Florida Anime Experience 2011 Pictorial and Review

When I planned on going to Florida Anime Experience, my expectations were rather mixed considering this was technically their first outing. However, their website does mention that this event is ran by a collaboration of Wasabi Anime, Florida Super Con, and former JACON staff. It was safe to assume there would be some experience backing this convention. Oddly, the con advertises that it is held in the same venue of not only JACON, but Orlando Anime Day. Since I haven’t been to either, I felt this convention would give me an idea on what they were like.

The venue was relatively easy to get to if you do not have a GPS. It might be easy to miss it since the hotel’s physical location isn’t so obvious from a distance. While it wasn’t the worst area, it wasn’t particularly the best for taking photos inside and outside. As far as the convention center itself, which is located at the hotel, it consists of two floors which is made up of two L shaped hallways which is a considerably pretty decent size if this were a 3,000-attendance-con. Unfortunately, this ended up being one of the things that made the convention drag a bit.

The attendance was considerably low. I estimate it to be probably just under 500 attendees all weekend. I only stopped by for a moment on Friday and it was so dead that it could not have been more than 100. In an unusual turn, Sunday was actually more popular than Friday. Also, since it was held in such a large venue, it made the convention seem even smaller than it was. One of the attendees I spoke to briefly quickly pointed out that it seemed their only advertising for the con was through facebook, which might of not been enough to get the word out. While I personally didn’t have this problem, I noticed after the convention that a few people complained about there being no AC in the convention center and claimed there were a lot of bugs flying around. Despite all this, the atmosphere was pretty friendly and I didn’t have to bear through “YOU LOST THE GAME” or “BUTTSCRATCH-AAH” shouts. Vocaloid continues to being the top trend when it comes to Cosplay presently.

The staff.. they were ok. They didn’t really give me any problems outside of asking to see my badge. I typically like carrying my badge in my pocket since a few years ago I lost mine at a con when it unclipped itself somehow, but some of the staff asked me on more than one occasion to show off my badge. Speaking of badges, I forgot to mention that in order to get into the convention center itself you are required to have a badge. You cannot just walk into the convention center and check things out before getting a badge. Some individuals were waiting for someone by the outside entrance of the convention center and were asked to leave, stating, “We reserved this building,” even though the person was not actually moving or doing anything. I noticed the whole checking the badge at the door versus the panel/event rooms has been adapted by a few other cons, but unfortunately I feel this works against them and doesn’t encourage people to buy a badge as much as they would like to think it does. However, they were some pretty cool people who ran the con and I thought it was interesting that all of them wore shirts from the different conventions they were a part of including Invader Con. On another note, the program guide was simply a piece of black and white paper printed out.

As far as the panels and events go… they weren’t that bad. I thought the panels were put together pretty well from the ones I saw, and even more organized than some of the ones I recently saw at MetroCon. I liked the Martial Arts in Anime panel and the AMV stuff. The convention also had a slew of autograph signings with Steve Blum and Brittany Karbowski. While I didn’t get a chance to catch Karbowski’s, I did notice Blum was a pretty nice guy and has a lot of respect for his fans. The costume contest could have been a little better since there was a lack of competition. Since I noticed you have to sign in 30 minutes before the contest, I don’t think there was prejudging and those who did win I saw that the prizes were not all that great. The rave was your pretty typical convention affair, but I was pretty happy that it had a few video game remixes in there. I didn’t get much of a chance to check out the viewing rooms but one of the few times I did I had noticed the anime, Persona: Trinity Soul, playing without any subtitles or dubbing.

The website advertises that the video game room would be “Japanese only” with promises of video games from current and older systems. When I had read that, I immediately thought of titles such as Gundam Wing: Endless Duel, Unthinkable Natural Law, Imperishable Night, Radiant Silvergun, Beatmania IIDX, Melty Blood, Magical Drop, Fate/Unlimited Codes, etc. It was one of the things I looked forward to the most, but upon arrival it was immediately the worst aspect of the con and perhaps one of the worst video game room I had ever seen. The video game room consisted of 5 tvs which featured generic Sailor Moon beat’em up on SNES, Smash Bros 64, generic Sailor Moon fighter for Playstation, some shooter on 360 and very oddly Para Para Paradise. While PPP was a nice surprise, I don’t find it as fun as some of the other Japanese music games out there and had me wondering why conventions have slowly stopped carrying DDR. Also I understand the need to have at least Smash Bros since it is a popular game (and was the most popular game all weekend), but I don’t know why they could not of had Melee or Brawl running which are more current. If you are going to break the “Japanese only” trend, why not have other popular games such as Tekken, Soul Calibur, or Street Fighter? Also they had “cool down” periods every few hours for an hour. That would have been a good idea if the room was actually busy enough to warrant it, which it never was. I would like to note that the shooter they had for 360, which I believe is titled Schoolgirl Shooter Gal Gun, in which you fire “pheromone shots” at girls was pretty cute.

The Artist Alley and Dealers were.. a bit small. The AA was only about six tables and they were spread out across the hallway. The dealers consisted of about eight tables. The artists in the AA were pretty decent in their offerings whereas the dealers were your typical affair. A lot of them I had previously seen at Jacksonville Anime Day earlier that month. There was also an absence of a video game dealer. What was cool was that there was a studio set up in the corner of the dealer’s room with a photographer on hand for anyone to get pictures with it.

For a weekend pass, it costs $31 at the door. Depending on what you are looking for with this con, it could be a good deal and the hotel was only $69 a night. However, I can probably assume the conventions affiliated with this event are probably a lot bigger. I asked a few attendees their thoughts on the con on a scale of one to ten with the average number given to me being seven. I also followed the question up by asking, “What if this were JACON 11?” and it was replied with a much lower number. Therefore, it can be said that this convention is not nor was it intended to be a rebirth or continuation of the now defunct JACON which shared this same venue. So with this con being in its first year, despite the affiliated legacy it might carry, it still has a lot of room to improve. While it did leave something to be desired, it certainly wasn’t the worst con I have been to this year as that award goes to a certain North FL con I am not going to bother naming. With the announcement of a second year coming, I would like to see Florida Anime Experience be an “experience” worth remembering and reliving each year.

Pros: Friendly crowd, Never Overcrowded, No long lines, Decent Panels, Friendly Guests, Cheap Admission/Hotel

Cons: Lame Game Room, Low Attendance, So-So Costume Contest, AA Could Be Bigger, Badge Check at Door

Overall: 5.7

Note: I notice this marks the first con this summer in a slew of new conventions in Florida in what is becoming over-saturated. We also have PariahCon, and The Anime Planet on the horizon. On top of that, the more seasoned Mizu Con, AFO, Ancient City Con, Florida Super Con, and MetroCon are still on the forecast. It will be very interesting to see which ones are still around in the future.

Review and Pictorial by the Uber-Talented Kenneth Davis.

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