pre AWA 2021 thoughts
Just about ready for AWA 2021, the first one post COVID lockdown. A lot of the Usual Gang aren't coming this year, which is going to make it a weird show for me, being a con I've been to for the past 26 years and that my pals were a big part of.
The people that aren't coming this year fall into a few categories. Some are on family vacations. Some are being overabundant in their exercise of caution around crowds. Some went to Otakon and weren't too impressed with how... what did Surat say, how Otakon basically felt like a typical Saturday on their Saturday, which, in the middle of the Delta wave, was enough to be concerning. And of course as Surat said, we found out later that Otakon/Dragoncon/NYCC weren't super spreader events, but by then it was too late to nail down airline tickets and vacations.
I'm not super excited about flying, myself; the convention crowd doesn't bother me that much, but the airport is always a nightmare, even in the best of times, and international travel means I have to get a test here, and then get another test in the States and enter all that info into a Canadian government app that the customs and border guy will likely ignore. I honestly wish I had time to drive down.
My personal feeling is this - most of our friends are in their 40s and 50s and have a lot of stuff going on in their lives, and taking three or four solid days out of their lives for an anime convention is becoming less and less practical. We're seeing a normal amount of attrition, and the COVID has been a great reason for people to say "hey, not this year" and kick that normal level up a notch. We talk about entry points for anime fandom, well, this might be an exit point for anime fandom, at least the anime fandom that involves packing all your shit up, finding parking in what's become a paid-parking nightmare of Braves fans, and spending five hundred dollars on a hotel room. If you can get a hotel room.
The SHFS is happening more or less like normal. It's back in the Waverly - it moved over to the Galleria in 2019, but I don't think AWA is using as much of the Galleria this year? - so it's back in the hotel ballroom. We cut down on the number of tables sold, and they sold out quickly and without me doing any sort of advertising.
I count like 130 vendors on the AWA website, I don't know how that compares to 2019? I don't see Discotek on there and I hope that's an error and they're coming anyway because I need to get Braiger without paying thru the nose for shipping. AWA is NOT doing the formal ball dance this year but is still doing the maid cafe, the music video programming, the idol performance, the video and tabletop gaming, most of the legacy events are still happening. Neil's doing Totally Lame and Gavv is doing Midnight Madness, I'm doing Anime Hell, we're back in our regular Friday night block.
I don't know what attendance numbers are like. I do know that most of the 2020 memberships just rolled over to 2021, and that the convention didn't get penalized by the hotel or the convention center at all. And I know AWA had been socking some cash away for just this kind of emergency, so their regular expenses have been handled, more or less.
From what I can see on the FB pages it does seem like there are going to be a lot of first-time congoers at the show, and at the same time I recognize a lot of the emails on the SHFS list, so there are apparently a lot of veterans coming back. My gut feeling is that AWA maxed out its attendance numbers in 2017-2019 (about 29,000 paid) and that this year we are going to see a drop of ten or fifteen percent. Maybe twenty percent. Which is fine. There are enough convention nerds in the Atlanta area desperate to hang out in their My Hero Academia cosplay that any nerd event with a good track record is going to do OK.
I think what IS going to happen is that our generation of con nerds, we're aging out, which is the normal way of things, and if we want to see our friends it's going to happen somewhere that isn't a hotel jammed with twenty five thousand people half our age or younger screaming about memes or whatever.
Personally I've had to take a hard look at everything involved with getting me to AWA, especially this past year, and asking myself if it's worth it to me. And it is. I really enjoy putting the SHFS together, I enjoy doing Anime Hell, I enjoy watching the convention happen around me. At some point I'm going to realize I'm a creaky old man and should be acting my age, but that point hasn't happened yet.
The people that aren't coming this year fall into a few categories. Some are on family vacations. Some are being overabundant in their exercise of caution around crowds. Some went to Otakon and weren't too impressed with how... what did Surat say, how Otakon basically felt like a typical Saturday on their Saturday, which, in the middle of the Delta wave, was enough to be concerning. And of course as Surat said, we found out later that Otakon/Dragoncon/NYCC weren't super spreader events, but by then it was too late to nail down airline tickets and vacations.
I'm not super excited about flying, myself; the convention crowd doesn't bother me that much, but the airport is always a nightmare, even in the best of times, and international travel means I have to get a test here, and then get another test in the States and enter all that info into a Canadian government app that the customs and border guy will likely ignore. I honestly wish I had time to drive down.
My personal feeling is this - most of our friends are in their 40s and 50s and have a lot of stuff going on in their lives, and taking three or four solid days out of their lives for an anime convention is becoming less and less practical. We're seeing a normal amount of attrition, and the COVID has been a great reason for people to say "hey, not this year" and kick that normal level up a notch. We talk about entry points for anime fandom, well, this might be an exit point for anime fandom, at least the anime fandom that involves packing all your shit up, finding parking in what's become a paid-parking nightmare of Braves fans, and spending five hundred dollars on a hotel room. If you can get a hotel room.
The SHFS is happening more or less like normal. It's back in the Waverly - it moved over to the Galleria in 2019, but I don't think AWA is using as much of the Galleria this year? - so it's back in the hotel ballroom. We cut down on the number of tables sold, and they sold out quickly and without me doing any sort of advertising.
I count like 130 vendors on the AWA website, I don't know how that compares to 2019? I don't see Discotek on there and I hope that's an error and they're coming anyway because I need to get Braiger without paying thru the nose for shipping. AWA is NOT doing the formal ball dance this year but is still doing the maid cafe, the music video programming, the idol performance, the video and tabletop gaming, most of the legacy events are still happening. Neil's doing Totally Lame and Gavv is doing Midnight Madness, I'm doing Anime Hell, we're back in our regular Friday night block.
I don't know what attendance numbers are like. I do know that most of the 2020 memberships just rolled over to 2021, and that the convention didn't get penalized by the hotel or the convention center at all. And I know AWA had been socking some cash away for just this kind of emergency, so their regular expenses have been handled, more or less.
From what I can see on the FB pages it does seem like there are going to be a lot of first-time congoers at the show, and at the same time I recognize a lot of the emails on the SHFS list, so there are apparently a lot of veterans coming back. My gut feeling is that AWA maxed out its attendance numbers in 2017-2019 (about 29,000 paid) and that this year we are going to see a drop of ten or fifteen percent. Maybe twenty percent. Which is fine. There are enough convention nerds in the Atlanta area desperate to hang out in their My Hero Academia cosplay that any nerd event with a good track record is going to do OK.
I think what IS going to happen is that our generation of con nerds, we're aging out, which is the normal way of things, and if we want to see our friends it's going to happen somewhere that isn't a hotel jammed with twenty five thousand people half our age or younger screaming about memes or whatever.
Personally I've had to take a hard look at everything involved with getting me to AWA, especially this past year, and asking myself if it's worth it to me. And it is. I really enjoy putting the SHFS together, I enjoy doing Anime Hell, I enjoy watching the convention happen around me. At some point I'm going to realize I'm a creaky old man and should be acting my age, but that point hasn't happened yet.