For the first time in 25 years there’s not an Anime Weekend Atlanta occurring this weekend in Atlanta. Drag, we’re all better off. COVID remains to be occurring and of us are tranquil catching it, tranquil struggling crippling life-prolonged disabilities, tranquil losing their lives. It’s ridiculous to mediate an anime convention is price even the slightest likelihood of that . And obvious, we have spent the previous ten months seeing mournful messages from con chairs and events coordinators, invoking power majeure and apologizing for his or her have no-shows. Nonetheless AWA hurts a little bit extra because darn it, or no longer it is my con.
AWA 1995 program e book quilt
I am one amongst the goofs who regarded around in the early Nineties and stated to the room stout of assembled Atlanta anime fans, other of us are beginning anime conventions, why don’t seem to be we? In hindsight the early years seem whimsical and nearly silly – we known as the most rate-efficient convention resort we knew of, situation a date, set out some flyers, sold a bunch of distributors tables and attain badges, and hoped for the most productive. The day forward of all of us descended upon the Castlegate with bins of VHS tapes and carts stout of our VCRs from residence. We constructed the most principal stage backdrop and video monitors out of whisk from House Depot and sheets from Wal-Mart and we printed the program books at work when the boss wasn’t having a be aware.
AWA reviewed in the native paper
The first year used to be winning and we right now began planning Year Two and we never truly stopped. The convention moved from the Castlegate on the north aspect, to a Vacation Inn on the south aspect, down by the airport. Here is where AWA discovered to fine-tune their facility contracts.
flyer for AWA 1996 promotional room occasion
Then AWA moved north again to a two-year stint on the Marriott North Central, filling its halls with cosplayers, mislaid Civil War bayonets, and Dessoktoberfests, no longer to point out our first Japanese guests.
Ippongi Bang at AWA 1997
recollections of AWA 1997
seller’s hall at AWA 1998
1999: the convention went further north to the outer reaches of the Atlanta space, to the Gwinnett Marriot, where the guests were Plight Ghost and Bustle Racer reveal actors, the whisk wars crammed the hallways, and the fans broke the elevator. That’s one other ingredient that goes in the contract for subsequent time.
LOOK OUT GOKU!!!
Superstar Blazers fans (and reveal actor Amy Howard Wilson) at AWA 1999
In the year 2000 AWA moved abet to the Perimeter, to the Marriott Perimeter, a stylish resort we lovely phenomenal wrecked.
AWA 2000 dance
visitor Brett Weaver with costume contest winner
is “risingsun.score” tranquil around?
room occasion flyer for our Animazement occasion that comprises the “suitcase stout of substances”
2001 used to be a blueprint or damage year for the expose. AWA used to be spellbinding to a stout on convention center for the first time. The Georgia World Convention Heart used to be on the change live of the compass, down by Hartsfield Airport shut to the positioning of AWA 2. Nonetheless that wasn’t the most productive peril. Because it came about, AWA took situation two weeks after 9/11. There had been visitor cancellations, there had been attendee refunds, there used to be a convention center stout of worried fans. Nonetheless adore The US itself, AWA soldiered on. AWA had a winning 2002 on the identical situation, but it absolutely became definite that the convention wanted a brand new residence. Largely because the Georgia World Convention Heart used to be closing.
visitor Neil Nadelman and buddy
AWA 2002 flyer
2003 set Anime Weekend Atlanta into its present residence, the Renaissance Waverly and the Cobb Galleria Convention Heart at I-285 and Cobb Parkway. The expose has been there ever since. 2004 used to be when I left the the Atlanta space, spellbinding 950 miles and an world border away. “Packing up for AWA” no longer intended loading the auto up with bins and bags and coolers, but packing a suitcase and attending to the airport on time. Workers meetings became a ingredient I could possibly well also no longer back, and whatever authority I had with the convention receded into pure ceremony, take the hint, of us that also set a matter to if I will blueprint them guests.
2003: AWA’s Lloyd Carter & Astro Boy producer Fred Ladd slash the Astro Boy cake
AWA has grown previous any inexpensive expectation shall we need had in 1995. It has change into a ingredient unto itself, assuredly easiest tangentially alive to with the Japanese animation fandom that spawned it. There is a school of belief I every so incessantly entertain for whom this is frightful news, a wish that the fandom could possibly well even have stayed a niche fandom. The wish is that anime conventions would remain where they were in 1998, a closed world where each person lovely phenomenal knew each person else, where the group moved from Otakon to Anime Expo to Project A-Kon to Katsucon to AWA to Anime Central and abet again, sharing the identical tales, looking out on the identical fan-subbed VHS tapes, leering on the identical Sailor Moon cosplayers. I catch out about this idea shared amongst anime fans my age on occasion and I realize where it comes from.
AWA OR BUST
AWA’s SuperHappyFunSell
Nonetheless let’s face details, Grandpa. Japanese cartoons weren’t going to face tranquil. Current anime TV and motion photos were made yearly, new American releases of these cartoons were hitting American eyeballs every season, there had been new anime fans blasting into existence every time anyone caught a see of Gundam Hover or Cowboy Bebop or Princess Mononoke or The Spacious O out of the nook of their look for on a TV hide at Mediaplay. These new fans construct no longer care referring to the vogue you hauled fifty top loading VCRs all the procedure thru 5 states to expose 5th expertise KIKU-TV Raideen episodes to mid-1980s sci-fi fanfic nerds. And why could possibly well also fair tranquil they?
2010 Anime Hell flyer celebrates the anime bust
AWA swelled adore the leisure, anime fandom becoming a mid-2000s formative years custom touchstone alongside JNCO pants, raves, Nickleback and Coldplay. Doomed corporations adore Geneon, ADV, and Raijin Comics cashed in while the cashing used to be proper; but the landscape shifted and the anime allege grew to alter into into an anime bust. Weirdly ample, of us saved coming to anime conventions. Fifty bucks for three days of raves, costumes, anime videos, distinctive merchandise, and inserting out with your mates some distance from parents and executives? It’s a slash price. Attendance at anime conventions saved beautiful on mountaineering, previous the bust and into the new streaming video landscape, which has spawned its have ecosystem of anime-provide corporations. The fandom convention world itself used to be rising procedure beyond what anybody belief used to be spicy or sustainable.
The absence of AWA lends itself to a advanced combine of emotions. AWA for me used to be a good chunk of my year, first the never-ending spherical of planning meetings and coordination, then the prep work of events and panels, and at remaining the schlepping of baggage and instruments the total vogue down to the Waverly. It used to be a reunion of kinds with my Atlanta friends and friends from in each set who additionally made AWA a precedence. For a variety of of the administration it used to be a ingredient we sacrificed time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears for. And now, poof, or no longer it is long gone, and we’re filled with both remorse and reduction. Drag, our ingredient isn’t occurring, but maybe this affords us a possibility to discover our breath, obtain off the treadmill, and take a damage.
Miyavi and friends at AWA 2018
This unintended year off could possibly per chance wind up being a score sure for the fan convention world. Volunteer organizers can discover up with their lives. Events coordinators can step abet and catch out about what works and what would not. Per chance the convention can re-review itself, refocus on its core values, jettison about a of the extra costly or much less linked sights. Who is aware of? Per chance anime cons obtained’t ever return to the times of extensive crowds of sweaty fans herded into match halls, all shouting and sweating on every other, a prospect that right here in October 2020 disturbs me on a classic diploma. We construct no longer know what the put up-COVID world goes to be aware adore, and that entails anime conventions.
In the period in-between, respect your virtual meetups, wear your hide, finish residence, and finish valid. Hopefully we are going to all obtain collectively in 2021.
-Dave Merrill
1995 used to be a truly prolonged time ago, guys. Conclude valid
