SoCal Anime

[Anonymous No.10807857]

let’s recap this shitshow:
- badges cost $75 + parking
- zero programming but LiVe mUsIc dJs and a cosplay contest
- AA tables cost $450 and the vendor hours were noon-10pm all three days
- abysmal attendance, someone reported they only had 600 prereg attendees

[Anonymous No.10807867]

>>10807857
i went to their regular gatherings every now and then and they were almost always packed.
i guess they got too cocky and thought hosting an actual ticketed event would be good for them because of that. turns out they jacked the priced too high so nobody bothered going.
i laughed when i heard everyone in artist alley literally moved their tables over to the main vendor area in hopes of more foot traffic.

man, cant believe i almost took a day off from work just to go and check it out. glad i worked instead.

[Anonymous No.10807869]

i still had fun. the people there were really nice to chat with. i do feel bad for the vendors though and hope they can get some sort of refund. i also feel bad for one of the event organizers too who had to be hospitalized due to the stress. they should’ve went with lower ticket prices, more promos of the con, and definitely less charge on tables. i notice with most new/smaller cons they try to go big and it always fails. better to start slow and small and steadily grow than just try to blow up. play on the safe side y’know.

[Anonymous No.10807878]

>>10807857
>AA tables cost $450
Is this a negative? I don't know what the price normally is

[Anonymous No.10807902]

Imagine sending your friends to defend your fail con.

[Anonymous No.10807907]

More idiots

[Anonymous No.10807908]

>>10807907

[Anonymous No.10807943]

[Anonymous No.10807944]

[Anonymous No.10807945]

[Anonymous No.10807947]

>>10807878
that’s like the cost of an AX table. most small conventions are around $250 maybe $300.
it was their first time running a con but they had a huge following and crowded single night free events so we expected it to pay off. most of the artists were vets with good art, the reason nobody made back their table or travel costs is because there were no attendees.

[Anonymous No.10807960]

>>10807857
I remember pulling up on friday and looking at the lot.... shit was dead then the next day the lot increased slightly but then..... the amount of space available and the amount of cars where off lol..

[Anonymous No.10807966]

>>10807947
even some larger cons cost less.

[Anonymous No.10807986]

Momocon went from being a free event to later being a paid event by having a low cost of entry. Later on, they raised the cost of the badge with content to support it. They lost half their crowd in their first year but budgeted it well in the transition.

This con didn't plan it well. You can't go from free to suddenly charging CA con prices. No wonder that they failed hard.

[Anonymous No.10807988]

>>10807902
sometimes i dont side with the vendors because they can be pretty fucking bitchy at times. but i feel like they are in the right for this con.
that person is defending the con saying "give them time to respond!" but the thing is, they werent giving a response at all to anyone. day 1 pretty much all the vendors had the same issues where the music was way too loud so they all complained but not a single one of them got a response back about that fixing the issue.
plus the fact that the organizers literally got up and left in the middle of it all just shows that they just didnt give a fuck anymore.

also, lol at the person who had to get hospitalized. that was their saving grace so now they can just use that as their excuse as to why the convention went to shit. because now it will make you look like an asshole if you talk shit about the con.

[Anonymous No.10808028]

>>10807988
Was that the person in the photo Affinity posted? What happened to them?

[Anonymous No.10808034]

>>10807947
Higher cost tables have the unspoken implication that paying that price means an average, moderately experienced artist should expect to recoup the costs of table and hotel/travel based on the expected turn out. Not accounting for shitty merch or unpopular fandoms or whatever. Either way, 400+ is an absurd cost to charge for a first time con that probably didn't break 1k attendees. Artist alley isn't a favor to the convention or the con goers. It's a fucking business and it's the livelihood of many artists. Telling them to suck it up and just enjoy the con like they should just be glad to be there makes my blood boil.

[Anonymous No.10808044]

>>10807943
hahahaha

[Anonymous No.10808064]

>>10807869
>i still had fun.
yeah I went friday and most of saturday, just had more fun seeing a few people here and there, some vendors I know, and hanging out with the bar tender in the merch hall.

This "con" was an absolute shitshow though. It should have been a parking lot 1 day event, lots of people just up and left Saturday evening including what I think was the DJ supposedly playing saturday night that bailed. I feel bad for anyone who actually bought a hotel room but maybe that's what saved the con for a few people.

[Anonymous No.10808112]

And to think, I know someone who actually flew out for this. He made it look pretty bad already, but not this awful. The ballpit is forever the standard bearer for how to gauge if a convention is awful, but at least that's memorably awful. I truly hope someone is around next month to document when that new UwU Con in Arizona flops like this

[Anonymous No.10808116]

>>10807857
Baninabear was shilling this on her IG and trying to pass it off as a good con.

[Anonymous No.10808118]

>>10808116
so was arcane maid cafe. they were posting bullshit like this to make it seem crowded when that’s literally the most people that were ever at the event at once.

[Anonymous No.10808128]

>>10808112
>UwU con

That... that can't be real...

[Anonymous No.10808132]

>>10808128
You'd better believe it's real
>$100 entry fee
>$300 for a table
>part of town with no hotels
>thread created by barely literate samefagging staffers
I almost wish I could be there to see it in person
https://desuarchive.org/cgl/thread/10795125/

[Anonymous No.10808133]

>>10808132
Wait is this the "new" con replacing that one where the head was basically sleeping with barely legal girls or something while being like 40 something?

[Anonymous No.10808134]

Here's a shot of even how dead it was outside at least 4pm on Friday.

The most bizarre thing to me was the complete lack of the most basic programming that even small 1 day cons I've been to that are run at high schools and community colleges have had. They had English VA guests that they didn't utilize at all, even simply having them go up to the stage and do an informal Q&A panel would have been content.

No panels, no gaming, no manga lounge, no official cosplay gatherings, no community activities, no tabletop. The most basic things that cost almost nothing. Hell they could have even setup a bigass Jenga set like Fanime has in their gaming. How do you forget to even pad out your event schedule with an opening and closing ceremony? The easiest thing ever to do to kill time and attempt to hype your crowd.

[Anonymous No.10808136]

Interior shot of AA on Friday away from the stage. Yes, in the background you can just see the toilet in full view.

It's funny since they charged $50 per day to display you car in the "Itasha Showcase" inside the con, there ended up being more itashas in the parking lot outside the con.

[Anonymous No.10808142]

>>10808132
I actually had to check that out on google maps to see where it was, holy shit who the fuck would plan a convention in the middle of no where. You couldn't get farther from the city it looks like.

What the fuck did covid do to people that makes these weird cons pop up?

[Anonymous No.10808145]

>>10807869
At the end of the day, I did too. I got to cosplay and go with a few friends. Hopefully SoCalAnime can go back to fucking free events at Steel Craft or the Garden Walk, because this was simply too much for them to plan.
>>10807944
I am so glad I did not attend on Sunday
>>10808028
Supposedly one of the team members was hospitalized because they passed out from stress. Take it as a grain of salt from me though.
>>10808034
>Either way, 400+ is an absurd cost to charge for a first time con that probably didn't break 1k attendees
I heard they only ended up selling about 900 tickets lmao
>>10808134
I knew it was going to be bad when I would check the event site and see that there was no update to the event schedule even on the few days leading up to the actual event.

[Anonymous No.10808146]

Yo where is this “hate page” sounds hilarious

[Anonymous No.10808147]

>>10808146
@socalanimefail on Instagram. I heard there’s more stuff going down on the discord though, anyone got a link?

[Anonymous No.10808148]

>>10808147
They removed the link from their insta and you cannot invite people into it unfortunately

[Anonymous No.10808149]

>>10808148
i was a vendor at the event and i couldn’t even be added into the discord, even when i showed up for setup on friday

[Anonymous No.10808150]

ill be honest i didnt even know about this con until an hour ago. maybe they should like up their marketing game because i probably would have swung by had i known about it

[Anonymous No.10808154]

>>10808149
That is insane to me. Hope you made it out of the event alright. Are you going to try your luck at 818 Night Market in October?

[Anonymous No.10808162]

man, i know sugoisat wants to eventually do their own small con. i hope they dont fuck it up but i guess with socalanime fuck ups, they can see what not to do.

also, was affinity behind socalanime? or were they just one of their top companies they work with?

[Anonymous No.10808184]

[Anonymous No.10808198]

>>10808150
You'd be surprised how many cons expect attendees to do all the hyping up for them. Why invest in advertising and promotion when you can just assume that word of mouth and the magic of anime cons will ensure that thousands and thousands of people will show up just because?

[Anonymous No.10808326]

>>10808112
>I know someone who actually flew out for this.
What kind of moron flies out to a first year con out of nowhere?

[Anonymous No.10808330]

>>10808142
Anime Impulse is held at the same venue, but at least there is 3 other events going on at the same time since they're all under the same organization. At least at Impulse and Asian American Expo, I can people watch cute Chinese chicks both in regular clothes and cosplay all day long.

[Anonymous No.10808335]

>>10808116
>>10808118
Why? What do they have to gain from lying to their followers like that? My best guess is that they were given a free pass or paid to post about the con.

[Anonymous No.10808339]

>>10808330
I meant the uwu con

[Anonymous No.10808360]

>>10808326
I know a few people who've done it, while con wasn't the point it was an excuse to just go meet friends or do something else the following week after.

[Anonymous No.10808361]

Still nothing from Affinity. Absolutely amazing.

[Anonymous No.10808371]

My friend volunteered for it and told us they were so desperate for attendees that they'd let anyone in free if a volunteer invited them. I didn't go because I saw this shit a mile away. The high ticket price sealed their fate. No way I'm paying 80 bucks for what they offered.

>3 dub VA
>1 DJ stage
>Cosplay contest
>AA / Vendors / Food Trucks

At least throw us something to make memes about like dashcon. Shit seems like an exit scam

[Anonymous No.10808469]

>>10808361
im telling ya, they are just using that hospitalization incident as a way to cover things up.

[Anonymous No.10808487]

>>10808469

[Anonymous No.10808642]

>>10807869
vendors rarely get refunds, it often just ends up being an expensive lesson

[Anonymous No.10808708]

[Anonymous No.10808805]

>>10808487
They used the dude as a scapegoat. They are so lucky it happened. Had it not, the con would easily be getting more public backlash.

[Anonymous No.10808877]

The only SoCal anime cons you should be attending are ALA, Anime Impulse, and AX. Everything else us a scam.

[Anonymous No.10808884]

socal and affinity finally posted

[Anonymous No.10808885]

>>10808884

[Anonymous No.10808887]

>>10808885

[Anonymous No.10808889]

>>10808887

[Anonymous No.10808902]

>>10808884
I hate that they frame it like they really tried, but something out of their control went wrong. They fucked up and they kept fucking up and when it was obvious that things weren't going to fix themselves, they made things worse.

[Anonymous No.10808903]

>>10808884
NO REFUNDS

[Anonymous No.10808905]

I remember seeing a post from SoCalAnime advertising their con a couple weeks before the event. I was thinking of going but the “advertisement” had no info, no ticket price, and no fucking location for the con listed. Even the link to purchase tickets didn’t have an address written anywhere. So I lost interest. How do you expect potential attendees to have to do detective work to find out where the fuck your event even is? Dogshit marketing.

[Anonymous No.10808937]

This con was created and ran as a false flag only to set the bar so low that other weak cons in socal seem better in comparison and worth spending money on. They have succeeded!

[Anonymous No.10808942]

>>10808884
>>10808885
>>10808887
>>10808889
I will miss their free smaller events. They should have stuck to what they were doing and not have taken up to a shitty con like they did. Now there is less anime related events in the OC and LA area you can go to for just a night out with friends.

[Anonymous No.10808955]

>>10808905
I heard about it, I don’t even remember where, but I thought it was weird that they were having it in Pomona… I know Anime Impulse is there but it’s part of a bigger event there and it’s a lot cheaper. Pomona is out of the way and the fair ground isn’t that great of a location for a con. It sounds like they only had 2 buildings so there wasn’t really a location for programming. Basically it sounds like what AX Chibi is doing but AX Chibi is at a good location and costs half the price.

It sounds like they didn’t realize that there were higher expectations for an expensive ticketed event than a free event and didn’t plan accordingly. I wonder what made vendors think it was a good idea?

[Anonymous No.10808967]

>>10808942
>I will miss their free smaller events.
just go to sugoisat. they are already starting to expand

[Anonymous No.10809141]

>>10808967
Actually went literally today, had a lot of fun at the event today.

[Anonymous No.10809336]

Oof

[Anonymous No.10809581]

I'm still not getting it, this event had do be a bunch of people with crypto just covering their "income" as this con.
>make big event no one asked for
>sell enough tickets and booths to cover the booking costs
>do minimum amount of work required to show IRS it was an event
>bail when one of your buddies drank and pukes too much because 'emergency'
>no refunds****

[Anonymous No.10809584]

>>10809336
Holy shit that's beyond scummy. These faggots are going to get crucified if they ever show their faces again.

[Anonymous No.10809587]

>>10809336
Wow, I at least thought it was going to cover about $100, but they really proved to me that I should have had no faith in them.

[Anonymous No.10809610]

I went for like an hour friday. it was absolutely nothing. half the dealers hall were those shitty decals of traced art work and the other half was alibaba fake shit. glad the people behind the con are going under or dying or something. felt bad for artist alley folks.

[Anonymous No.10809612]

>>10808133
18 is legal and belongs to 30-40yo clay. stay mad roastie.