SakuraCon, PAX, and Cons in the World
Jan. 14th, 2012 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setraThis whole post was inspired by the PAX 2009 and PAX 2011 episodes of PATV. Particularly Jerry's description of of PAX as a con that needed to exist and didn't before they made it.
I have attended a LOT of events. I have attended official live events in large venues in Japan. I have attended tiny handshake events, and middle-sized concerts in Japan too, and once a pretty small cosplay photoshoot event thing.
I have attended more american anime conventions than I can probably remember off the top of my head, three years of Anime Detour (MN), two years of Anime Oasis (ID), Nan Desu Kan (CO) at three separate locations, Fanime (CA-North) three years, and AnimeExpo (CA-South) three as well. I have competed in costume competitions at all of those, and then at SakuraCon (WA) in 2011. And I forgot YaoiCon in 2005 and 2010. I have attended these conventions alone (my first Fanime), with only close friends, or with huge groups like NDK2006 and AX2004.
For a very long portion of my live, anime conventions were the core of what I did. I worked on costumes, I watched anime, I studied Japanese, I listened to Japanese music, I played import games, watched import DVD movies and musicals and seiyuu events. The guests that were attending a con, and the costumes I was planning for that con were a huge part of my life.
Some things changed as I learned important life lessons: plan ahead, don't bit off more than you can chew, don't make costumes for people who don't care. In the years since I graduated, but language comprehension has dimmed, and so my ability to multi-task while watching anime or to whip out song translations. Some of these things changed outside of my control - the current exchange rate makes importing anything untenable in my economic situation for example, and many of my cosplaying friends moved out of state. Other things, I just grew out of.
As I'm growing up and my priorities are changing, I'm starting to realize that the things I loved about anime conventions maybe aren't there anymore. It's a notoriously young crowd at most cons. Kids that are there and dressing up just because they can and their parent's have let them off the leash for a weekend. It's also a massively splintered social group, while there might be about 1% of people who I get along well with and share a lot of important interests... there are the other 99% who I could live without ever speaking to at all. And we're all in it together.
I don't want to say that 2011 ended my anime convention attendance, because I had a /great/ time at AO2011. But my first SakuraCon pretty much ensured that I won't be attending that convention again. Ever since I started competing at cons, life has been very different. You're not spending a lot of time wandering when you have a pre-meet one day, judging the next morning and then a green room call five hours later. And as the contest takes up more time, the time spent... doing whatever else you do it lessened. Some cons manage this well - I attended lots of events at AO, even when I was in two contests. I remember wandering aimlessly around at Fanime for ages as well on my second solo year, and having time to compete as well as attending all sorts of panels and events (that first Bishi Bingo will live forever in my mind).
I've also grown more stayed since I've had a girlfriend. While Jess will wear costumes, and has been forced to compete, she doesn't love it, and she doesn't create her own. She's also not at all a joiner in most panels or any sort of stage gameshow type of situation. Anime Oasis - with it's myriad shows and contests - would not be her convention. I also can't be as open about who I am within fandom when Jess is around. At my bravest, I can do things like say that I'm going to the Merlin panel at YCon and walk off. She would never attend such a thing, and as most yaoi/BL related panels at conventions treat slashing the same as official BL stories, she tends to steer clear. I need someone to push me out in a social setting... and Jess is constant encouragement to keep my head down. That sounds a bit bitter. I'm working on that.
And now I'm thinking, maybe the whole premise of this post is off. Because while all the feelings I have about PAX are true - it is a beautiful, amazing event with great people and things that I really do want to see... maybe the cons I love are the ones I go to where I can be myself. Or rather, that heightened, more honest fangirly version of myself... maybe Fanime 2008 and AO2010 and 2011 were good for me for other reasons. While being alone is scary... is being with people you have to hide things from any better? Wow... that's not the point I meant to get to.
PAX is absolutely Jessica's barrel of fish, gaming is her thing, always has been. And I love a lot of the things that I found at PAX. I'm grateful for the chance to meet the RT guys, I'm so glad that I now read PA and have PATV and the Aquisitions Inc. podcasts in my life. I am, by and large, in more gaming fandoms now than I have been previously, perhaps because games are safer and keep me from slashing characters as often. Hmmm. I'm also in more TV fandoms than ever before, with most of those being British and heavily slashed (*cough*Merlin*cough*).
Ok, my rant kind of petered out... TL;DR: I love PAX, I may never go back to Anime conventions again. Except for my people. Yep.
I have attended a LOT of events. I have attended official live events in large venues in Japan. I have attended tiny handshake events, and middle-sized concerts in Japan too, and once a pretty small cosplay photoshoot event thing.
I have attended more american anime conventions than I can probably remember off the top of my head, three years of Anime Detour (MN), two years of Anime Oasis (ID), Nan Desu Kan (CO) at three separate locations, Fanime (CA-North) three years, and AnimeExpo (CA-South) three as well. I have competed in costume competitions at all of those, and then at SakuraCon (WA) in 2011. And I forgot YaoiCon in 2005 and 2010. I have attended these conventions alone (my first Fanime), with only close friends, or with huge groups like NDK2006 and AX2004.
For a very long portion of my live, anime conventions were the core of what I did. I worked on costumes, I watched anime, I studied Japanese, I listened to Japanese music, I played import games, watched import DVD movies and musicals and seiyuu events. The guests that were attending a con, and the costumes I was planning for that con were a huge part of my life.
Some things changed as I learned important life lessons: plan ahead, don't bit off more than you can chew, don't make costumes for people who don't care. In the years since I graduated, but language comprehension has dimmed, and so my ability to multi-task while watching anime or to whip out song translations. Some of these things changed outside of my control - the current exchange rate makes importing anything untenable in my economic situation for example, and many of my cosplaying friends moved out of state. Other things, I just grew out of.
As I'm growing up and my priorities are changing, I'm starting to realize that the things I loved about anime conventions maybe aren't there anymore. It's a notoriously young crowd at most cons. Kids that are there and dressing up just because they can and their parent's have let them off the leash for a weekend. It's also a massively splintered social group, while there might be about 1% of people who I get along well with and share a lot of important interests... there are the other 99% who I could live without ever speaking to at all. And we're all in it together.
I don't want to say that 2011 ended my anime convention attendance, because I had a /great/ time at AO2011. But my first SakuraCon pretty much ensured that I won't be attending that convention again. Ever since I started competing at cons, life has been very different. You're not spending a lot of time wandering when you have a pre-meet one day, judging the next morning and then a green room call five hours later. And as the contest takes up more time, the time spent... doing whatever else you do it lessened. Some cons manage this well - I attended lots of events at AO, even when I was in two contests. I remember wandering aimlessly around at Fanime for ages as well on my second solo year, and having time to compete as well as attending all sorts of panels and events (that first Bishi Bingo will live forever in my mind).
I've also grown more stayed since I've had a girlfriend. While Jess will wear costumes, and has been forced to compete, she doesn't love it, and she doesn't create her own. She's also not at all a joiner in most panels or any sort of stage gameshow type of situation. Anime Oasis - with it's myriad shows and contests - would not be her convention. I also can't be as open about who I am within fandom when Jess is around. At my bravest, I can do things like say that I'm going to the Merlin panel at YCon and walk off. She would never attend such a thing, and as most yaoi/BL related panels at conventions treat slashing the same as official BL stories, she tends to steer clear. I need someone to push me out in a social setting... and Jess is constant encouragement to keep my head down. That sounds a bit bitter. I'm working on that.
And now I'm thinking, maybe the whole premise of this post is off. Because while all the feelings I have about PAX are true - it is a beautiful, amazing event with great people and things that I really do want to see... maybe the cons I love are the ones I go to where I can be myself. Or rather, that heightened, more honest fangirly version of myself... maybe Fanime 2008 and AO2010 and 2011 were good for me for other reasons. While being alone is scary... is being with people you have to hide things from any better? Wow... that's not the point I meant to get to.
PAX is absolutely Jessica's barrel of fish, gaming is her thing, always has been. And I love a lot of the things that I found at PAX. I'm grateful for the chance to meet the RT guys, I'm so glad that I now read PA and have PATV and the Aquisitions Inc. podcasts in my life. I am, by and large, in more gaming fandoms now than I have been previously, perhaps because games are safer and keep me from slashing characters as often. Hmmm. I'm also in more TV fandoms than ever before, with most of those being British and heavily slashed (*cough*Merlin*cough*).
Ok, my rant kind of petered out... TL;DR: I love PAX, I may never go back to Anime conventions again. Except for my people. Yep.
