There were a lot of changes this year for Anime Expo, most for the better. For this report, I will simply go over the overall details. Later, I will do a more in depth review of the individual events. I already covered Day 0 (the day before the first day of the con) in a previous post, but just to review, Day 0 was quick and painless as far as press registration. My younger brother attended as a regular attendee, and said that the line lasted a few hours for regular attendee registration.
Staff and Organization: 10/10
Throughout the whole convention, the staff and volunteers this year were very pleasant. They were friendly, helped direct people thoroughly and were, for once, knowledgeable about Anime Expo policies, and information. I didn’t have a single problem with any staff member. Though Nokia Theatre has their own staff, they too, were a lot nicer this year compared to 2008, where they mocked attendees in costume and were rude. This year, they were polite and understanding with the attendees.
Organization was much better this year. I liked that we were allowed to use all the stairs for the Exhibit Hall, and were checked at the doors, it made going to and from the Exhibit Hall much easier. Lines for events were also more obvious compared to last year where they were hidden in a room and hard to find.
Location: 9/10
I’m still a big fan of the Los Angeles Convention Center. It’s easy to walk to and from the AX block hotels (we were in the Wilshire Grand this year, like 2008), there’s plenty of food in the area, the bus system is convenient at $0.25 and it is safe in the immediate area (anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t know the area, is lying or doesn’t know what the term immediate area means). I actually didn’t mind the Nokia Theatre this year, which is huge compared to the past. It is kind of lame that it causes pricing to go up, but everyone said they wanted it back, so no complaining.
Shuttles: 2/10
I kept the shuttle system separate from the organization part because it was the only thing that was organized poorly. Anime Expo had shuttles in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The difference? The shuttle system worked beautifully in 2008 and 2009, this year, it was awful. I ended up using the shuttle system twice the entire time, and every other time I walk to my hotel. The shuttles either were never there, or only route one was there. It took 40 minutes to get from my hotel to the convention center one time I rode it because the bus driver was sitting there talking. Another thing that was rude, they took all the shuttles from every route besides route 1 to shuttle the Sophia concert attendees after the concert, which is weird because the Nokia Theatre is across the street from the convention center, they couldn’t just walk to the bus loading zone?
Press Privileges: 7/10
I attended as press this year with some other helpers. I enjoyed the fact that press actually had privileges this year. Last year, it seemed like press was basically a normal attendee. I really liked the Red Carpet event before Opening Ceremonies. Signing up for event tickets was painless and easy if you followed a helpful little print out they gave people. I also liked being able to enter a panel ahead of time and getting seats up front.
The only thing that really made no sense was the seating for press during the Masquerade. Press is there to cover the event through photos, video and more. I was one of the few sitting in the press seats for this event, why? Because we were seated in the very back. Even the jumbo screens were hard to see, and zooming in with an expensive camera, or lens would not help. Basically, the seats were worthless and there was no way to see, or capture anything. We ended up leaving because we couldn’t see.
Overall, Anime Expo was pretty good this year.
To Read about individual days events during Anime Expo, click on the day you want to read about below:
The pictures from Anime Expo 2010 are up! See them here!
Tags: 2010, angeles, anime, ax, con, convention, cosplay, expo, los, overall, report
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