I actually attended day 1 of Animethon and days 2-3 of Anirevo 2024. Part of this has to do with the stacked guest list for Animethon this year. Part of it also has to do with how the flights and prices were to go to Edmonton from Vancouver. Lastly, part of it has to do with that I had never done two (full-sized) cons in the same weekend, and wanted to give it a try. So I did.
I’m still in the middle of a series of four weekends of anime cons so I’ll keep this not so wordy and more focused on the journey. It really started on Monday when a series of rainstorms would pummel the US Northeast. I went to Yoasobi’s stop in NYC on August 6 in the middle of a downpour. I think the weather forecast said it would drop 0.97″ of rain in one hour at some point that night. Needless to say I got wet. Later on this series of rainstorms would affect airport operations in the area and cause delays, albeit not a lot of delays, but enough to cause some real problems.
I decided to fly American Airlines out to Vancouver on Thursday night out of EWR. This proved to be a rough journey as I had to connect at DFW, and the equipment was delayed getting in, because it was also delayed from the even earlier leg. My 1-hour layover turned into basically 5 minutes and I had to rush from Terminal D to Terminal B, and a friendly and super fast gate agent was able to make it work. Thankfully the plane going from DFW to YVR was also delayed at gate for mechanical issues. It did mean I was able to make it to YVR on Thursday for my trip to YEG on Friday early morning. But it also meant I landed just before midnight in Vancouver and got about 2 hours of sleep for my 6am flight on Friday to YEG.
After the schedule for both cons were released, I figured Anirevo has a very light day Friday where the main 3 items at the con were the opening ceremony (which is often skippable even if it’s good content for the general audience), the Oshi no Ko panel, and Igoma’s autograph session (1 session out of 2). On the other side of the Canadian Rockies was Sally Amaki’s concert, a Konomi Suzuki panel and autograph session, and a KIHOW autograph session (since TomxHack half of Myth&Roid was sick at home). All the guests also would appear at the Animethon opening ceremony. Plus, I would also be able to say hi to twice as many people, and go to Edmonton for the first time in my life.
The flight from YVR to Edmonton (YEG) that I took was from Flair Airlines, a Canadian low-cost carrier mostly serving customers based out of YEG. The flight was uneventful, but the airline doesn’t do a good job posting delays, and it forces all the customers to check in at the desk if they didn’t buy a carry on. This means I got to the airport a tad too early, and the flight was delayed for about an hour due to crew timeout, which I only found out 2 hours before departure, which meant I could have slept at least 1.5 hours more. I tried to make that difference up by sleeping at the gate, to varying success.
Flair’s service schedule between YVR and YEG was mostly in the early morning, late night, and 1 flight in the day. I guess it works out just as well for someone going to a con for a day there, but the quality of service at the airport during those non-business hours are not great, and generally everything is closed at the airport. I did get to Animethon, which is at downtown Edmonton, in time for badge pickup (took about 5 minutes in a fast-moving line) and the opening ceremony.
Animethon moved to an online autograph lottery system for the first time this year, which had multiple rounds where people can get randomly drawn as winners, up until “standby” time after the session has started. To access the system you need to buy an badge online which spits back at you a personalized link that lets you reserve each session. This worked well enough for attendees, but some improvement can be done such as having a closer watch on how fast the lines go. Konomi Suzuki and KIHOW’s lines Friday went super fast and I don’t know if every standby got them, although they probably could have, for example.
Other notables about Animethon is that it had about 16k in attendees this year, and Edmonton is a place without a lot of stuff going on for it in terms of youthful-ish activity or nightlife. It seems like the city government really wants to lean into the event as a way to reach out to young people. I mean, it makes sense, other local governments have made similar appeals before that I’ve seen. Anime cons are definitely a way where local government can support younger people. The opening ceremony featured several local politicians saying more or less what I’m saying. It also helps to fund the event, which partly explain how suddenly the guest list exploded for Animethon in 2024.
Anyways, living on 2-3ish hours of sleep is not a great way to enjoy the con, and my flight out at 10:20pm meant I had to vacate the con at around 8pm, which I did. That let me hop into the Sally concert and eek out a smile in the group pic? Sally always puts a smile on my face anyway. In retrospect the cost was just a LCC ride and a couple friendly Uber/Lyft drivers convos away between two places in Canada that are probably as opposite to each other as you can get up in mapleland. It was a great side trip.
Anirevo Saturday and Sunday are decided less chill and much more line-up heavy. Thankfully there was nothing super early that I had to deal with, other than getting a badge and having breakfast along the downtown Vancouver waterfront at a cafe. It felt like I was an Asian tourist or something. The Oshi no Ko live recording panel was pretty wild in that it recreates the afureko environment so much so that it felt like work, or that it is kind of boring. The acting was fun to watch, but they spend a lot of the time talking about edits and directions for each demo cut that becomes a drag. There was also a lot of them all at once so it becomes slightly hard to follow everyone’s directions. Anyways, I enjoyed it.
The autograph situation at Anirevo follows last year, which premium badges get a priority line and it’s capped properly this year. Badge checking was enforced more so to prevent hopping, but we suspect many perps from last year were actually at Edmonton this year instead. Anyways, this is the last year, according to Anirevo, that they will offer this perk for the Premium badge. For the three Oshi no Ko seiyuu guests, you can at best get a shikishi or your badge/program signed. For ZAQ and TRUE, you can get their merch. It was a good time otherwise.
Due to the price I paid in the alternative of going to Athon, I had to grab Igoma’s autograph on Sunday, which pushes me out of the running for TRUE’s panel and autograph. Still, I was able to go to ZAQ’s panel Sunday, and one autograph from ZAQ, Rumi, Igoma and Megumi Han. It is wild that I did last saw Megumi Han at Animazement 2013, and I’m just glad she’s such a big time voice actress now in Japan, and so quickly since. That gap of 11 years I followed dozens of seiyuu with less success than her, she’s literally like the 90th-percentile or higher at this.
The big event at Anirevo is the Saturday Night Concert. The Animusix brand lives on. ZAQ and TRUE threw it down, although I think my friends and I agree it was “okay, if good” but not lit like Calgary’s set for TRUE or the average ZAQ set. I think the covers really saved me, as ZAQ did Tutti and Guitar to Kodoku to Aoi Hoshi.
Overall, besides fatigue and cost, there was no huge drawback going to two cons. Pretty sure I spent about $100 USD total including a VIP badge for Sally and a 3-day badge, and about another
$200 on flight and rideshare. The anexiety of not making my DFW connection was the worst part, but I guess it’s just lesson learned that I should just work at the airport the next time I go out there, just like what I did last year…
PS. Can’t talk about Vancouver without talking about eats. I got some FIFTYLAN. I had some nice Shanghainese dinner on Sunday. We went to a nice seafood joint Saturday, not because some guests went there in 2023 or anything. There was an interesting bear that we took photos of, hmm. Nah that cannot be it. I rather liked that place actually, it’s in a touristy part of town and very walkable, plus nice bayside/riverside views. The happy hour begins at 9pm which is perfect for uchiage timing.
I went back to Japadogs by the Waterfront station on Saturday…and ran into Anirevo staffer buying for their guests, so I had to wait extra long, LOL. There was a cafe down the street that they went to and we also went to, which was expensive but very nice. And full of foxes.
I went to a nice place for lunch Friday at Animethon with a friend, it was chill and full of nobody, certainly pricing out most attendees (my bill was more expensive than Sally’s VIP event let’s just say). I do enjoy the food though, and the story about a famous steakhouse used to be there and went into bankruptcy or something. Most importantly, I felt so much better after that nice lunch. Travel is a pain if you don’t take care of yourself! Don’t forget to take care of yourself!
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