Forum - View topicNEWS: Japan Expo USA Convention Goes on Hiatus
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hikanteki
Posts: 5 |
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I’m sad, but not surprised. The first year I went all three days and it was like a ghost town but with a ton of high profile guests. Kind of eerie actually, and that couldn’t have been a sustainable business model. Some of the vendors didn’t even return on Sunday because it was cheaper to stay home.
The second year I only went Friday. From what I could tell, every change was moving in the right direction--they get props for moving to a venue that was more suitable for their size (although I heard they had a multi-year contract with Santa Clara--did they have to break it?), overall their guest list (particular the musical ones) while awesome weren’t as high profile, and they moved to a time of the year that wasn’t over saturated with conventions. (It was nice having one in the fall--where am I going to go this year?!?) But it must have been too little too late. I’m not sure if they even made money this year or if they just lost less. JX USA had great potential. I liked that they had a wider variety of guests and programming (i.e. martial arts, dance routines, sake tasting, martial arts, travel info) than most anime cons. But they were indeed stubborn. They didn’t know when to let go of a bad idea--sometimes it was too late, sometimes they just never did. And they were reluctant to adapt--not just to the American market, but just to specific situations. The biggest failure, which represents every problem they had, was of course their original policy of no-reentry. Of course they announced the next day that they got rid of it, but the damage had already been done. The reason they gave for initially having the policy was because they wanted it to be as close to the French show as possible. But the problem wasn’t whether French people vs. American people were more willing to accept a no-rentry policy, the problem was that a no re-entry policy just plain won’t work at the Santa Clara Convention Center, and at an event with 5000 people no less. That wasn’t the only problem, but that was probably the most glaring example of what went wrong with JXUSA. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5873 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Yeah, no reentry is pretty hard to understand. Anime conventions are usually all day events. Sometimes you need a nap or rest to restore your energy. If you are going to be there all day, con food just will not cut it either.
Japan Expo USA died because it was too hidebound and didn't care what their customers needed. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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What is "no re-entry"? Does it mean that once you leave the building for a day, you couldn't go back in?
Because that'd be a major turnoff for me. For Anime Expo, for instance, I always head outside to eat (almost always at the food trucks), and then I go back in. Why does this work for Japan Expo in Paris? I'd imagine that would be a source of frustration just as much for Parisians as anyone else. |
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hikanteki
Posts: 5 |
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Yep. They got rid of it the no re-entry policy the day after announced it, but people were already P.O.’d about the original announcement to have written them off completely.
A major difference is that JX in Paris has restaurants and food available inside, and their food is most likely a hundred times better than anything you can get inside the Santa Clara convention center. The photo of food at the JX event shows fresh-made takoyaki and onigiri, for example: http://www.japan-expo-paris.com/en/menu_info/attendee-s-guide_490.htm We saw what JXUSA was trying for when the moved to San Mateo, where they brought in Japanese food trucks and offered sake tastings...but again, too little too late. Another thing is that the Paris show is a LOT bigger, with 200k+ attendees, and from what I gather it’s really is more of an “expo” in the traditional sense -- where people come to look at things for a few hours and then go home. With that format, and that many attendees it could actually work and they’d still get a full crowd to fill the event center. People also don’t have that much of a choice in France. There’s JX, and then there’s JX Centre, and JX South. Whereas in America you have multiple anime conventions going on every weekend. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Ah, I see. Does Aramark handle the food at Santa Clara Convention Center? Aramark handles the food at a lot of these convention centers, and it is pretty much school cafeteria food that's twice or three times the price of what you could get outside. Most large convention centers have businesses nearby with significantly jacked up prices too, but they're actually in competition with each other and will at least try to make it taste good. (I don't see that much higher interest in eating Japanese food at an anime-themed convention though. Japanese food trucks do tend to get the most businesses from what I've seen, but any ethnicity will sell as long as it's quality food. And even if it isn't.)
So is Japan Expo something of a trade show, or is it just a taste of Japanese culture for people who don't get to see much of it? If it's the latter, I can see why it'd be popular in Paris. But in San Mateo? Central California already has a pretty high Japanese population; you don't need to go to an expo to experience it. Something else I noticed: Japan Expo takes place on the same days as Anime Expo. Not Japan Expo USA (that'd be suicide), but the one in Paris. I wonder why. Companies like Namco-Bandai and Crunchyroll have to spread their marketing people between both conventions at the same time. |
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hikanteki
Posts: 5 |
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Yep, it’s Aramark. I can’t speak for everyone, but I will say being limited to bad food, especially bad overpriced food, is a deal breaker for me. If need be, I could tolerate spending hours at a con with a no re-entry policy if I knew I could get good food for lunch & dinner. The area around SCCC has some better options, but they’re just barely out of easy walking distance. Agreed that you don’t have to go far in CA to experience Japanese culture. I’m not so concerned about different big conventions going on at the same time, esp. if they’re on different continents. Huge companies have the resources to be at both. |
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