Anime Detour 2023 – Convention Reactions and Personal Updates

*Tries to pretend that she wasn’t absent for months*

Hi all, how has everything been? It’s been a little while. Long time readers will probably be familiar with these periods where I just drop off the face of the Earth for long periods of time. It’s not you, it’s me. Specifically, I’ve realized it’s an ADHD/hyperfocus thing. For quite a while last year, my particular hyperfocus was fiber arts (knitting, crochet, etc.) and so having thrown my whole self into that, it left me with not as much time to document my anime-viewing adventures. I’m choosing to try to make peace with that aspect of myself rather than worry too much about it – since I don’t make my living off of my writing, taking long breaks doesn’t necessarily cause many negative effects, aside from the fact that I lose touch with the many online-only WordPress blogging friends I’ve been fortunate to make (though I do still pop in and read your writing when I can, I promise).

Recently I (forcibly? sort of) switched my focus back to anime, because as some of you are aware I work as volunteer staff for an anime convention in Minneapolis, MN called Anime Detour. Not only do I provide content for the convention in the form of running various panels with my husband J.C., I also do things on the back end like coordinating the convention’s AMV contest and helping to plan out the schedule. This year there were some changes, including J.C.’s somewhat unplanned promotion to head of programming, and my sort-of promotion to Programming sub-head, which came with it some additional responsibilities. This meant changing our focus from running so many panels at the convention to putting more work toward keeping the convention running. It was a different but overall positive experience, and I wanted to record some of that here so I’d remember it by the time things start to ramp up next year.

One other additional thing to add here is that, after several years of trying to make it happen, J.C. and I are expecting a baby in a few months! This is certainly a happy development, and it remains to be seen if this will further affect how things look here around the blog. Writing about anime has been a hobby and constant companion to me for many years now, and I don’t intend to stop, but simply the intensity of the first couple of weeks of each season and the amount of time and writing it takes to tackle all those episodes probably means that simply the structure of the site itself and the type of writing I do will be different. This is something I’ve been looking at changing for many years now – there are a lot of websites, both amateur and professional, who cover new episodes in a similar manner to how I’ve covered them, so I feel less of a need to grind out first episode reviews in the way I’ve been doing them in the past.

Having gotten that out in the open, below are some thoughts and reactions to the convention this year. I hope this provides a little insight into what goes into the back end of making such a large event a success!

Thursday, Pre-Convention

As staff members, we tend to arrive to the convention venue (the hotel) the day before the event actually kicks off. There is usually some set-up work to be done, including making sure signage is correct and each panel room has A/V equipment. It’s also a good time to get one’s bearings.

One change that came into play this year was that J.C. and I changed the type of activities we were doing at the convention. This included taking on more Programming department shifts, which meant being available in the office in case we were needed, as well as doing some hourly set-up activities and counting attendees for each panel in the panel blocks to which we were assigned. This is to help us get an idea of how well-attended certain events are, so that if they become repeat events or if someone submits a similar panel in subsequent years, we have a better idea of where and when to schedule it. Something that made this work a bit more challenging this year was the fact that the event hotel was performing maintenance on the escalators that serve many of the floors on which events were scheduled, so getting to all the rooms either meant trying to catch an elevator, which could be tough considering more attendees were using them at any one time, or using the access stairs, which could be tiring. This was a fluke we worked through all weekend and I ended up getting a pretty decent work-out from the stairs, which definitely wasn’t a bad things.

Thursdays before the start of conventions are always the days I’m the most anxious, because at that point you know from experience that things here and there are bound to go a little bit wrong, but you’re not entirely sure what those things are going to be yet. I also tend to just get a little bit of stage fright in general. But there’s also something cool about being in an event space as it’s being constructed and knowing that it will be filled with people soon.

Friday, Day 1

Convention activities at our convention kick off around noon on Friday. This includes some video rooms and some panels. Last year our registration system got entirely overwhelmed by the number of walk-up attendees who wanted to join the event. In previous years we’d estimated attendance pre-convention by the number of pre-registrations, but considering the weirdness with Covid the last couple of years, our prediction turned out to be inaccurate and we ended up getting a record number of folks who showed up at the door. This year the convention was much more prepared, and despite the fact we set yet another attendance record, things seemed, to my eyes at least, to be going pretty smoothly. There was also a Thursday evening badge pick-up session for both staff and pre-registered attendees, which I think must have really taken some of the day-of pressure off to some extent.

One change we instituted this year as far as scheduling was concerned was that Opening Ceremonies, which takes place on mainstage and introduces the convention and the guests of honor, was moved up a few hours to be earlier in the day. This seemed to make more logical sense – why wait until 5 or 6pm, when events have been running for hours already, to “open” the convention? And appeared to work out well.

We took a little time in the afternoon to walk through the Artist Alley and Dealers Room, where we each picked up a couple of things. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with dealer’s rooms/exhibition halls, because in spite of the fact that many of them have gotten very large over the years, I rarely find unique merchandise there, but I did pick up a couple of things.

J.C. and I didn’t have any panels going on until fairly late in the evening, due to the fact that one we’d had scheduled earlier in the day we’d decided to cancel before the schedule came out simply due to the amount of work that typically goes into it (in case you were there and wondered about where “Manga for Grown-Ups” was, that was the panel in question). We spent some time in the Programming office, got lunch and dinner at a couple of local restaurants (partly so we’d have some leftovers for Saturday, which was set to be much busier), and managed stuff fairly leisurely. It was a good day, although I hadn’t gotten very good sleep the night before (convention hotel mattress and poor temp control in the hotel room) so I was feeling a bit out of it in spite of everything.

The specific events we participated in were:

Anime By Numbers – a Trivia game of J.C.’s creation where all answers are number-based and teams win by coming up with answers that are the closest to the actual answer (as calculated by the game program that J.C. has created for it).

AMV Showcase – A showcase of Anime Music Videos that I put together every year of exhibition entries into the convention’s AMV contest.

Saturday, Day 2

Saturday was, as usual, our busiest day at the convention. This was because we each had scheduled ourselves for more shifts and more events throughout the day. However, it was also a really fun day and I don’t think I ever felt overworked or over stressed, simply because the workload was split pretty well among the people performing the work.

Our first panel of the day was Anime for Grown-Ups, which is typically a panel that I put in the majority of the work to put together. This year, due to my health and other commitments, I asked J.C. to take the lead based on a concept I’d come up with based loosely on the convention theme for that year, and he really knocked it out of the park. I’ll post the materials for it in a separate post for those who are interested.

Right after that was a panel called “This Anime is Good, But…” which we ran as co-panelists with our friend Evan (also a Programming staffer). During this panel we talked about anime that we felt could have been great, but somehow got hamstrung by various narrative, character, or production issues. We also spoke up about some series that weren’t received well that we thought were way better than they were given credit for, which was the idea I contributed to the panel 🙂 As someone who’d rather talk about things I like rather than things I have a problem with (at least in public while being a panelist), I felt that was my time to shine. Some anime that came up during that part of the panel were Wonder Egg Priority and The Perfect Insider, just to give you a little insight into what we were arguing for.

Because I run the convention’s AMV contest, we put in an appearance at the official showing of the AMV entries. We actually had something fun to announce to the audience – we were opening up audience voting for two new audience-based awards! This is something that I’d wanted to implement for a long time, and finally with J.C.’s help we got it done. While I have confidence in the winners that I and the other judges choose every year, I know that our experience as current/former editors, AMV contest coordinators, and long-time AMV-appreciators usually makes our criteria a little bit different than the general AMV viewing public, so it was a nice chance to acknowledge that.

After a bit of a meal break and some additional Programming Department work, we set up for our last item of the day, a game called Don’t Judge an Anime by its Cover. During this game, we show off weird, wild anime OPs and EDs, and have audience volunteers describe the plot of the anime being represented. Their job isn’t to actually guess the actual plot (although that does occasionally happen) but to essentially make up something that fits the imagery being shown. For history’s sake, the OP that spawned this idea many years ago (and thank you to my friend Lxri for coming up with it) was the opener to an anime called Tsukuyomi Moon Phase:

Sunday, Day 3

Our Sunday, as with our other days, was comparatively light on actual panelist work this year.

Our first item at 10am was the AMV Awards, where we gave out awards for the winners in the AMV contest. It’s a fun chance to watch some of the show’s AMVs again, and also something very chill to have right away in the morning when our brains are still tired from the previous evening, lol.

After that was our “big” panel of the convention, Shiny New Anime, where we talk about anime we liked from the past year. This year, considering the sheer amount of anime, and good anime we were dealing with, I made a concerted effort to spend more time on series that I felt didn’t get as much attention (though I included some bigger, more familiar titles on the handout we give out so people didn’t feel like they were being sent astray). I think it went well, and I ended things right on time which always feels pretty good.

After that, the rest of the day was taken up with Programming department work, meeting up with some friends, and tearing down and packing up our department’s supplies and equipment. This last bit was something I’d never really participated in – usually after our last panel, J.C. and I like to get home right away. But considering our new levels of responsibility this year we decided it would probably be best to stick around and help. Apparently this made things go much more quickly, and our pallets were wrapped up and ready to go well before the staff appreciation dinner in the evening. The dinner was nice; there wasn’t really anything there I could eat (it was all carbs, carbs, and more carbs, when I have to be really conscientious of that at the moment due to gestational diabetes), but it was nice to listen to all the kudos given out, and I was able to get my 15-year staffer pin, so it was all good.

Reactions

Having had a couple of weeks to look back on the convention, my reactions now are similar to how I was feeling in the moment – this was probably one of the better years for me. I think this was mostly because we were able to strike a balance between behind-the-scenes responsibilities and panelist commitments, and I never really felt that stressed out about anything. One thing that I’ve noticed about myself is that, in spite of the fact that this pregnancy is slightly complicated, both by my age and by the gestational diabetes (I keep reminding myself that it’s temporary, but it’s still an extra mental/physical burden) it’s also provided me with a sense of calmness that’s difficult to describe. My anxiety has really been held in check for the past several months, which is something that hasn’t been the case for me in a really long time. While I don’t expect that this feature will continue past my due date, I’m trying to enjoy the zen while I’m able to.

Another thing worth mentioning is that I sensed a distinct change in atmosphere this year. Last year had a lot of challenges – it was the convention’s first in-person year back after Covid cancellations and there was no good way to plan for the absolute onslaught of attendees we got that year – we were deeply unprepared. This year, despite the fact that we broke our attendance record once again, there were no terrible lines for registration and the crowds didn’t seem nearly as intense. Major kudos to our registration team for making sure everything was extremely on track.

I went through a whole lot of emotions this past year, once again asking myself if this anime stuff is a hobby worth pursuing. It takes time, and time is something that I know I’m not going to have nearly as much of at my fingertips pretty soon here. I also have mental health concerns that have made it difficult to stay on top of anime fandom for many months – pretty much since I went back on medication for the fertility stuff back in September/October and could no longer self-medicate some of my issues with daily caffeine. But I think I’ll stick around, even if that ultimately looks different than it has. I still believe there’s room in anime fandom for people who are a little older, and I want to be able to serve as a good example of that. Plus, I just like watching good anime and talking about it with people, and I suppose that’s what’s most important.