Forum - View topicNEWS: Otakon 2004 Statistics
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UltimaShadowfax
 Posts: 288 |
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Uh, no crap Anime Expo is larger, it's on the west freakin coast. I still see Otakon as its east coast equivalent.
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jmays
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 1390 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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Huh? |
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Sarki-Kun
 Posts: 594 Location: Spain |
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I think he's refering to...Anime Expo is the biggest convention in the West Coast and Otakon in the East Coast.
That's probably why there isn't so much difference between them. |
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ex_mutants
Posts: 54 |
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Or he could be referring to the fact that California has the largest concentration of Japanese or Japanese decent next to Hawaii, so of course AX is going to be the biggest.
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thebaron
Posts: 149 |
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Well consider that AX is more of a trade show than an anime convention and needs to have large numbers to keep the anime companies coming back.
It is also a FOUR day con compared to Otakon's three days, so if we added an day.... 25,000+ could be possible. Plus Otakon don't count ALL badges like staff, dealers, guests, press as AX has been doing for years. Otakon had about @300 staff, 150+ press, 150+ dealers, and 25+ guest badges this year. As a long time staffer of Otakon and other cons as long as the con's not in the red than it does not matter on size except getting Huge guests. Tekkoshocon started @ were Otakon was in 1998 in numbers, but the change in times shows.... |
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Proman
 Posts: 947 Location: USA |
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"The final tally is 20,899 paid memberships, a growth of approximately 20% over last year, or 3500 attendees."
20% in one year? IMO, that's a very impressive growth. |
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UltimaShadowfax
Posts: 288 |
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Not only that, but it has the largest population out of the 50 states. |
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ShellBullet
 Posts: 1051 Location: I hit things, with my fist. |
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Sure, California has 35 million people, but the Eastern seaboard sports in excess of 50 million. Making the population density considerably higher. |
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xstylus
 Posts: 263 |
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When Otakon claimed the title of “largest convention” last year, many AX staffers, including myself, stood in admiration of Otakon’s progress, especially on the East Coast. To us, Otakon is more of a complementing con than a competing con, one whose mission mirrors our own. In this, we applaud and congratulate them and will continue to do so as they grow. However, one constantly persistent and hurtful rumor which we’d like to see disappear is one regarding how we count our attendees. Thankfully, we’re making plans in the near future to start releasing detailed summaries of our counting data so that people can come to their own conclusion regarding attendance at Anime Expo. [Edit: I had posted some raw numbers here, although after receiving some friendly advice it'd probably be better to wait for the official release.] With regards to being a Four day convention as opposed to Otakon’s Three day convention, I don’t think it’d be too hard to make calculated adjustments to reflect whether a 3-day AX would still be larger or not. If such calculations indicate Otakon would be the larger convention, then congrats. It’s not really an issue. As for AX being deemed a “trade show,” I think it bears repeating that AX is a convention run by fan volunteers for the benefit of fans. We don’t have any corporate or business-like aspirations aside from simply putting on a good show. The fans are and always have been AX's primary audience and concern. As one of the oldest Anime conventions in the US and having a location within driving distance to the head-offices of several Anime companies (as well has the fact that many of the employees and executives in some of those Anime companies have roots that trace back to Anime Expo), we’re blessed with having close ties with them. We don’t need large attendance numbers to keep them coming back--they’d come back anyway. However, one fact we are quick to recognize is that we wouldn’t have large numbers of attendees if it weren’t for them. A side effect of that is that our convention has, unfortunately, a corporate feel to it that we're desparately trying to shake off, albeit with limited success due to limited options. Otakon has a much different flavor to it and is known as a con that caters to the fans more by delving into gray areas (AMV, fansubs) that AX wishes it could go, but can't due to it having a large spotlight in the industry. That's something Otakon won't be able to stick with forever as the spotlight starts to shine on them as well. One thing that Otakon must recognize is that, as a "heavyweight" convention in the same class as AX, they will start to have an equally large presense in the industry, and that'd subject them to the same tight microscope we're under where a slight misstep could result in legal trouble and disfavor in the eyes of companies both in the US and in Japan. AMVs, for example, is the last bastion of gray that we stoutly refuse to get rid of, but could get us into BIG trouble. The companies have been very kind in looking the other way and even going as far as to *beg* their legal teams to stand down (they've had AMVs in their crosshairs for quite a while), but just as an example, if AX or Otakon ever were to get slapped for AMVs, it'd be all over for AMVs not just at Otakon and AX, but at *every* convention. It's all about precident. So there's a lot of things we worry about not just for the sake of our own convention, but for the smaller ones as well. I hope Otakon bears these concerns in mind as well. Whew. That was a heck of a tangent, sorry for rambling. In any case, congrats to Otakon on their new attendance record. We look forward to congratulating them again next year when they shatter it yet again! 
Last edited by xstylus on Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Don't forget disneyland right next to the con. Southern Cali also has the largest Asian community and probably more anime fan (consider all the anime shop here) than any other state. |
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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Actually, your numbers verified the rumors I've heard about how AX counts its attendees. Furthermore, my understanding is that Otakon subtracts its refunds, which includes (last I heard) anyone who paid but didn't actually show up.. which is a much larger number than AX's refunds. AX2k4, by your numbers, would have fewer than 22394 if it counted Otakon-style.. but it was still a much bigger growth than Otakon this year. |
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xstylus
Posts: 263 |
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Hmm. That's news to me. The "standard" for how to count what seems to keep changing every year, so we finally threw our hands up and said "Fine, let's just release the raw stats". Regardless, I've got no apprehensions discussing the matter because it's a topic which either needs to be cleared up and buried, or rectified and monitored. If I end up rattling some cages at both Otakon and AX, then maybe something will finally be done about it. As for subtracting attendees who paid but didn't show, that was actually something that we wanted to do this year. Unfortunately, a very silly glitch prevented that. When a pre-reg member picks up a badge, the computer wasn't marking it as picked up. That glitch was fixed mid-Friday, but it screwed that count badly enough to be unusable. I don't think we've ever subtracted no-shows in previous years though, based upon what data I'm seeing, but we do have those figures for years as far back as AX98 if we wanted to do a recount. To be honest, we really don't care who the largest con is. It's nice for bragging rites, but otherwise it just puts you under a big spotlight. People tend to favor an underdog, and we wouldn't mind being it for a while. [chuckle] Personally, *I* care about the bad press from accusations of padding our numbers based on counting standards we're not even aware of. Otakon could just as easily count using our standards if they wanted to. |
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eigoMANGA_Man
Posts: 13 |
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I went to both AX and Otakon.
AX was really fun and awesome but Otakon had a better edge becasue they obviously had a better music act. I don't think AX had a concert event this year, that's aside from the short music performance from the fantasy twins at the dance hall. AX would've rocked even more if they at least had Duel Jewel or Camino perform at the event, these guys go damn near everywhere else. Otakon had a better artist alley set up too. AX had the set up for the worst possible place to have artists alley. It was hard for that place. Don't get me wrong, AX was really good. I'm sure they've got the bucks to bring a mega act next year. One question. How's the turnout for San Diego Con? |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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They're completely non-comperable. San Diego is a mass media con, covering everything from Hollywood movies, toys, games, comics, anime, RPGs, you name it. It's a massive trade show. The attendence is usually, when adjusting for attendee "days" to actual warm bodies somewhere in the 50-60,000 range.
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xstylus
Posts: 263 |
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We were going to have Under17, but they bowed out due to illness on one of their band members. We had two really great singers this year, but yeah Otakon kinda spanked us hard in getting some heavy hitter performers. Nice one Otakon!
That's the kind of input that both Otakon and AX appreciates. Artist Alley is always a bit of a sore thumb with us with regards to finding a good place to put it.
Er... ^^;;; Reports of our wealth are somewhat exaggerated, but if a group wants to come out, we do have the resources to deck out a pretty good setup. But yeah, Otakon set a pretty high bar to match with those concerts this year.
Heh. If there's any con that could ever be called a trade show, it's ComicCon. They're stellar in attendance, and they're out of Otakon and AX's league combined. I went there this year for the first time, and I didn't find a whole lot for the hardcore anime fan there. There were a handful of viewing rooms and a few anime companies showed themselves here and there, but that was about it. Mostly comics, dealer rooms, dealer rooms, and more dealer rooms. |
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