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NEWS: Otakon Confirms Plans to Hold In-Person Event as Scheduled in D.C. on August 6-8




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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 952
PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 4:44 am Reply with quote
I'm glad Otakon was able to hold on financially despite last year, its a great convention! While I'm vaccinated, I'll keep an eye out for upcoming guidelines before deciding. Luckily I only live 15 minutes outside of DC, so I can afford to make a more spur-of-the-moment decision.
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psipsy



Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 53
PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 6:22 am Reply with quote
I'm going. Probably. I had my 2020 registration rolled over to this year, I've had my shots, I have a bunch of disposable masks.

While I know a lot of people (myself included) are chomping at the bit to go back to conventions in general, I won't be surprised if attendance doesn't reach half of what 2019 was.
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invalidname
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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 6:28 am Reply with quote
With all the early summer cons cancelling, and the fall cons planning to go on as scheduled, Otakon has been right on the knife's edge of viability for months now. I doubt they'll have many JP guests willing and able to come over, but the US industry and fan content can probably make for a perfectly viable experience.

I’ve held onto my hotel and airline reservation, just in case Otakon went ahead this year. But now I have to lose 20 pounds of pandemic weight in two months if I want to fit in my cosplay again.
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 7:24 am Reply with quote
Oh good! After hearing that it might be cancelled forever, I was really sad, because I genuinely love this convention and I've never been able to go since it moved to DC. I did donate some money to keep it afloat, and I'm glad I did now that this news is confirmed for sure! I'm definitely going, since my parents and I are fully vaccinated, and I miss going to conventions and hanging out with my people (That being fellow anime fans).
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grooven



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 11:26 am Reply with quote
invalidname wrote:
I doubt they'll have many JP guests willing and able to come over,
I almost think they'll have none with what's going on there and their travel restrictions.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
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PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 9:02 pm Reply with quote
^

Quote:
The event will not have any international guests this year due to travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine requirements.


This quote was in the article. Probably will be like the ol' timey time cons where you hung out with your friends, bought stuff and watched anime.
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Aresef



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
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Location: MD
PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2021 11:33 pm Reply with quote
Otakon is in an odd position. With DC and in particular the WEWCC opening, they may not have had much of a choice but to go on. The restrictions they’re going to have to impose are more than reasonable but I hope that people actually show. That is, I hope that there aren’t a lot of fans who see that there won’t be any Japanese guests, the rave probably isn’t happening and decide they don’t want to go.

I plan to go unless something crazy happens on my end. I have the registration carried over from ancient times and I have the hotel secured.
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
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PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 12:49 am Reply with quote
Still up in the air on this one. I originally planned to stop attending Otakon after having attended 20 consecutive years, but after an entire void of conventions I realized how much I missed her. Plus I felt that if I stop going now it would feel like the virus decided when I should stop, and I would refuse to admit that out of pride.

But on the realistic side I have so much going on in my life now. I own a car, my job is hard work and precarious, my friends and relatives are all moving into the next stages of their lives. Feel like if I commit to another Otakon that'll be another summer wasted just waiting for this one thing to pass through my life before I can allegedly move on. And I'm tired of waiting while everyone else has moved on.

Sorry, I'm getting a little personal here. Great to have the con still running though. Wouldn't mind running a panel.
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invalidname
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Joined: 11 Aug 2004
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PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 5:34 am Reply with quote
Cutiebunny wrote:
^

Quote:
The event will not have any international guests this year due to travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine requirements.


This quote was in the article.

In a Saturday night Q&A session on Twitch, this was tempered down to "Due to travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine requirements, this year's event may not include any international guests." (emphasis mine) in a bar at the bottom of the screen. But I'd be shocked if it did happen.

Quote:
Probably will be like the ol' timey time cons where you hung out with your friends, bought stuff and watched anime.

Well, let's not forget that there's an entire domestic industry that licenses and releases anime, and they've got all that filthy Sony PR money to use for promotion. Pretty safe to assume you'll see a major presence from Funimation, Crunchyroll, et. al. Who knows, maybe Amazon or Netflix will show up. Also, with no JP bands coming over for a concert, it's not out of the question that they could get a sufficiently-appealing anime-adjacent domestic act (does LeeAndLie do concerts? Or maybe the "Distant Worlds"/"A New World" Final Fantasy concert, since that just uses local orchestra performers?).

That said, some of the other answers we got from the stream are that there probably won't be a dance (they doubt it can be held safely), and that hours will be reduced so they can do more facility cleaning. One thing left unanswered in the Twitch Q&A is whether they'll be able to host a video game room on par with what's existed in the past, after the ignominious dissolution of Tokyo Attack! (who provided JP arcade games to Otakon and other large cons) early in 2020.
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psipsy



Joined: 01 Jul 2005
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PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 5:49 am Reply with quote
prime_pm wrote:
Still up in the air on this one. I originally planned to stop attending Otakon after having attended 20 consecutive years, but after an entire void of conventions I realized how much I missed her. Plus I felt that if I stop going now it would feel like the virus decided when I should stop, and I would refuse to admit that out of pride.

But on the realistic side I have so much going on in my life now. I own a car, my job is hard work and precarious, my friends and relatives are all moving into the next stages of their lives. Feel like if I commit to another Otakon that'll be another summer wasted just waiting for this one thing to pass through my life before I can allegedly move on. And I'm tired of waiting while everyone else has moved on.

Sorry, I'm getting a little personal here. Great to have the con still running though. Wouldn't mind running a panel.


Nah, it's okay. I know how that is; I kept going to Otakon after all these years even though most of my friends stopped going to anime cons entirely.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 7:24 am Reply with quote
invalidname wrote:

Well, let's not forget that there's an entire domestic industry that licenses and releases anime, and they've got all that filthy Sony PR money to use for promotion. Pretty safe to assume you'll see a major presence from Funimation, Crunchyroll, et. al. Who knows, maybe Amazon or Netflix will show up.


I haven't been to Otakon since they moved to DC, but before then industry booths were a dying breed. If that Sony money is real, it will probably be spent on the West Coast, not the East Coast.

Don't know what West Coast anime conventions are really like, but Anime Japan ruined me for cheap industry booths.
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invalidname
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PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 8:13 am Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
invalidname wrote:
Well, let's not forget that there's an entire domestic industry that licenses and releases anime, and they've got all that filthy Sony PR money to use for promotion. Pretty safe to assume you'll see a major presence from Funimation, Crunchyroll, et. al. Who knows, maybe Amazon or Netflix will show up.

I haven't been to Otakon since they moved to DC, but before then industry booths were a dying breed.

Who said anything about booths? Last few big cons I've been to (Otakon 2018, Anime Central and Anime Weekend Atlanta in 2019), Funimation's booth has actually been run by FYE, the mall movie/music store, and is easily skipped. I'm talking about programming. At these bigger cons, Funimation and Crunchyroll both run multiple industry panels (new shows this season, industry Q&A, Funimation's 18+ "peep show" panel, etc.), and have a presence at premieres and sneak peeks of upcoming anime.
Quote:
If that Sony money is real, it will probably be spent on the West Coast, not the East Coast.

There's a sense that West Coast cons are more corporate expos and East Coast are more fan-run affairs, but I don't know how true that is, or if it's just the massive size of Anime Expo warping time and space around it. I went to FanimeCon in San Jose in 2019, and it seemed like any other Midwest or East Coast con I'd been to… TBH, with its split-location setup (torn between a convention center and a hotel a half mile away) I'd call FanimeCon "Youmacon with much better weather".
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Shiggity



Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Posts: 366
Location: Boston, MA
PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2021 5:53 pm Reply with quote
As mentioned in the QnA stream the other night the WEWCC has set something up using hydrogen peroxide in their ventilation system that apparently can neutralize any harmful things in the air...and I find that damn cool! They also plan on "deep cleaning" the entire facility overnight, which makes sense why they're considering closing the building earlier and not having the rave/informal dance etc for that reason and other obvious reasons. This news and this news alone is tempting me even more than before to attend, but I'm with everyone here that's gonna wait for the June regulations from DC City to be announced (i.e. if you need to be/show proof of vaccination, if you need to wear a mask if/if you're not vaccinated, etc.). I'm also trying to see if I can make this a combo trip. I might go down to Western-Central North Carolina where I have friends from here in Boston where I am, and then maybe we could take/make the 8h road trip from that area up to DC. We did a 4h drive to Raleigh in 2016 for Animazement, so what's 2x that, right? lol.

Anyway, it's great news indeed for w/e reason Otakon/Otakorp decided to actually have the con happen. Even if I don't end up going I'm sure it'll be a fun time for everyone that does indeed attend.
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Senpai17



Joined: 14 Aug 2018
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:09 am Reply with quote
Cutiebunny wrote:
Well, let's not forget that there's an entire domestic industry that licenses and releases anime, and they've got all that filthy Sony PR money to use for promotion.

Are you talking about the industry [read:Funimation, Crunchyroll, etc...] having Sony PR money? Because Otakon certainly doesn't get that.
Cutiebunny wrote:
Or maybe the "Distant Worlds"/"A New World" Final Fantasy concert, since that just uses local orchestra performers?).

Otakon has already hosted this concert in 2018 (10Aug18), though it would be a welcomed event, they probably wouldn't do it so close together (3 years) and probably couldn't get an orchestra together on such short notice. The "Distant Worlds" site indicates that there are no concerts on it's schedule. However, the Final Fantasy VII Remake World Tour Orchestra has concerts starting on Aug 27th (Fort Worth)
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