a dealer's view

Anime Expo 2002 was quite a difficult experience for our resident dealer. Read the perspective of our managing editor, as he struggled through the hassle of dealing with the shop, as well as the other activities of the convention. We feel for you. Really, we do.

So Anime Expo has come and gone, and we've all made it back to our respective caves. Again, I was stuck in the dealers' room and am extremely biased as to why this year sucked as much as it seems it did.

Speaking from a vendor's standpoint, the location of the dealers' room was an entirely bad idea from the get go. The area given to us through which we were meant to enter and unload merchandise from was four or five times smaller than last years. This meant that it took longer this year to unload, as we had to wait in our cars in a line that almost reached around the corner to Pine Street for close to two hours. Last year, it only took us a quarter of that amount of time to do the same amount of work.

Second, the hall in which the dealers' room was held this year was smaller than the hall last year. Last year, we took up, at best, two-thirds of the hall we were in, which included the art show section.

The entrance to the hall was ill-advised as well, as they had to regulate the number of people coming into the hall so as to keep the stairs in front of the entrance from being too much of a hazard. Who in their right mind would situate the entrance to the one place where almost everyone in attendance wants to go into there? The location would obviously be quite a bottleneck. In the convention's defense, however (and this is the only stand I'm making for them), they did have the fire marshal breathing down their collective neck all four days to keep the hall within the fire code.

In all honesty though, the whole layout of the Long Beach Convention Center was ill-planned. There was no way to get from the theater to the dealers' room that was shorter than walking, at best, four city blocks. The video rooms and dances were separated from the convention center and dealer's room by two city blocks, and registration was another two blocks away. Anime Expo 2002 was a convention of walking, and waiting.

And wait we did on their problems. From the failure to plan the entrance to the dealers' room, to the complete incompetence of the AMV staff at having the music videos go out on them, the problems caused a lot of wait.

Now they want to have Anime Expo go to Japan? Do they even know how to see through that pompous vision of theirs? Do they honestly think they can have anything to offer in the land where the very idol of their convention was spawned from? There is no way that the thousands of con goers who go to AX, some that can barely afford to go there (especially considering the way they've been raising the price to attend), can be expected to be able to go to Japan for this convention of theirs. I am almost disappointed in AX and it's only my third time going there (Editor's Note: Almost disappointed?).

And before I forget, I wasn't able to get too many good pictures of the Masquerade. I had opted to take shots from the area set aside for press to take pictures backstage. Too little lighting kept the shots blurry. An ornery volunteer kept a door we specifically asked to have closed, open.

I'll stop here lest I become the reason we don't get press passes ever again.

—aldo