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Will the spots be assigned ahead of time, or are they issued on a first-come first-served basis like the last few swap meets?

My experience is limited compared to what it would have normally been in previous years - I cut my 2022 con short and was only around Thursday-Friday, compared to my usual Thursday-Sunday routine of Fanimes past.  Having said that, I need to give a shoutout to the staff manning the doors at the convention center.  I thought making use of the Clear app+bracelet system worked out pretty well.  This was by far the largest crowd I've been around in the last three years, and it did make me feel a little better knowing that there were pretty strict rules for entry being enforced.  I came across three "situations" where people had to either be turned away or otherwise said "no" to, and each time staff was firm but courteous and respectful.

The first encounter involved someone not having a booster shot.  It sucks that the potential attendee got that far into the process and wasn't allowed in, but the requirements had been posted with plenty of notice for that to be taken care of in advance.  I'm totally empathetic to those who legitimately aren't able to receive a vaccine, but those were the posted rules and let's be honest, would that type of environment be the best place to be if you were immunocompromised in the first place?  Also, it seemed like they managed to get one full course of the vaccine so that part wasn't even an issue for them, they were just missing a booster which should have been easy to deal with.

Someone else was denied entry because they didn't have a mask.  Again, another situation that could have been easily avoided.  Like, they're available everywhere these days. And regardless of your personal opinion on their effectiveness, they were a stated requirement and literally not a big deal for all the thousands of other attendees around them.  Again, the staff member at the door didn't turn it into a big deal, they just politely said they would not be allowed inside without one and even suggested places nearby to purchase one. I brought extras just in case something happened to the one I had, but unfortunately I left my spares in my car and was already halfway up the stairs inside otherwise I would have offered one to them.

The last one happened late Friday night just before I left the con.  A group of people, all with badges and wristbands, came up to someone staffing the doors at the main entrance and asked if they could get a spare wristband.  Like bruh, who needs a replacement?  I'm sure that should a legitimate situation have arisen, staff could have easily verified your info, destroyed the previous wristband if they still had it, and then issued a new one by having staff directly secure it to the person's wrist.  You swear they're just going to hand a new one out to some rando.  99.9% sure they were trying to get someone in who was either not willing or failed to clear the health checks, and I was pretty happy they were denied. 

That's it.  I just wanted to share my appreciation for the people who have to deal with all the craziness and rambunctiousness that comes with an absolute mob of otaku.  People usually do a good job thanking Fanime staff, but we shouldn't leave out the people who normally work there and quite probably have little familiarity with anime or its related fandoms.  Hope everyone manages to stay safe and healthy, and enjoyed finally being able to get back together for the first time in a long time.  Hopefully 2023 brings a return to a more "normal" Fanime with the various programming that had to be omitted this year, but should the need for health verification be required again I won't have a problem with that.

Has anyone heard about plans for either MusicFest of Swap Meet this year?  I'm sure trying to organize either of those two events would have been extremely difficult with how the last two years have gone, but those have been the biggest draws for me the last few years and I'm hoping that that'll both be included in some form this year.  With less than two months to go and still without any announcements in the forums or on the main page, I'm thinking that they might be casualties of circumstances.  I am super stoked to see Aoi Yuki announced as a GoH, so I suppose there's still hope for some additional exciting news.

Strange to think that if it wasn't for COVID-19, I would be packing up from Day 0's swap meet, lugging all the junk I didn't sell and all the new loot I purchased back to my car, and picking up a couple of bacon wrapped hot dogs as a midnight snack right now.  In the morning, well, noon rather, I'd wade through the crowd trying to get into the dealer's hall, maybe do a lap around artist's alley, and then get all my stuff ready for the second night of swap meet.  Plus I'd be looking forward to whoever was performing at MusicFest on Saturday night.

Instead, I'm at home, thankful that I'm still healthy and actually quite overwhelmed at work.  It'll probably wind up being a 12 hour day for me tomorrow, so I'll feel just as tired at the end of the night as I would if I were actually at Fanime.  Guess I'll just have to scratch my swap meet itch by selling a bunch of stuff on reddit and ebay, and looking for as many sweet deals as I can.

What would you be doing right now if things were the old normal, and Fanime was going on this weekend?

I hope everyone in the Fanime community stays safe and healthy, and I expect to see all of you in person next year!

A Fanime badge has not been needed if you're there to buy on previous Thursday swap meets.  I haven't see anything to indicate this year would be any different.  You will need a badge on Friday.

If you're going to participate as a seller you'll need a badge for both nights, and it's part of the swap meet registration anyway.

Swap meet registration hasn't opened yet.  Believe me, I stalk the forums waiting for reg to open.  They'll announce when things are ready in this thread, usually as an edit to the first post as well as mentioning it with a new reply so people can see it's been updated.  They'll also update the main website and post something on Twitter and FB.

You pay for the spots ahead of time when you register, and all the information will be posted together.  You'll go through a process similar to when you registered for your Fanime badge, so it'll walk you through each step.

Another edit: Actually, I think I was pretty unclear. A better question is, will the three of us (all registered and everything) be able to sell our stuff mixed in two different spaces that are next to each other? This means that we want to be able to freely move between the two spaces since our stuff will be mixed in either space. Technically, it will be two people registering for one space and the third single person buying another space next to it, and then the three of us just put our stuff in either space.

I think where you might run into issues with swap meet staff is the mixing of stuff between the multiple spaces.  They're pretty explicit about not combining spaces to form Mega Swapmeet Zord.  Having a space that measures 42'x6' (three spaces across lengthwise) would not be allowed.  Each person would have to keep their items within whatever space they're registered to.

Having said that, my friend and I have been selling in neighboring spots for years.  We definitely both tend to have a ton of stuff so we each need the full space anyway, but we also like to run a couple of laps looking for bargains ourselves and might need to hit the restroom at some point during the night.  We both register separately and pay for our spots separately.  What staff has allowed us to do in the past is watch over the other person's spot and all their stuff while they're away.  If someone wants to purchase something or has a question, we hop over to the other spot to take care of business and then return to our own area.  I think as long as you don't abuse that, staff probably won't have a problem.

So to what you were asking specifically, no, you can't register multiple spots and share the entire area with your group.  But, depending on your intentions and so long as your items themselves are within your designated area, you should be able to move back and forth if needed.

I'm sure Zelyhon will post an official response shortly, but I thought I'd go ahead and post my reply from years of participating in swap meet.

My two friends and I want to split two Swap Meet spaces. Is this allowed? We all have badges already and we would basically be purchasing two spaces and splitting it three-way (both spaces next to each other).

edit: and if this is allowed, can one person purchase 2 spaces with the intention of sharing it three way?

It's a maximum of two people per space, and both must not only have their own Fanime badge to participate, both people must be registered for that spot at swap meet.  Zelyhon will have the swap meet registration information posted a little closer to the con.  Also, each person can only sign up for one space per night.  This is to prevent people from registering two spaces and combing them together to make one large spot.  For three people, you will need to either register for two or three separate spaces.  Two people can share one and the third in the other, or all three people would have their own spot.  And remember, if you're going to get three different spaces, all three people would need to register independently.

Are there specific dimensions to a "long box"?

You know it's funny, after all this time I've only ever seen it referred to as a long box and never with any specific dimensions.  I've always taken it to mean a long comic box (they come in "long" and "short") for storing traditional comic books.  That doesn't mean you have to specifically use a long comic box - I very rarely see people use them - you're just restricted to a covered box no bigger than the equivalent size.  For reference, a long box is roughly 8"x11"x28" and you can find them at your local comic shop or order them online.  Or use any covered box, just so you can't see the contents without opening it, that happens to be the same dimensions or smaller.

On the one hand I'm kind of surprised nobody has responded to this so far.  But then on the other, I guess I shouldn't be considering the level of activity around this area of the boards.

To toss in my two cents while I'm here, I'd say you're on a good track with all things Shinkai.  You really can't go wrong with anything he's created thus far.  You also mentioned Wolf Children, and another favorite writer/director of mine is Mamoru Hosoda.  Basically all his other films are fantastic, but none of them are quite as dramatic as Wolf was.  My personal favorite is Summer Wars.  I feel the themes covered in Wars are fairly close to Shinkai's works involving innocent/naive love.  Wolf is a very close second, though again they're definitely two different types of stories with Wolf being the emotionally heavier release of the two.  Hosoda's latest film, Mirai, is probably his weakest release.  The movie itself is beautifully produced, but I felt like the story was a fairly shallow combination of his other movies.  Literally a mashup of Wolf, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Boy and the Beast.

Primarily sticking with movies, you'll probably also enjoy Metropolis which was loosely based on Osamu Tezuka's manga of the same name, which itself was inspired by the silent film from the '20s.  And when I think of Your Lie, I always think of A Silent Voice and Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (everyone just calls it AnoHana - I have no idea why people don't want to type that monster of a name out completely).  AnoHana is a series rather than a movie, though there is a movie that acts as an epilogue.  Do yourself a favor and 1) watch both and 2) have tissue at the ready.  The last few episodes really hit me hard, as did the ending theme for the series.  It might have had more of an impact for me, though, as I actually remembered hearing the original version from Zone back in the day, and listening to the version from the anime that's actually subtitled "(10 Years After Ver.)" really struck home the passage of time and the reflection of the ways my life has changed over that time.  The more recent version of the song is just as beautiful especially with the way the actresses harmonize, though this arrangement is definitely more melancholy compared to the original.

Another recent release you might also enjoy is I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.  I personally didn't find it nearly as satisfying as Your Lie was, but it's still quite decent and I think it'll hit all the notes you're looking for.  The Japanese voice cast was fantastic, but there were some details that I preferred from the original light novel that were changed or omitted from the film.

Long post is long, but I have a couple more titles I really like to recommend to others looking for really good anime movies that are well produced and tell excellent "cinema-quality" stories.  Unfortunately these next few are also quite a bit darker in tone from the other movies I've mentioned above and from your original post, but I really feel like people who enjoy the powerful storytelling that's possible through movies, regardless of how you feel about anime in general, should really give these next titles a shot.  Much like Shinkai and Hosoda, I also highly, highly recommend all the movies created by the late Satoshi Kon.  Many essays and detailed breakdowns have been written on his writing and directing style, so I'll just mention that the movies he's most known for are Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika.  Those are the ones that are on the list when you think of "his movies."  Do I recommend watching all of them?  Oh, hell yes.  And finally, I also really feel like Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade deserves to be mentioned when discussing high-quality, well-written, dramatic anime films.  I coincidentally recently found out that Kon was also involved as a writer on this film, though he wasn't credited.  It's definitely the most graphically violent out of all the titles mentioned but it's appropriate for the type of movie it is and story that it tells - Perfect Blue would be a somewhat distant second and then nothing else really registering in this regard.  If that's not a story you'd be comfortable watching, this would be one you could pass on, but I still feel the quality of this work deserves to be mentioned.

[have]

I usually wind up recycling the programs after I get home from the weekend, since I rarely wind up using it during the con anyway.  I'll take a look to see if I have any still hanging around, since I'm not a hoarder... I just happen to have the room of one.  If I find any, you can have them.

My condolences on the loss of your home and your belongings, but I'm glad you're safe.

Doesn't exactly provide any answers, but what happened for me was it crashed the first time through, and by the time I got back to the beginning to try again the room type I wanted was already unavailable.  (Really, CMR/Fanime?  Within 3 minutes of the first window opening?)  So I try again with a different room at the same hotel, same error right as I'm supposed to get to the final confirmation screen.  I try it once more to mostly the same result, only this time I notice a red error message saying that there can only be one reservation made per badge.  So I guess the site actually enforced the rule for me, huh?

I still didn't think I actually got a room, though, so on a whim I clicked on the Modify Reservation link and was surprised to actually see a reservation sitting there.  Unfortunately it was for the second time through, and not my first choice, but at least it's a room at the hotel I wanted, right?  I wanted to make sure that I actually DID get the room, because I still hadn't received any kind of confirmation email at that point so I was going to call in to confirm, except the CMR phone numbers listed weren't open until 9am.  Great planning.  Because there weren't going to be any issue during that first two-hour window, right?  Anyway, finally got a confirmation email nearly two hours after all that.  In your case, as long as you've got confirmation on both rooms, you should be safe to either cancel the room you don't want, or keep both if you need them and bask in your triumph over CMR.  I think something similar happened to a friend last year and he had no trouble checking into both rooms, so I don't think you'll have any issues on the hotel-side of things.

So how do at-con signups work for swap meet? Is there a specific place I can go, or  should I just show up and stand in line with all the other sellers (except badge-less) and pray they let me in?

Kinda.  If I recall last year correctly, all the preregistered sellers lined up on one side of the South Hall entrance while anyone waiting for a standby spot was at the opposite end.  Once they started processing the sellers and letting us in, they worked through the line as quickly as they could after checking through our items, taking care of the paperwork and then having someone walk us to our designated selling area.  There a quite a few people who sign up for swap meet so it takes a while to get everyone processed, but as has been mentioned there always seems to be a few leftover vacant spots at the end once everyone is settled and swap meet is well under way.  Don't be surprised if they start letting other attendees in to start browsing before all the registered sellers are in the door.  Not sure who you'd be referring to as badgeless since you wouldn't be able to sell or even buy on Friday without a badge to begin with, but there is that separate line for sellers who don't register ahead of time.  And technically a third line for people waiting to buy all my stuff.

Speaking of checking sellers in, I've got a question of my own.  Will spot assignments be handled like last year at the door, or will they be assigned in advance since it looks like there's space for that on the online form.  I'm pretty sure it's like that every year and we just choose our spots on a first come, first served basis when we get there, but I just wanted to double check.

Do I need to prereg for the whole weekend? My plan was to only go one day this year, but the swap meet registration process asks for my prereg information.

Figured I'd answer since it seems to take a little while to get a reply back on questions right now:

In order to register for swap meet now, you do need to provide your badge number, and the only way to do that is to prereg.  And unfortunately in order to prereg, you need to pay for the entire weekend.  You could try to contact swap meet staff to work something out, but from years prior my understanding was there wasn't any way around this.

Your best bet is to bring your stuff with you anyway and hope for a stand-by space on Friday.  Keep in mind there do seem to be more people both selling and buying on Friday night so it'll probably take a while to see if you can get a spot at all.  Luckily there are a ton of spaces available in South Hall, and I don't think either day has been at capacity for sellers.  You wouldn't be able to sell Thursday night at all, since you can't buy a single day badge for Day 0.

In the future, do you think we could get a little more than an hour's heads-up?  I check these boards pretty regularly but don't use any social media, so I was pretty lucky I caught reg opening up as soon after it went live as I did.

Edit: Read over the last part of my comment that was previously here and thought I came across a bit sarcastic, especially given what I mentioned above.  Wasn't my intention for it to sound that way.

I remember two years ago we weren't able to bring it wheeled carts, will that still be the case?

hey wait a second.. I remember two years ago people DID bring wheel like carts into the set!.. and  it's only allowed as long as it doesnt block traffic to those who walk in....!!!!

I'm sure Zelyhon will post all the official rules (soon?) but from my experience with swap meet, hand trucks, dollies and the like are not permitted INSIDE South Hall or any other Fanime venue. 

BUT the sidewalk leading to South Hall is a public throughway.  It shouldn't be a problem using carts to transport your stuff up to the doors, but once you're checked in you're supposed to bring everything in by hand.  I kept trying to find clever ways to transport stuff on wheeled luggage, lots of rope and straps.  Anything to technically not violate the union rules that are the root of all these concerns.  But after hearing that all that stuff is fine until you hit the threshold, heck, I'm going for a furniture dolly to push all my used manga right up to the doors.

Woo! Swap Meet '17! I can't wait!

Thanks once again, Ben, not only for all the work that will go into planning swap meet this year but for all the effort you've put into Meets past that have made this a reoccurring success!  Looking forward to it again this year.

And the official tread even managed to beat any other When?-posts from impatient attendees (aka: this guy)!

i should have clarified this was meant for inhalers to asthma treatment and not battery operated nicotine delivery systems or nicotine inhalers more commonly referred to "vapes".

It's a sad world where that type of distinction needs to be spelled out.

I agree, as a seller I had no complaints whatsoever.  The check-in process was smooth and I thought the turn out was fantastic, especially on Friday.

Just curious, are announcements made in the convention center or at stage zero when swap meet opens?  I was speaking with a couple of first-timers to Fanime and they didn't know about swap meet before I mentioned it.  I'm wondering if most people who come to browse know about it ahead of time, if they're directed to it, or if they just see a bunch of people heading to the south hall or they saw it in the program.

I got lucky again and got my badge with relatively little issue on Thursday.  I learned my lesson from back when reg was held at the Fairfield and arrive early on Thursdays now.  I was more or less at the front of the line when they temporarily closed down reg before reopening at 3 this year, so all together I only had to wait about 40 minutes.  It would be nice if there was an option for people selling at swap meet to get their badge faster if they can't show up as early as I do, but I completely blame all those problems on reg and Experient, or whoever the company was that they switched to last minute.  Nothing you could have done there, and like you mentioned, the last two years were a non-issue so it was hard to anticipate that things would tank so hard this year.

Already looking forward to swap meet next year!

Don't know if staff will be able to respond before tonight, though they did a good job with last minute posts yesterday.  From one of the previous answers they gave, however, the bit about the vouchers for registration was unintentionally left in from previous years.  They do not have a quick pass to get through the registration line.

Even though I already have my badge, I was wondering about that yesterday since it quickly became obvious that the last two years of short to nonexistent regs lines were a fleeting thing.  Doors at swap meet to regular attendees actually didn't open until later than expected yesterday as sellers kept checking in.  With what I saw of the reg lines today, getting here at 6:30 isn't going to make things easy for you.  I don't know how long the current wait is, but unless staff chimes in otherwise, it doesn't look like there's a shortcut to get your badge.

Good luck!

I've been following this thread but haven't been too concerned.  I figured they'd be able to find my info one way or another.  Just thought I'd chime in though to let people know I just got my final confirmation email with barcode (not QR code), myself.  I haven't reached out to Fanime's reg dept. or to Experient or anything at all, so it does look like everyone should be getting this final confirmation.  I'll leave the how's/why's/no-communication comments and questions for other people.  I'm kinda over all the drama and am just looking forward to unloading a bunch of my stuff at swap meet.

I was a single reg, by the way, so it's not just going out to people with group reg.