A9ent 760 - Staff Writer When Anime Expo announced an event in Ontario, California for November 2022, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get back into the anime convention experience after being away from the scene for years. The recent passing of my friend Greg Hignight, who had been a well-known personality in the L.A. anime scene, brought out many friends that I have not seen in a long time and have reconnected me with the convention scene at first with Pacific Media Expo in San Gabriel a couple of weeks ago and with AX chibi his past weekend. In the spirit of Greg's "Go out and show them what you've got and be proud of it" motto, the following thoughts I've had about the convention this past weekend have initially made their way on my social media, and for the sake of posterity I've decided to make those thoughts available in one blog post on a site I haven't touched in a long time. Hopefully, it will give you a sense of what it's like to be at a convention in Ontario, California and plan accordingly and also to give you a taste of how Anime Expo did with their first "mini" event and give you a sense of whether you want to spend the money to attend or not.

DAY ZERO Ontario is a great venue for throwing an anime convention because of its access to hotels near the convention center for travelers, whether they are driving there or flying in (if you don't mind shuttling over from ONT airport). Mass transit options aren't readily available to the convention, outside of the Ontario East Metrolink station on the Riverside line and what seems to be a 35-minute bus ride from there to the convention center. Since it's a commuter line, don't expect weekend service to take anyone back and forth from the show, though. Hopefully the county can do something to improve on the ground transportation options heading to and from the convention center in the future.

The big issue for attendees on a budget, eating at the convention center can be super expensive, but what the food choice in convention center catering lacks, the "night market" food trucks make up for it while giving attendees a chance to get some variety in what they're eating for the day (food costs may vary). The only issue that may be a deal breaker is the "outside food and drink policy" inside of the venue area. You aren't able to bring food or drink upon entering the premises and con center staff will ask you to dispose of it before tapping your wristband to enter. Speaking of which, no badges were issued for AX chibi but you will be issued an RFID wristband with a "tighten once" adjustment and if it gets lost you have to pay a replacement fee, so plan accordingly.

While no indoor events were held on day zero, the bathrooms were available for attendees to use, but masking is required anywhere inside the building unless you're eating or drinking. To make up for events being held outside, careful consideration has been made to provide most of the outdoor sitting areas with a heat lamp to keep everyone warm in the 40 degree weather til the event ended around 11PM. Artist Alley was open for business and was inside a tent, but I haven't had a chance to see if it was climate controlled somehow. The outdoor stage handled all of the live programming of the show including a City Pop Dance Party event run by Gregory A. Hignight's Tune In Tokyo Events team and the DJ's dedicated their set to him in light of his recent passing. Other live events included performances by Koto, S4X, Super Soul Brothers, Black Ros3 and tsUgU Itagaki with each event ramping up the energy as the show went into the evening. With the temperature in mind at this time of the year, my suggestion for attendees would be to dress warmly if most of your time will be spent outside hanging out with friends or catching cosplayers around the show.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the convention has in store for the rest of the weekend and hope that the powers that be at SPJA continue to improve on it and keep bringing events like this to the IE. DAY ONE I finally got a chance to check out the artist alley. Despite being outside in a big tent, it looks like artists were in a mostly climate protected location and the crowds inside the tent weren't a complete fire hazard. A look into the dealers' room had a really good selection of merchandise that was sure to cater to anyone looking for anything from clothing to traditional offerings like posters and the occasional sword and plushy. Seeing Hypland's display of a Lambo and a Porsche decked out in Naruto and DBZ was the first thing to catch your attention the moment you walked into the dealer's room and makes me think of how far dealers' rooms have evolved from the days when most halls wouldn't have had that 30 years ago. Other offerings included the manga room where one can read a manga while resting in a room with other anime fans, the arcade room for vintage and current arcade video games, a tabletop gaming room, Lounge 21 for the 21 and over crowd with musical performances on a mini stage, a cosplay set space with different scenes for cosplay photographers to do photo shoots in different settings and a maid cafe provided by the Dreamland Maid Cafe crew, which I would have found out more about if there was enough visible signage telling attendees that there was an actual second floor with tons of other stuff to do.

I also spent part of the day hanging out with a con attendee who had never been to a California anime convention before and it got me thinking that sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes to show you what it is that makes conventions special. While most of the time was spent looking through the dealer's hall and "speed running" the artist alley (which never really ended up not speed running at all lol), the rest of the time was spent talking about what anime fandom was like in Missouri (the conversation felt so wholesome and innocent it made me appreciate how lucky California has it sometimes) and watching him take photos of cosplayers from different anime shows that are popular these days. It all goes to show that no matter how different the scene has changed, the whole core of the fandom and how attendees act has not changed significantly in the past 30 years and it was refreshing to see enough to re-invigorate the spirit. I swear the energy just felt so infectious that you wanted to get motivated to do fun stuff at the convention, and I really appreciated that feeling. Fast forwarding a couple hours and outdoor live events continued to catch people's attention with music shows, cultural workshops and performances concluding the night with Dueling DJs at the end of the night. I was able to check out the Bon Odori Dance lessons provided by Little Tokyo's Ondo dance group where they were encouraging crowd participation while teaching you Japanese folk dancing and how it could also be easily applied do modern music (which they called "Pop Ondo") and it was very fun to watch. If my legs weren't so tired from all the walking around and standing, I probably would have joined in. Night Market/Food Vendors and photo booth were still running and the larger turnout of people on Saturday really filled out the place til about 9-10pm when crowds started to dwindle. Things wound down around the 10 o'clock hour with no one at the food trucks and most of the indoor programming and artist alley closed, but the DJs carried the night with a healthy amount of stragglers til the venue closed up around 11PM.

Knowing that the night market and food trucks* will not be available on Sunday, that leaves the outdoor stage, artists alley and indoor events left to carry out the con til closing at 6pm, so I hope they can finish the weekend off on a high note. Here's hoping they can pull it off.

[*Editor's Note: the food trucks ended up being available on Sunday until the end of show at 6PM]

DAY TWO: THE FINAL DAY What could they do to end its inaugural weekend and leave attendees on an emotional high? While the final day of convention is usually a recover from wild partying and pack up to leave, the convention felt like it was doing the same. Night Market and Night Market Stage were closed off to prepare for closing, so events were moved into the "North Rotunda" of the convention center so that basically translated to events being mostly relegated to the back of the building that hardly anyone noticed. Although there were rumblings that the stage was used for events, but I didn't really spend much time outside on the south end to notice. In AX's defense, I thought that their use of the outside patio, which they DID call the North Rotunda was a very creative use of space, making the upper balcony stairwell from the second floor into a DJ booth which gave everyone a clear separation between the performers and the attendees. For me it was more of a chance to spend some time on the events happening inside the building to appreciate some of the indoor events I might have missed from the past two days. It was also a chance for me to get a bit silly thanks to the help of the folks from Furyu in the form of some cardboard bunny ears they were handing out to everyone while promoting their figure company to North American audiences. It sounds like they'll be doing more promotional events in the Los Angeles area, so it will give me an excuse to visit LA city more often.

One of the newer trends with anime conventions in recent years is the inclusion of a maid cafe, and AX chibi had one that seemed to be one of the busier rooms that needed a reservation to get into. A larger room would have probably helped them over the weekend, as attendees were literally filling every hour slot available and there was a limited number of spaces to get into it. This was one of, and only, events which required payment to get into and for the $35 per person minimum with a 2-person party minimum requirement, it was an enhancement to the modern anime convention experience. Dreamland Maid Cafe did a wonderful job at keeping the audience entertained for the hour long service and their dance routines were on point without a movement out of place. My only complaint was probably the waitlist if you wanted to eat at a certain time of the day. Even though I waited in line to make a reservation at 10:30AM, the earliest they could accommodate for me and my party was 5:00PM, which was the last hour of the convention, but it did give me a chance to maximize the time I had left to interact with the con before it closed for the year, which was spent catching up with my cosplay friends (in between photo shoots), my con photographer friends (in between shooting my cosplay friends) and the new friends I've made along my AX chibi journey.

Surprisingly, this one of the few times I can say I've had a good time at an Anime Expo event. The large show in Los Angeles has become an overpriced mess of claustrophobia and herd mentality in recent years, this is a pleasant change. It provided its guests with a taste of what's to come with their large event in the summer while maintaining a harmonious convention-attendee schedule balance. The overall consensus from attendees and vendors has been that it was one of the most relaxed shows they've been to in a long time (and no doubt a money maker for anyone in a seller's capacity over the weekend) and they should be applauded for their effort in making that a reality. I hope that they keep this positive momentum up and that it gives them an incentive to keep this convention going in the years to come.

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