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can anyone here speak to the experience/ atmosphere of anime expo 2009 vs. new york 2014?

honestly, i'm concerned the anime masturi experience could be diluted, being attached to a convention. on one hand, the whole event will provide an opportunity for them to gain new fans overseas. on the other, the concert could therefore be crowded by "non-fans" getting in line, in copious amounts, WAY before me- resulting in staff slamming the doors in my face right as i move to cross the threshold. my brain is trying its best to convince me that even SHOULD i get in, i would experience all sorts of lousy, good-time ruining show etiquette. again, from the faceless "non-fans."

i had an incredible time in new york. i'm clearly just hesitant to spend something like a cool grand to have a sub-par experience. therefore, i beseech thee good citizens to humor me in providing insight to the concert-at-a-convention perspective? pwease?

I was at both AX and at New York and can say they are different experiences, but not THAT different.

AX, as it's an anime convention, was much more exhausting. You had to wait in long longer and nothing was guaranteed. It was much more chaotic too since you had to run to place to place to place for different types of events just to get a glimpse of the girls (Opening Ceremonies where they made an appearance, then RUNNING to the Dealer room line, then once that opened booking it to the JapanFiles - remember when that was thing? - booth just to hopefully buy some stuff for one of 200 tickets, the RUNNING to the Q&A to watch them answer questions and to hopefully be close enough to get the OTHER autograph ticket, the RUNNING ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE VENUE to the first autograph event. That was just DAY ONE) some con goers opted out of some events just to make sure they could go to the ones they wanted (I was lucky and got to do all of it) and many people didn't even get an autograph even though they had a ticket for one or two events. BUT, I honestly didn't notice many, if ANY, non-Morning Musume fans involved in these events EXCEPT the concert. Even then, most of the casual passer-bys were content with sitting in the back while all the hardcore fans took up all the front section. You'll be fighting other fans, not really any one else. The good things is that Anime Matsuri was really short notice, so I honestly don't think we'll even get NEAR the number we did for AX or even New York. AX had 3-4000 people, while New York was around 2000, I think we're looking at 500-600 this time. The other good thing about Cons is that because they are 3-4 days you really do get to hang out with your fellow H!P more. And when there's downtime, it's so much fun to just... do Wotagei or dance the actual dances or... sing in the middle of the Con with them. The Conventions always turn into little mini H!P conventions to us because of it. Even though I wasn't there, I'll never forget the Berryz Train they did in New Jersey hahaha.

New York was mostly stress before the event even started. The VIP tickets are pretty much the only thing anyone freaked out about and even though there were a limited number of handshake tickets, most people who wanted a ticket got one. I actually haven't heard many stories of people being screwed over with those. So the whole thing was generally more relaxed, but it was really short. Only a day, or 2 days if you flew in for Hello!Party like my group did, and you didn't get to spend much time talking to anyone because you were too busy standing in line (The line started at like 1am O.o).

ah, thanks so much!!!

i bought my flight and con tickets. i'm just going to plan to attend the concert, anything beyond that will be a bonus. though, with my flight schedule, i doubt i will have time. i fly in late friday night and leave super early sunday morning.

i missed the VIP tickets for new york, despite having my finger posed to click as soon as they opened up. i got into line about 11am, which was wrapped way around the building at that point. my friends stood with me for a bit, but i was so excitedlyn anxious that i wasn't much company.

i still got an amazing spot in the crowd, but i go to a lot of shows and know how to manuever without beinga nuisance.

anyway, i'm super looking forward to this now!

I'm really hoping not to be disappointed, but this con seems even more poorly run then animeNEXT (and AN is poorly run each year). They kept hyping up how Superpass holders would get priority access to all autograph sessions and even a few days ago made a comment on the FB group about it. They went and sold another 100 Superpass' because they knew they would sell. I'm still glad to be able to get into the concert early but I feel kinda gypped on the autograph aspect. I mean, I'm glad I can still have first access to the Voice Actors autographs but eh. I'm going to enjoy the convention as a whole but I'm most likely never going to attend this convention again.

To be honest, it actually says when you buy the Superpass it's only for the Voice Actor autographs and the rest is iffy - so I didn't buy one just based off of that. 190$ was a lot of money on a gamble. Anime Matsuri's rep is really really bad too, to the point a lot of people in the fandom were told by people who have gone to the con before to not even bother.
I of course am a hopeless fangirl and am going to bother because for Morning Musume, I'd deal with a lot of bullshit.

Looks like there are Anime Matsuri billboards up in Houston, including one with MM front-and-center!


(Thanks to Holly for the pic!)

oooh, I hope that stays intact until Morning Musume. '16 sees that.

Two of the girls are going to be in the fashion show. They haven't said who yet, but Anime Matsuri is releasing the convention schedule tomorrow along with mailing out the Superpasses so hopefully we'll get a little more information on that.

I assume Iikubo & Miki.
Or maybe Masaki.

I bet on Iikubo and Fukuchan.