A-kon is one of the biggest and is the longest running anime convention in the United States. It started in 1990 with just a little over 350 attendees. Now fast forward to 2012; with over 18,000 attendees, saying that A-kon has grown a bit is an incredible understatement. The massive con has been able to get some of the biggest names in video game and anime industry to attend as special guest. A-kon has also become a top notch venue for Japanese Bands (this year it was Oz and Ayabie), but more on the guest in a future article.
Attendees start lining up early so arriving in Dallas, Texas at the Sheraton Hotel at roughly 4 a.m. on Friday, June 1st was absolutely necessary. I’ve been to a few A-kons in the past so I knew that as soon as the 8 a.m. pre-reg opened there was already going to be a line of over 200 and even at 4 in the morning people were already starting to line up.
Normally press don’t get in a registration line, so why was I even awake this early? I brought Morgan, my girlfriend, who will at this time be represented by this picture to the left, and it was her very first convention. I figured that if she could come out of A-kon alive then any other convention would be a breeze. Also everybody we went with were experience A-kon vets , no sweat. So, we sat down behind a group of guys and girls sitting in a circle playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game (this is a common sight at any anime convention) at what was to be the beginning of the pre-reg line. On the other side of the room to my right was the line for walk in registration (people that didn’t pre-reg or missed pre-reg) The line started building there as well. We started watching a movie on my laptop to kill some time. Around 7 a.m. I looked back and the line had already built up to an outstanding size and around 8 a.m. or so the line started to move and A-kon had officially started.
After she got her registration tag and program guide and I had gotten my press pass we headed back down to the main floor and into artist alley… Continued in next article (here)
