Forum - View topicAnswerman - Are Anime Companies Cutting Back On Convention Appearances?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
|
|||||
I don't know if you are aware of this, but if you pre-order Sentai discs from the Right Stuff you can regularly receive the products 3-5 weeks before street date. This is one of the main reasons why I buy most of my anime from RS. |
||||||
|
||||||
gravediggernalk
 Space Cowboy Posts: 246 Location: Alabama |
|
|||||
|
I go to conventions specifically to see the industry panels, get autographs from people I love like rockstars, and spend money in the vendors' hall/artist alley. Yeah, I socialize some, but I can do that at home. Where I'm from, you save up your money all year so you can go to Anime Weekend Atlanta and go nuts. Almost everything I buy at AWA is considerably cheaper than if I'd bought it online. Yeah, I do buy stuff throughout the year online, but I stock up on a lot of stuff.
I spend every AWA (and Kamicon when he's there) speaking to Ed Chavez . . . I'm sure he'd rather I not, but considering how many people show up to the Vertical panels, I think it's fine. I drop at least $100 every con at the Vertical booth. I always end up getting a bunch of stuff from the Fakku booth. I always participate in Funimation's peep show, and got one of the prizes this past AWA because I'd know a NepNep anywhere. I spend hours and hours every year looking through the bins of old movie programs, examining every figure I come across from a series I like, searching every bookshelf for specific prints of specific manga, and trying to convince myself to not spend $200 on Gunpla. If I'm walking into the AWA Dealers' Room with anything less than $1000, then I hit a serious financial crisis at some point during the year. Hell, a friend of mine went with me last year and it was his first convention ever . . . he had $1200 of One Piece merch in his arms 2 hours after the room opened, asking me to help him carry it to the car. And don't get me started on the artists' alley . . . I have enough prints and posters to cover every wall in my house (and soon, they will). I go to conventions to see and do things I can't do locally. I buy merchandise for cheaper than it is online, find rare items, speak to people I couldn't otherwise speak to, and meet my favorite actors . . . and play 3rd Strike in the arcade. I know it's financially draining, but I hope companies know that many people consider them one of the main reasons to go to a convention.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
|
|||||
|
With so many people getting information of new anime debuts and anime-related goods over on the Internet, perhaps most anime companies see little reason to appear at conventions as often as they used to years earlier...
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
vision33r
Posts: 90 |
|
|||||
|
Conventions these days are boring because too much focus on cosplay. The merchandise you'll find are usual stuff you can order online. I like find rare out of print or retired stuff to collect. I go maybe 1-2 cons a year that's it because it's too much about cosplay. You go 10 years ago, it was more fans going to look at displays and a few people cosplay. Now cosplay is getting too much attention. I like cosplay but I don't like how it's getting too much attention that you have to run a cosplay "beauty" contest. It should be fun but not get too caught up with who looks great or prettier.
Companies not going because majority of kids that watch anime today never paid a dime for an anime video or bought volumes of manga. No kids today ever bought or collected anime/jpop music CD. So why should the companies go and show their stuff that will just get pirated. Most anime fans today are not hardcore collectors. They would spend no more than $40 on an anime item that's it. An avg box of Lego costs a lot more than that and there are people paying hundreds for some rare lego minifigure but they won't pay $100+ for an anime figure. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
|
|||||
Well...Not every anime fan has a huge amount of cash on hand to buy every show and/or music CD every season... I'll just leave it at that. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
reanimator
|
|
|||||
|
If one thing that industry booth at US anime convention have been changing gradually, then it's following what Japanese companies are doing in their home turf: Selling limited edition merchandises exclusive to respective conventions.
In terms of merchandises, I'm pretty much disappointed with other stuffs that dealers in conventions are selling anyway. Like everypone here have said, you can buy the same stuffs online. |
||||||
|
vision33r
Posts: 90 |
|
|||||
So what you're claiming is that stealing is ok if you don't have the cash? That sort of reasoning is why there will be fewer jobs as the content industry can't expand. Anime companies stay in Japan because Japanese fans do support the anime industry by paying for content & merchandise. |
||||||
|
||||||
Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1747 |
|
|||||
No, what I think my fellow Mijumaru fan is saying is that people choose to spend their money differently. Some may choose to buy discounted manga and anime at second hand bookstores, or they may hate physical media and prefer to pay for a subscription on legal sites. Just because they're not spending thousands of dollars in a convention dealer room doesn't mean that they don't buy anime and manga goods. |
||||||
|
||||||
relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
|
|||||
|
I see a lot of people saying that cons are obsolete because you can talk to the industry people on social media and whatnot, but really, that is not remotely as satisfying for me. Are people really okay with that level of interaction? It's nice to talk to people online, sure, and you can learn a lot, but it feels really impersonal. They aren't talking to me, they are just talking to a random avatar on the internet. I just feel like I get a lot more out of a conversation, in person.
I spend, on average, less than $100 at any convention I go to. I do things legal as much as I possibly can, and I have a very sizable collection, but I don't buy things at cons unless there is an unusually well priced product. 99% of what I could get at a con, I can legally get for 30% less on the interwebs. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Jacut
Posts: 140 Location: Paris, France |
|
|||||
|
Well, the costs related to attending Japan Expo in France (I used to work in the anime industry in France for several years) became so outrageaous that at the turn of the decade, around 2010-2011, a lot of anime companies started to wonder whether or not it was even interesting to go there anymore, and I know that nowadays, only the most financially sound companies can afford to appear there (the square meter rate for a stand has been multiplied by more than ten in a decade...), and this problem is only really a matter of greed on the part of the coventions' organizers in my opinion.
|
||||||
|
||||||
neozxtc
 Posts: 24 |
|
|||||
Hit the nail right on the head. I was in a FB group and they all talk about is where can I find this show and that show to torrent or stream illegally. I go on to explain to them that doing that isn't helping the industry one bit. And that the more they do that then that is just hurting all the anime fans. They then go on to complain that they don't have any money. Yet I countered saying that if you can afford to go out to eat, or have a $300 cell phone, and internet, then you can afford to support the industry. If that means you have to give up going out a few times a week then wouldn't that be the better thing to do? Nope, not to this generation of entitled spoiled brats that don't want to work for anything and want everything handed to them. I mean heck even if you can't buy the physical releases then you can at least sign up for CR, Funi, or Netflix. That is dirt cheap. And heck even if you watch CR (free) with the commercials it is still better then watching it on KissAnime and the other BS sites like that. I'm a disabled Iraq veteran that makes 20% from the VA. That is a $266 a month and I still make sure to buy my anime. I may not be able to get everything right away but I do make sure to set aside enough to be able to get the blu rays I want. And heck I still have rent, utilities, car insurance, food, internet, and a cell phone to pay. I mean it isn't that hard. Then again, working hard is something this generation seems to not know how to do. |
||||||
|
||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
I rarely ever buy anything from the big industry booths myself, but I do like to stop by and absorb the spectacle they have. And, for video game companies like Bandai-Namco and Aksys, to play some of the demos they have.
I take no pride in the "hardcore" label. I've always felt ashamed if someone calls me "hardcore" because it means I've been doing something wrong.
I can say that I am in the same boat. I am not the sort of person who really wants that much stuff (though I can understand if anyone who sees my plushes thinks otherwise). Me, I look for stuff that I don't really see online, or available only from shady sellers. In particular, plushes from Olyfactory I can only really find at conventions in a satisfactory condition. They apparently specialize in plushes of characters whose fandom popularity far exceed the official merchandise that exist of them. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Cutiebunny
Posts: 1747 |
|
|||||
It seemed pretty obvious from my initial statement that this sort of thing only happens at cons where there are a multitude of Japanese guests, which eliminates the majority of smaller conventions as they rarely bring in Japanese artists, let alone more than one of them. I recall reading that certain guests have met other guests at AX, and through that introduction, they came with the idea to work with each other in the future. I am also aware that, at large cons with multiple Japanese guests, some of the Japanese guests have expressed interest at meeting other artists whose artwork they were familiar with, either due to previous productions or because they follow their pixiv account. While the intricacies of contracts are likely worked out later when everyone is more sober, conventions like AX are, from a business standpoint, a good way to make new contacts for future business ventures. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
|
|||||
This is simply a disingenuous comment, because there ARE no conventions like AX. It is totally fair to say "at AnimeExpo..." but not to say "at anime conventions..." and then use AnimeExpo as example of the statement. AnimeExpo is the closest thing the US has to an "anime tradeshow". I explicitly noted that you no doubt get the kind of thing you talked about AT AnimeExpo, but NOT anywhere else. AX has more than double the population of ANY other anime convention in the US. It sucks up all the industry presence and attention and is the 10 ton gorilla in the room of anime conventions. But saying things that happen there "happen at anime cons" is like saying "I like going to comic conventions for all the world premiers they get, like SDCC has hollywood studios showing off the biggest blockbuster movies every year, and so do other comic conventions", except that doesn't happen anywhere EXCEPT SDCC.
Unfortunately, somewhere between 10-15 years ago (right as the anime bubble was hitting it's peak) lots of people looked around and decided "hey, I can make a lot of money here" and the anime "fan" scene turned into the "anime fan industry". That is not only true for anime con organizers, but also the component parts: guests, panelists, cosplayers, artists, etc. Everything pivoted from a fun "celebration of the medium" into "return on investment" business. (The first anime conventions had less attendees than "random, middle USA con X", and yet still had better guests and extensive anime programming. I really want newer conventions to just re-brand as "fan cons" or "internet cons" and be done with it. I'm sick of many cons calling themselves "anime cons" simply because that's what "kids these days want to pay for") |
||||||
|
||||||
Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
|
|||||
True. I've received Sentai titles that were still listed as available for pre-order on Right Stuf for weeks after I got my copy. Actually, at the Right Stuf panel I attended this year, they were encouraging pre-orders by telling people that they usually send them out as soon as they receive the copies, so there was a good chance that some of what they were announcing for pre-order would ship right away. Actually, in their recent site update, I notice that some titles were listed as "In Stock" even though it was prior to the release date, when normally they would be listed as "pre-order" until the official date came. I still get Funimation titles a bit early too, but those have been closer to the stated release date. I suspect that since Funimation also has its own store, they opted not to distribute copies to other retailers too early. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group