Thursday, March 11, 2010
DESTINATION: A&G Ohio 2010
This Thursday finds me packing my suitcase with workout gear, my tote bag with various DVDs, and my car with a steady supply of caffeine, snacks and books on CD. I'm getting ready to head down to Cincinnati, Ohio, for an anime convention - namely, A&G Ohio (stands for Animation and Gaming Ohio). As I just started attending conventions (or "cons") during October 2009, all my upcoming con trips are inaugural ones.
The other three cons I've attended (New York Anime Festival 2009, Youmacon 2009 and Ohayocon 2010) have been pretty large affairs. NY Anime Fest takes place in the massive Jacob Javits Center and boasts something in the vicinity of 20,000 + guests (there is some controversy as to actual count due to the way they tally guests - but suffice it to say there are multiple thousands of people there). Youmacon takes place around Halloween in Dearborn, Michigan (though it will be moving to Detroit for 2010), and it had an impressive draw of 6,000+ attendees. Most recently, Ohayocon (out of Columbus, Ohio), is the largest winter season con, and there were 10,000+ attendees this year. All three boasted numerous guests, and at minimum 7 voice actors.
In contrast, A&G Ohio appears to be smaller in scale. There are only two anime voice actors scheduled as guests -- but this is no problem as the guests are Troy Baker (who played Abel Nightroad in Trinity Blood, as well as major characters in some great series, including Bleach, Gunslinger Girl, Darker than BLACK, various Dragonball Z movies, and Naruto Shippuden) and the most excellent Chris Patton (Sousuke Sagara in the Full Metal Panic series, Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist, Ayato in RahXephon, Sato in Welcome to the NHK, and major roles in countless other fabulous series). The website http://www.animecons.com/ (which to my knowledge is the best site to do initial con research) estimates that it gets about 850 paid attendees. With this in mind, I'm rather looking forward to a con whose numbers are less overwhelming. Though all cons I've been to had some gaming component, this con looks like at least 50% of the focus of the con is on gaming. As I am no gamer, this weekend will be a good chance to see two great voice actors, listen to their panels, but still have plenty of time to wander around, people watch, check out the dealer's room (which has people selling various anime merchandise), and veg out a bit.
The con's website is: http://www.aandgohio.com/index1.html . You can check out guest bios, event descriptions and the schedule. You'll have to wait and see if I feel brave enough to witness cosplay wrestling (cosplay, for the uninitiated, is costume playing where people dress up as their favorite characters) or the cosplay musical.
I will try to find time between con-going and catching up on some work (have to pay the bills to be able to keep up my anime habit) to post some updates about the con. So stay tuned!
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