Fanime 2007 vs. Anime Expo 2007

[phoenixphire24]

Due to the fact that I moved away from California last summer and don't have enough money/time off to keep flying to CA, I had to choose between going to Fanime, AX, or Comic-Con. I chose Fanime because of the great time that I've had the past 2 years, but I wondered if AX would have been more fun/more worth the money because it's larger. After reading this thread and others, I'm am SO glad I went with Fanime, and I'm sticking with Fanime.  

Thanks again to all the Fanime staff and volunteers for making Fanime 07 great!

[~~Loktera~~]

Now that we know AX was a total, unmitigated disaster, I am very interested in hearing this report :lol:

I'm curious, what went so wrong at AX?

This thread is full of fun stories!

http://forums.fanime.com/viewtopic.php?t=7877

That's exactly why I like Doujinshi better.

[BunofGovt]

ha ha ha, thanks everyone for posting the thread links.  yes, barely survived the convention.  too dang hot and having to wait in line in the SUN was almost too much for me.  I did not make any panels I wanted to attend due to being in line for concerts.  nuff said about that.

BUT the artists' alley was fun (tho Ryu was right, the setup was terrible - they need a separate area for the artists' tables, not in the middle of a narrow walkway that was a major entrance for congoers).  The Nippon Engineering Technology artists were fun.  Bought way too much, but got some excellent art deals!  Chatted with a gentleman who has a webcomic and another one had cream buns one morning!

The dealers' hall was a nightmare, even with a map, I had trouble finding the booths I wanted and it turned out that some of the dealers listed in the program didn't even show up.  The first two days you could enter and exit from the same doors, the third day, the staff decided that, because of fire safety codes, that you had to enter from one side, and exit at the far end of the hall.  unfortunately they did not tell everyone entering this until you tried to get out.  So I'm trudging back and forth with all my goodies, getting hotter and more tired, sigh.

I may or may not go to AX next year.  I dunno about the LA Convention Center setup and I've checked the website but I don't see any hotels attached to the center  :? I don't feel like having to walk a half mile to get to the center from my hotel, and feel weird if I drive to park at the center, and how reliable would hotel shuttles be?

Yep, all in all, I've become more grateful for Fanime being where it is, and the way it is.  Although I still want a matsuri. I painted some paper fans, a Kokeshi doll, and won some manga at the raffle.  Also bought some kimonos at one of the booths for cheap!

Enough from me, I left Long Beach (Artesia) at 10:30 this morning and got home at 9:30pm.  I'm exhausted so I'm going to see if I can't get some sleep now.

[K&K4ever]

FANIME WINS HANDS DOWN!

when we got back into the bay area, we drove by the sankose convention center and praised it, saying "THANK GOD FOR FANIME!!!!!!"

and looking at where they're having AX next year, threre are only two things that will make me go to AX next year and they are named  Watsuki-sensei and Hayou Miyazaki-sensei.

[ip136]

Because I love to be the voice of opposition.

I loved AX FAR more than Fanime this year.
You can take that for what you will. *shrugs*

[Glitch]

Because I love to be the voice of opposition.

I loved AX FAR more than Fanime this year.
You can take that for what you will. *shrugs*

I take it as...Treason!!! You will be punished for the highest crime in the land!   :twisted:

In all seriousness, I would only like to hear "fanime is better than AX" because of something great fanime did. Rooting for Ax to mess up leads us down the road of "at least we suck less than those guys".

[Punkbuster]

I'm planning on going to FA08, and it's only the second (big) con I've ever been too. I went to AX 06 (for CLAMP), and I had a fantastic time. I didn't know what to expect, and the only not too horrible thing that really happened was that Man-Faye called me out in the Dealers Room. I was dressed as Phil from Bondage Fairies so that's self-explanitory.

There's no way I was going to LACC for AX08 so I figured my best friend and I go to Fanime instead since we're driving from AZ. XD

[K&K4ever]

WHO DARES TO SAY THAT AX WAS BETTER THEN FANIME!!!

THEY SHOULD BE DRAWN AND QUORTERED!!!!

[ip136]

Because I love to be the voice of opposition.

I loved AX FAR more than Fanime this year.
You can take that for what you will. *shrugs*

I take it as...Treason!!! You will be punished for the highest crime in the land!   :twisted:

In all seriousness, I would only like to hear "fanime is better than AX" because of something great fanime did. Rooting for Ax to mess up leads us down the road of "at least we suck less than those guys".

*nods* I completely agree on why a Con should be praised. . .My biggest hang-up was that at Fanime I didn't do anything but stay at my AA table...and got tons of pins in the Dealer's room(about 100 stick pins)... so yay for the dealer's room, but not my pocket.

At AX, I was at my AA table for just as long, but I also went to SKIN, saw more than just Naruto & Bleach cosplayers (Srsly.. saw a ToD group and nearly fainted.. or made the girl dressed up as Philia faint from me hugging her so hard), Got to watch Man Faye SUCK at Guitar Hero :D , got info on industry stuffs coming out, met the author of The Last Unicorn and got his sig. Had a fun conversation with Bang! Zoom people and saw a great masquerade... though it was really rushed.
My BF even got to see the SOS Concert on top of what I saw/did.

So for me, if Fanime wants to be better than AX, they need to get things other than Anime to watch; I can do that on my own without the fanboy funk. The only person I saw that was of interest at Fanime was the dude from Devil May Cry.. and I didn't bother going to what he was even doing (like I could even really figure it out with the print-out schedules). And I only saw him in the karaoke room and nabbed a 'funny' picture. It's priceless, but that was my highlight of Fanime07..

And I understand that AX has the larger budget and has the industry people backing them, whereas Fanime runs a bit short on both. That still doesn't change the fact that I actually DID more at AX than at Fanime that didn't have to do with hanging with friends (which I did at both) So to me, it means that AX was more engaging than Fanime and more worth the money I paid.

[Cowpunk]

So for me, if Fanime wants to be better than AX, they need to get things other than Anime to watch;

Such as?

There was plenty of non-anime viewing stuff going on at Fanime. What was missing that you would like?

[Kyokun]

I posted my summary in the Things In The Universe-->AX: Aftermath of Evil thread (I think that was the title), but I'll do a brief recap here.

I wanted to attend AX at least once, just to see what it was like.  And I had a pretty good time.  Granted, we didn't go to any of the big huge events, which I think was where the majority of the problems were.  But my friend and I went to the ADV preview panel and saw some good anime.  We also visited Artists Alley and the Dealer's Room, which was a blast (but we were short on time, so we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we would've liked).  I greatly prefer Fanime's Artist Alley for layout and space.  LBCC's was crowded, and split into two sections, one of which we didn't even know about.  There was a lull between 6-10 pm of nothing, so we went off to the nearby theatre and caught a movie.  The good thing about LBCC and SJCC is the nearby places to eat and things to do, if you don't want to be at the con 24/7--I wish we'd had time to go to the aquarium.  Came back at 10 to watch Hellsing Ultimate, but AX hasn't gotten the hang of raising the screens so subtitles can be seen (Fanime finally learned that this year, which I was ecstatic about).  

Definitely going again next year, this time for a full weekend.  We were only able to attend one day this year.

Compared head to head though, I have to say I enjoy Fanime more.  More anime to watch, especially since Fanime allows fansubs.  Not as crazy crowded.  Seems friendlier.  More spacious Artist Alley.  The only things I probably liked better at AX was the bigger Dealer's Room and the larger number of Industry previews (which unfortunately we didn't get to see because of the longish reg line; we underestimated the amount of time it would take to get in on a Sunday).

EDIT:  Oh yeah, and Fanime has bishie bingo!  Hehe.   :D

[ip136]

So for me, if Fanime wants to be better than AX, they need to get things other than Anime to watch;

Such as?

There was plenty of non-anime viewing stuff going on at Fanime. What was missing that you would like?

Whatever G.O.H. there were, I barely saw coverage of them. I couldn't get excited over things that I could barely hear on a muffled mic by someone who was either way too nervous or stuttered a lot. :/
And the one JRock band that had caught my eye was actually playing at AN07 and only came for the Pre-reg day to do a concert. So I didn't feel much buzz at all for the other bands.
The only Panel I was even interested in, Canceled last minute. (The gamer's one)

And the biggest hit was the lack of con programs and the extremely confusing print-out that was set-up to replace it really broke the con for not just myself but also my BF and our friends. We didn't know what was going on because by the time we could figure it out, the event was already gone.

[Pimpstress Rei]

So for me, if Fanime wants to be better than AX, they need to get things other than Anime to watch; I can do that on my own without the fanboy funk.

There was a good chunk of Asian Films shown. There were Asian movies, dramas and comedies. I think that's a pretty good addition to an anime convention. What else do you think we should get that would contribute to us being a mainly anime-based convention?

I understand that you wanted to see other guests and industry previews, but we offer what we offer and sometimes that doesn't interest some members. All we can do is take your suggestions and work from that and our own interest in certain guests and hope that they want to come for free.

If we had money, then the sky's the limit, but we don't have that. We prefer to not "sell out" to sponsors and industries so we can retain our flexibility to cater to our fans. If we accepted the monies offered to us from various companies then we'd have to cut out fansubs and have to cater to the companies' needs. That's not what we're about. We're By Fans, For Fans and that's how I think we should stay.

Like others have said, AX is manga whereas we're doujinshi. We are what we are. As long as people keep going to our con and enjoy their experience, we'll work to better our own con and not worry about having to compete with AX.

[Kyokun]

We're By Fans, For Fans and that's how I think we should stay.

Like others have said, AX is manga whereas we're doujinshi. We are what we are. As long as people keep going to our con and enjoy their experience, we'll work to better our own con and not worry about having to compete with AX.

I completely agree.  Which is why I liked attending both this year.  Between the two, everything was covered satisfactorily for this geek girl.  ^_^

[ip136]

There was a good chunk of Asian Films shown. There were Asian movies, dramas and comedies. I think that's a pretty good addition to an anime convention. What else do you think we should get that would contribute to us being a mainly anime-based convention?

The reference was more to the fact that I felt there was a lack of Events compared to showing rooms. Not that everything was Anime being shown. Rather.. a lack in the announcement and advertisement of Events.

I also understand the difference of the two. I was merely commenting in the thread how I felt about AX vs. Fanime.
Or do you rather simply find my comments to be ill-placed and off-topic in this thread and would put to use better somewhere else? I can do that too.

[Pimpstress Rei]

There was a good chunk of Asian Films shown. There were Asian movies, dramas and comedies. I think that's a pretty good addition to an anime convention. What else do you think we should get that would contribute to us being a mainly anime-based convention?

The reference was more to the fact that I felt there was a lack of Events compared to showing rooms. Not that everything was Anime being shown. Rather.. a lack in the announcement and advertisement of Events.

I also understand the difference of the two. I was merely commenting in the thread how I felt about AX vs. Fanime.
Or do you rather simply find my comments to be ill-placed and off-topic in this thread and would put to use better somewhere else? I can do that too.

Part of the lack of announcement of events was my department's fault. Our printing company totally dropped the ball and failed to deliver the program guides, so people didn't know that there were various panels and other programming. We are working on that issue and hope to never have this ever happen again. We were also experimenting with new ways of getting info to the members and apparently things need to be tweaked a bit more!

And your comments are not off topic at all. If there are any improvements that you feel should take place or if you have any suggestions for new programming, etc., feel free to leave comments in the Ideas and Suggestions section. We run the con for you guys so we want your feedback on what you want to see and what you want to happen. We would like to grow with you and hopefully provide you with a good experience.   :)

[K&K4ever]

well, fanime wasn't the only one with printing problems, there were a few events that were not put in the scedual they handed out (example: the open autograph setion). and do I even need to go into the badge feasco? they were saposed to mail them to us before the con and it didn't get to me till after the con (and no I do not live out of state).  And if you want Jpop, then how about the music fest?

one other thing that makes fanime better then AX was that it was not "Line-con" as some have dubbed it

[Kazuma_uzumaki]

i personally havent been to AX and i hope to go at least ONCE but what from what i heard it sucked this year

i read in the earlier link about the american and japanese voice actors.

sheesh rude.

I like fanime because it has more of a family feel(somehow) and plus i heard AX isnt open 24 hours D:

i miss fanime...

[lynneness]

Part of the lack of announcement of events was my department's fault. Our printing company totally dropped the ball and failed to deliver the program guides, so people didn't know that there were various panels and other programming. We are working on that issue and hope to never have this ever happen again. We were also experimenting with new ways of getting info to the members and apparently things need to be tweaked a bit more!

At least you guys had schedule printed out and gave to people - that helped me a lot ^^ I think I was able to go most of the panels I wanted to go. Autograph session was listed on that paper, too, at least for Inui-san's that I wanted to get. (But it is true that I didn't get to have program guide for my first Fanime expeirence :P)



I went to AX twice (06, 07), Fanime once (07), and I say both have its own good and bad thing.

I personally like AX because that's the con many of my online friends come from other places, ie. New York, Tronto, Alberta, etc. My first year at AX was more of hang out time rather than actually going to con. Still, I took lots of pictures of cosplayers and such, then had fun hanging out w/ them at karaoke/dance and stuff.

Fanime 07 was probably the first con I actually tried to going to panels. I like panels done by fan - they were interesting. And ZZ concert! The line was super short and I get to see them right at front. (I later heard from friends that went to AN that line was really long and they just gave up going to ZZ concert.)


@azuma_uzumaki, I think AX is 24 hours, too. Karaoke, dance, etc.

[Kouri Neko]

I didn't go to this year's AX for once.  I like Fanime better because of their night activities.