Forum - View topicNEWS: Otakon 2021 In-Person Event Reaches Total Attendance of Over 25,000
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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In the past month I've personally lost 3 people close to me who who were hospitalized due to COVID. Thankfully 4 others did not not pass and are recuperating. I know that for awhile it seemed like it was almost over and a return to normalcy was soon at hand, but that's not the case anymore. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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Yeah, I’m not really surprised by these numbers. I thought it might be lighter when I was in line to get in the first day, but after leaving the first panels I went to in the morning, I passed through the second floor of the convention center (one of the main thoroughfares through the building) and it was clear that it was about as packed as previous years. If anything, I’m a little surprised it wasn’t even closer to the 2018 and 2019 attendance numbers. The measures they took did make me feel comfortable enough going to the event, though I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned in situations where distancing was not possible. Those of us in the area will definitely be keeping an eye on the situation, though with the trajectory of cases as it has been, we would have done so regardless.
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getumbuck
Posts: 198 |
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We almost had this thing beat, but we had to make getting the vaccine political. We were so close and now the anti vaxxers have screwed things up for the rest of us. I had a lovely summer teaching summer school without a mask and now I'll be back to spending half my day telling kids to keep their masks on, in a few weeks, instead of actually teaching, thanks to these "Covid is no big deal, only a small amount of people are dying " idiots. My uncle had Covid over a year ago and still can't taste food, so yea, this thing effects people, even if they recover from it.
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2633 |
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I had two friends who live close to DC who went but I wasn’t taking that risk
I also had some random guy tell me I was living in fear and he is going to go with his unvaccinated friends to comic cons and enjoy himself…so yeah that doesn’t give me a lot of confidence we are going to get through this. |
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AJ (LordNikon)
 Posts: 504 Location: Kyoto |
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My grandchildren live in New Market, MD, just little ways north of DC. I glad that my son had common sense to say no to grandkids. Otakocorp was irresponsible to hold Otakon this year, 25k attendance is, business as usual despite global pandemic that killed nearly 625k people in USA alone.
For everyone saying 600k people is not large number out of US population seem to forget that those are peoples children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Americas apathy toward human life and pandemic makes me sad some of my kids and grandkids live in America. I can ramble on and on about stupidity of Suga here in Tokyo, but the US has lost its mind with COVID deniers, antimaskers and antivaxers! |
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Aresef
Posts: 914 Location: MD |
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Otakorp was between a rock and a hard place. With DC fully reopened, there was no force majeure clause to blunt the impact of not holding the con. Not holding the con would have made it impossible to pay other bills like storage and legal that are owed whether the con happens or not. |
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 954 |
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Definitely more than I expected (like everyone else I figured it would dip more), but I think part of that is that the DC convention center makes crowds seem a bit less than they realistically are. Saturday was really the only day it seemed like a ton of people, but it was mostly just panels/lines where it was harder to avoid people for more than a passing minute or two (like in the dealer's room). I was happy that I saw practically 99% mask compliance, although I wish they enforced spacing out more in panel rooms.
Honestly, the bigger issue I noticed were with restaurants. Those Chinatown restaurants specifically were overpacked as hell on Saturday. Its also going to be difficult to gauge the full impact of Otakon because DC is such a commuter area for Northern VA & Maryland as well. |
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AnimeFlyz
Posts: 367 |
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OK. Since everyone else is already talking about COVID and stuff, Ill give my different opinion. This con was not really worth going to just for the fact there was really not much to do in general. Not a single Japanese guest was there cause of travel bans and COVID scare (So no panels, autographs, concerts), there wasn't even any industry panels (No Crunchyroll, Funimation, Manga Publishers)
So basically the only thing there was to do this year was go to fan panels (Which I rarely go to cause more times than not they are filled with technical issues and cringe) and shopping at the Dealers Room/Artist Alley. So basically you have a con that only has a fraction of the activities that they normally have, and they still have the audacity to charge $90 for a full weekend pass. |
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Aresef
Posts: 914 Location: MD |
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Even if there were no Japanese guests and most of the industry sat it out, there was still plenty to do. Super Art Fight, Bad Anime Bad, the masquerade, MAT3K. There were plenty of workshops and demos that were quite popular. And there absolutely were concerts, Otakon just had to get more inventive to make them happen. OPENWORLD gave their first show since the before times and the J-MUSIC Ensemble performed jazzy covers. |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3767 |
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Well there were a couple industry panels (Discotek being the most prominent), plus an industry roundup panel (I didn’t go to that one, so I don’t know exactly what they did there, but I saw it on the schedule), but yeah they had less presence than previous years at the convention not only in panels but also in the dealers room. CR makes sense, since their convention overlapped two of the three days. Personally, I generally prefer the fan panels, so I didn’t really mind that. Discotek is the exception to that for me, as they really know how to make it an entertaining panel. But I do think it was missing something compared to other years with the lack of Japanese guests and premieres for new shows/movies. Those were often the highlights, or at least some of the most memorable parts of the convention (the premiere of the first Eureka Seven Hi-evolution films comes to mind for the latter). But then again most of the time during the convention would be spent at panels, the dealers’ room and the artists alley, so most of the experience was still there. I think being able to come together again was valuable too, so I’m not worried about what I paid for the tickets. Those were paid over a year ago anyways, and the proceeds will help them survive until we can do all the activities we want to see at conventions like this. |
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AnimeFlyz
Posts: 367 |
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OK @Aresef. I dont know who OPENWORLD even is, and I dont really care much about Jazz. As far as the concerts I am referring to, I mean talents like FLOW, TM Revolution, JAM Project, Nano, Bradio. Groups like that who are well known for their music in popular anime. [/quote]
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Aresef
Posts: 914 Location: MD |
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Well look, those groups weren't going to be able to come. |
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KitKat1721
Posts: 954 |
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Oh wait this reminds me of another thing I wanted to bring up. On top of less to do overall, since they couldn't have Japanese guests, the only major guests they had were English-speaking dub actors. That in itself isn't an issue, I will almost always get at least something autographed. But 90% of the actors they got are in some of the highest properties of this year (leads in Genshin Impact, JJK, and Demon Slayer). So you have a huge influx of people going to the con solely because of those guests in high profile franchises combined with way less to do during the convention, some of which was necessary tbf (no JPN guests/panels), and less guest competition than any other year (signings and panels alike). So autograph sessions got ridiculous on Saturday and Sunday. Hoards of people showing up earlier than an hour before guests would start meet and greets to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if bringing in DC police was considered. I saw volunteers going around that area of the hall yelling at people not to congregate/run and trying their best to set up a manageable system in the late afternoon on Saturday. I've never seen it that bad at Otakon, or have seen more disappointed people who showed up super early and couldn't get anything signed. Outside of panel rooms not being more enforced, this was the other notable bad experiences I saw at the con. And its worth bringing up because I haven't seen any industry/press people talking about it because they likely none of them were even thinking about autographs. |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 618 Location: USA |
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I had to get the Hep B vaccine to even get into nursing school. I agree that people providing face to face care of children or patients should be required to take the vaccine. There are other opportunities for work (nurses/doctors can do telemed) that won’t risk the safety of vulnerable populations if someone is dead set against the vaccine (that’s about to get full FDA approval.) |
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TLMC
Posts: 2 |
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I thought these were registration numbers. A lot of people backed out last minute and didn't go because of delta, but were still counted in this number.
Con felt so much smaller than usual, and I've been going since like 2013. It was probably the worst Otakon I've been to by a mile. |
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