Convention Cultural Exchange Time!

>>9004617
OP here,

One thing I've noticed after going to Comiket is that American conventions seem to be unique in that after we cosplay, we go to room parties or raves and we get hammered. I know this also happens in the UK but does this happen in your country as well?

If it doesn't why not?

>>9004619
Nice idea for a thread, OP. Germanfag here. I noticed american cons usually take place in big hotels, is that right? (I always wonder why there's carpet in american con photos, but if the con is at a hotel...) German/european cons usually take place in fair halls or other suitably big enough event halls, but not hotels.
There are also usually no rules about constantly having to have your con badge visibly on you.

Room parties are common too. People usually either go to a nice restaurant with their friends after a con day, stay at the con really late or have room parties. Me and my friends don't really get hammered since we don't want to be hungover the next con day. But alcohol? Sure why not. However, we sometimes start... earlier in the day. This sounds like we're total alcoholics (we're not), but if it's a nice summer con and you can have a picnic outside in the sun with your friends at/near the con area and have a nice cold beer while watching other cosplayers.. that's great. (And another plus of not having a con at a hotel.)

Raves aren't really a thing here.The only similar event that comes to mind is the Connichi party which has been a thing for like 3-4 years. (The con rents a whole club for a night for con guests with j-rock/pop, k-rock/pop and anime music.)

Cosplay proms are much more common here. Do you have those in america?

>>9004619
Sweden reporting in I guess?

Swedish con culture is really... Specific. Swedish cons were for a long time pretty dependent on cultural grant money, and in the requirements for this it was often stated that the con be a safe area for youth. As in, no alcohol or drugs. So alcohol and bars and whatnot just... Isn't really part of Swedish con culture at large? Of course, people still go out drinking and they'll still host private parties, but it doesn't occur at-con and it's not part of con culture.

Not to mention that cons are never held at hotels. We also have the very specific thing of sleeping halls being a thing. As in, you pay 10-15€ and get a spot in a nearby school building to sleep in. That doesn't really allow for room parties. It's very good if you're a teenager or a student with limited budget, makes for less room-stuffing and means less competition for local hotel rooms.

>>9007068
Cons here will usually take place in school buildings. I guess the approach is much less expo, so it works.

Also, all swedish cons use fabric wristbands; badges are reserved for staff and guests.

Is SDCC really all that? I've heard of people staying in line all night for panels, and meeting celebs and seeing some incredible cosplays.

But the media that comes from SDCC is shitty phone video of early trailers and sexual harassment stories.

>>9007068
>american cons usually take place in big hotels, is that right?

I guess its 50/50. Some cons take place at hotels, other at large convention centers.

Estonia here, we only have one con every year and it's very similar to >>9007083
takes place in a school building, sleeping halls are offered, wristbands (albeit the weird paper/plasticky ones), drinking inside the con is not allowed. not sure why, there's an afterparty with booze anyway
there are usually no particular guests since we're so small. panels are held and a cosplay contest, which decides our eurocosplay competitor for the year. usually it's either the guy with runescape costumes or our most prevalent female cosplayer.

>>9007289
Hey Estonian friend! I'll be in Estonia from the 15th to the 28th of August, will there be anything anime- or lolita-related going on?

>>9007876
anime is unlikely (the con is a month later, I don't know about any other planned events at that time), but hit up one of the comm mods at facebook /groups/163148363879824/ and we can probably host a meet. the comm seems to be kinda lazy with meets so an excuse to host one would probably be great, haha

>>9007068

Usually, if the convention has more than 5000-7000 people, the cons take place in a big hotel (big is subjective here). The smaller ones occur in places like community college halls, etc

> if it's a nice summer con and you can have a picnic outside in the sun with your friends at/near the con area and have a nice cold beer while watching other cosplayers

I wish we could have this. It sounds really nice ;_;

Regarding cosplay proms, we have cosplay balls and formals which are pretty close to proms.

>>9007091
If you're really keen on meeting certain celebrities or show directors then absolutely.

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To other latino/a anons:
Has there been a Latin American con that wasn't shit? No Mexico doesn't count.
Honestly losing hope here.

Also, any other events like Comiket where the main focus is more on the industry/fanmade content rather than just fan panels and cosplay interests?

At most, I have only seen Korean and Chinese doujins and artbooks that had their own circle and everything, but I can't seem to find any huge scene outside East Asia where there's more focus on original/fanmade music and doujins/artbooks.

I feel like artist alleys do have some of the qualities, but rarely have I seen fanmade/original doujins and cds printed en masse. I also feel like they focus more on prints/keychains and doujins/artbooks/cds seems to be the minority.

I know cosplay guests (unfortunately) have become a big thing lately globally. Are there tendencies of some countries focusing more on cosplay guests than creators? I personally see it more of a mis-use of money to pay for a diva queen rather than an actual creator that left an impact on the fandom lol.

>>9009152
what's so bad about latin american cons?

>>9009152

> implying mexicans cons aren't shit

the only decent one is J'fest, and that barely counts.

>>9009152
I'm pretty interested in this too. In the other thread, that's in the archives, a few Brazilians talked about CCXP (more comics) and brazil game show (vidya) but they do include anime shit as well.

>>9007091
SDCC-fag here. The only panels that people wait all night for is H-hall which holds all the panels for up coming movies and TV shows that most celebrities are in. Some people even stay all day in it so they can get the wrist bands so they can in front of the line for the next day. Indigo and ballroom 20 also have some panels that get crowd because they hold the panels for mainstream cartoons and animations. Everything else is fairly easy to get in but you do have to plan a little just to be safe that you get in.

As for celebrities you have better odds just running and bumming into them doing your own thing then actively trying to find them or talk to them.

I don't know media wise but I do take point and shoot photos of cosplays I like. As for stories there's only one sexual harassment story but it turned out to be drunk girl who climbed hotel gate to get into pool and got injuries and knocked out on falling. Crazest one is the hit run with deaf tourist and zombies. The most Darwin one was a twilight fag who got run over and died. The usual you hear every year are rumors of people either going to blow up, shot up, or attempt suicide at sdcc

>>9012976
They're mediocre in close to all aspects. They're held in shitty public schools, inadequate cultural centers, have bootlegs fucking everywhere and don't plan to stop anytime, have a shitton of attentionwhore cosplay guests and irrelevant voice actors instead of actual important people, are held in shitty, dangerous neighborhoods, have overpriced mircowavable ramen for food, rarely compensate their guests correctly, communities or panelists too, have the same shit every year, have awful con organizers that don't even know what makes a convention good, are full of low income, smelly weebs that sperg out, rarely have any decent photographers and good cosplayers are few.
It doesn't help that the same mediocre people settle for the same mediocre events and don't demand for more quality events.

Due to this, I don't even go to local cons anymore, it's just all too depressing. I'm only flying out for a concert and going to one in the winter because my friend got me a free entry ticket lol.

The only thing that doesn't disappoint is the artist alley because they actually pick good people that know how to actually draw. This only counts for the 2D stuff though, the rest like plushies, accessories and others vary. Oh and also the fairs some vendors use to sell stuff (separate events from cons.)

>>9013010
I'm not implying they aren't, but they don't count as latin america. And they have a better chance of getting a Japanese or overseas guests than we have because of its proximity to the states and mass of people.

>>9013530
Yep. Same here. I don't know much of others.

As a Eurofag in one of the tiniest countries, I'm always amazed at the artist alley stories I see from Americans. Like, $2k profit stories. I see so little people buying stuff at our artist alleys I always wonder if the people here even manage to break even, how much it costs, how well they do sales etc. Can't seem to find much information about that.

I guess my question is if this unwillingness of the public to buy artist alley stuff is more local culture (we're cheapasses) or if this is a general Europe thing.

Canada reporting in.

We're a huge disappointment, honestly. The only cons worth going to are AN, Otakuthon, and idk, maybe one in BC. We have cons nearly every month in the Toronto area and they're all shitty, tiny, and run by idiots.

The bigger ones AN and Fanexpo- but Fanexpo is all a money grab and trying way to hard to be Canada's SDCC in 1/8th of the space. No fan run panels, only industry. Hiked up prices on bootlegs. Athlete special guests?? 130$ weekend pass. Same weekend as Dragoncon. Unless you're dressed from a kids show, or are wearing little clothing, you're treated like a freak. Honestly it's more for muggles than it is for usual con-goers.

Anime North is run by fans, for fans. Or so they claim. Panel list is usually interesting, but neckbeards constantly get buttmad about our country being very LGBT and POC friendly, so they like to throw fits that they aren't the majority of con goers anymore, so their interests aren't catered to at AN (go to ConBravo if you want that shit). The con itself is split between the Congress Center and 2 hotels. But the con center is tiny, and the hotels are meh. So it's mostly outdoors.

Yes there are room parties, yes there's weird orgies and bathroom meets, and you could probably get drunk and have fun. But honestly? This is my last year going to Anime North. I hit about 8-14 cons a year (only 2 or 3 Canadian), and since AN is trying to enforce no outdoor paid photography? Honestly I have nothing holding me to it. I'll hit ACEN instead next year.


Cosplay culture in Canada is super laid back. Hardly anyone wears a full costume, cis males never wear wigs, and honestly, our 'good' cosplayers are low-average in comparison to Americans.
The general age for Canadian cosplayers is much younger (15-18), and so no one has a stable income to be able to regularly afford shit. Because they're younger, cringe is common, and it's super hard to find good 20yo+ friends who aren't fucking nuts.

>>9018651
Well. At least i'm honest. Fuck I didn't realize I said that word so much. Sorry guys.

>>9018654

>gives good input
>apologizes for things that he/she shouldn't ever apologize about

Yep now we know you're a genuine Canadian

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>>9017677
I live in Argentina and it's almost the same here, although the ones held in schools/cultural centers don't tend to have the money to afford voice actors, and the couple cosplay guests I've seen weren't overly attention whoring. These local ones are usually organized by some fans, a comic book show and related entities from the province. What I like about them is that you can see some stuff you may not see elsewhere, it gives people with interesting stuff like old, kinda rare merch who may not have the possibilities to be in a big con a chance to be seen.
There are bigger ones like Jigoku style, they are held in bigger places which sometimes come along with rave parties, never been to one of the later two tho.
In both kinds of cons you can find some very dedicated cosplay (which either looks amazing or odd), or from a relatively unknown show for the audience (not very popular o very old shows). You often see people cosplaying from shows or vidya they actually like just to have a fun time

Mexican here

They are pretty ok, i don't know about other countries but you can find several interesting people here.

You get karaoke, japanese celebrities, people who usually dub anime and movies ,etc

>>9012976
Mexican cons are pretty good

>>9022894
Which ones you go to? I've never been to one but might try it for fun, I live in a big city so I guess there's good ones there

>>9004617
French anon here.

Why the heck is every amirecan con so overpriced? from the tiniest to the biggest, our prices never goes over 30 bucks a day (unless you buy premiums.), i feel for ya'll.

>>9026894
Most of the revenues from tickets go towards funding a bunch of shit at cons like VAs, other big guests, renting out japanese arcade cabinets, renting out the convention center itself, etc.

Big con centers and guests cost a bit of money so that's why cons like Otakon, etc cost around 25+ a day assuming that you go all four days.

Small cons can vary greatly in terms of price, but some of them are four day cons that cost 40 bucks (so 10 bucks a day). They generally don't have any exciting guests or events so you really just go to see friends