyroll has done a great job (that I've heard) with CrunchyRoll Expo reviving an anime con in the bay area and it seems they are trying the same with AnimeNYC. The good marketing folks at CR have proven they are fans, know anime and fans and I wish them much success there in NYC! If NYCC doesn't like anime, they should just leave it alone and let someone good do the con.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14886 |
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Which anime con are you thinking of? If it's NY Anime Fest (NYAF), that was also ran by ReedPop (same as NYCC). This new thing Anime Fest @ NYCC is also run by ReedPop, in collaboration with Anime Expo. Anime NYC, however, is not run by ReedPop. NYAF used to be in autumn while NYCC in the spring; both at Javits. ReedPop combined them for autumn 2010, while creating the Chicago C2E2 comic con in spring 2010. That's why NYCC was moved from spring to fall and combined with NYAF - they can't have both C2E2 and NYCC in the spring, nor NYCC and NYAF be separate events both in autumn (because otherwise they'd be competing against themselves). |
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