A Bittercon for AnimeIowa

[starshipcat]

If things had gone as they should have, today would've been the first day of AnimeIowa. This year they were moving back to Coralville, Iowa, where they'd held the convention a number of years previous. I'd been excited about going back, because we'd done well in proportion to the size of the convention, and the low cost of the booths had made it a

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[wombat_socho]

Anime Iowa will always have a place in my heart, because that's where my involvement with anime fandom really started, back when they were in Cedar Rapids and needed a beer wombat. I used to love driving down the Highway of the Saints through the countryside under the endless blue sky, going somewhere where I could just forget about work and college and all that crap. Later of course, volunteering at AI led me into helping start Anime Detour, but that's not their fault and I won't hold it against them. ;)

[starshipcat]

Anime Detour is a convention I've wanted to go to, but have not been able to get accepted to as a vendor. I get the impression of a very competitive jurying process, comparable to Ohayocon or Anime Milwaukee.

I remember driving the Highway of the Saints when we went to Sasquan (the 2015 Worldcon), and coming back from Metacon that way in 2017 (after discovering in 2015 that one does not go back from Mineapolis via Madison on Labor Day, because all the Chicagoans returning from the Dells make it stop-and-go from where 1-94 joins 1-39 to when they separate in Rockford).

[wombat_socho]

I didn't have a good handle on how vendors were picked back when I was Chairman and the attendance was only 3000, mainly because I was a strong believer in delegating to the department heads unless it was obvious they weren't hacking it.* That was twelve years and 3000 people ago; I have even less idea what's going on now that I've parted ways with the convention and its parent (nonprofit) company, but I do know the competition for tables is pretty intense. Just getting an ordinary membership was difficult enough in some years, though I think that's eased up now that they're downtown in the Hyatt.

*Fired a couple of them and lost friends over that policy, but the convention comes first, or did.