Anime Festival Orlando
July 28-30, 2006

I went to Orlando for another anime convention, Anime Festival Orlando (AFO), to promote our convention, Anime South. We were able to have 5 different vendors distribute our flyers, along with the official Registration table. And it appears I became a minor celebrity since the last convention I was at. You see, Orlando is about an hour from Tampa, where I attended the last anime convention, Metrocon. And at Metrocon, I was involved in....well, a lot of things. One of which was that con's version of "Whose Line Is It?" Well, apparently, someone had filmed that entire thing and put it out on DVD. And a star was born. Person after person came up to me at AFO and said, "I saw you on that Whose Line Is It Anime and I think you're the funniest person alive!" Slight rush, but nothing to write home about :-P.

I was in the Dealers Room for a good bit and talked to a bunch of random people. There appeared to a be consensus among the 4 major dealers (3+ tables) I talked with that yes, there were a lot more people at AFO this year than last. I'd hate to even garner a guess, but I estimate at least 50% more than last year, if not 100% - I'm not good at guesstimating. However, those same dealers were also in agreement that no one had any money. Well, they had money, but they didn't have a lot. I take that back - some of them didn't have any money, period. The dollars per head count was extremely low. A couple of dealers and I were talking to the Event Coordinator, Karen Trudeau, about this, and she actually blurted out before we even got to it that, "These kids don't have any money." I also volunteered at Registration for a couple of hours, and that statement seemed to apply there, too, as I saw kid after kid registering with their parent, but the kids not having anything to spend on their own. Still, the dealers seemed happy because what they lacked in average, it was certainly made up for by the sheer quantity. But then again, they may have been prematurely happy because the economic behemoth known as Otakon was the next weekend. :-P

Trent, his friend David, some random guy, and I ended up running Anime Speed Dating at AFO on Friday night until 1:30 a.m. We probably turned away almost 100 people. Would've been more if they hadn't scheduled us for 11:30 p.m. Ugh. Had 59 participants and I think people enjoyed talking to each other. We're running the full-blown version with different age groups througout the weekend at Anime South, so be on the lookout for that.

Overall, I enjoyed AFO, as it had more activities and people than last year. Cosplay was packed, as were opening ceremonies. Kudos to the organizers. BTW, I absolutely adored the live action Japanese TV shows. The sentai shows literally kicked tail. Ha ha!

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