How To Get Cheap Rates On Hotels At Anime Cons
Five Things They Never Tell Y'all About Attending Conventions
by Zac Bertschy,It'due south summertime – or at least it'south the function of tardily spring where the school schedules and movie marquees tell united states of america it's summer – and that ways the yearly fauna known as convention season has roared back to life once again, bringing a mountain of guests, concerts, exclusive merchandise and lines as far as the eye can encounter. Every year around this fourth dimension in that location are a host of new articles that outline basic tips for your first (or second, or tertiary) convention, and it's generally the same skilful communication: take a shower every day, bring enough coin for food AND merchandise, don't await in line for the dealer's room on opening day, that sort of thing. It'southward all corking information, but in that location are e'er a few trivial tidbits people never tell you, and some myths that need dispelling.
It's of import to notation that the convention scene has changed a tremendous corporeality over the last decade and the "biggest cons in the country" are now enormous, crowded mega-events with attendance that tops lxxx,000+ people every yr. There are hundreds of smaller conventions, and if you're headed to your local SugoiCon (or any it'due south chosen), a lot of this stuff won't employ because you aren't spending your weekend drowning in a sea of panicked humanity. If a smaller convention is your destination, sail on and bask your relaxing holiday; those of you who have set your sights on the overflowing, raucous nerd thunderdomes known as Anime Expo, San Diego Comic-con or whatsoever of the other juggernaut conventions, strap in, y'all're with me.
Don't cheap out on the hotel and try not to share a room with more than one person.
Conventions are really expensive. Oft you're paying however many hundreds of dollars information technology is to fly, along with your badge fee (and if y'all're buying in to the many "premier fan" programs that exist now, this can run you close to $300 per issue), your food budget and cash to buy the junk you want to haul back dwelling with you. In that location are plenty of "con survival guides" out there that advise people to shack up not only in cutting-charge per unit hotels, but with as many people equally tin reasonably fit in a hotel room to keep the cost per person down. I've seen convention hotel rooms that await like warzones – viii people in one lousy hotel room, with the mattresses and box springs separated to give anybody a place to sleep (with one or ii people sleeping in the bathroom). This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:
Yous are guaranteed to become limited, terrible sleep because no hotel room with vi-eight 20-somethings in it will be quiet or calm longer than a few hours during a convention.
You won't accept whatsoever privacy whatever, so get used to kicking people out of the bathroom or worse, praying the guy sleeping in the tub doesn't wake upward while you're changing your underwear.
Staying with as well many people ways that your hotel room is no longer a guaranteed safe, individual and quiet space for you lot to unwind and relax after a long day fighting the crowds. Conventions are exhausting, and even if yous're partying as hard equally yous can during the weekend, y'all're still going to want some space and quiet at some point. If 1 of your roommates is loftier-maintenance (meaning they have emotional meltdowns and ask everyone to become out of the hotel room for a while, so yous get to go try and relax in the lobby or elsewhere), or someone decides to go rogue and brings back a hookup, things become even dicier. Having your own infinite – preferably shared with only 1 other person – is invaluable at a large convention. It becomes your sanctuary away from the anarchy of the evidence floor, and it'south worth carving out a chunk of your budget for that luxury. If you're waffling on how much cash to classify to the hotel room, do yourself an enormous favor and get a nice hotel room you but have to share with i trusted friend. Cut your trade budget from $500 to $200 and spend that actress on a nice place to stay. It pays for itself in peace of mind very quickly; knowing you aren't leaving the noisy, crowded convention floor for a noisy, crowded hotel room is worth its weight in aureate.
Consider taking taxi cabs to and from the convention.
Most big conventions advertise their shuttle programs at present – free buses that take loads of attendees to and from their con-canonical hotels. Information technology'southward included in your badge fee and it sounds like information technology's the perfect way to get to and from the show. Back when these programs were starting time introduced, they were bang-up – conventions were a niggling smaller back then and not quite every bit many people knew nigh the shuttles, so it was pretty painless to use them.
Things didn't stay that way for long – the shuttles run at max capacity basically every hour they're in functioning at this point. Unless you catch the very get-go one or the very terminal one, the odds that you lot're in for an enormously long wait with a big line full of impatient congoers are really high. What's worse, the wait times are entirely unpredictable – you never know if yous're going to head out the hotel foyer door to be greeted by a half-empty coach idling for a moment to catch stragglers or a swirling crowd of broken-hearted cosplayers with gigantic plywood weapons waiting to fill up upwards every inch of available space. This makes it nearly impossible to utilize the shuttles if you're trying to make it to the show floor at any one specific time; you lot tin can't count on them, so if you really want to hit that 2pm panel and you went back to your hotel room for lunch, you probably can't make it back in fourth dimension if you use the shuttles. Prepare to be late for basically everything if you lot use them.
It may sound like a decadent luxury, merely consider taking taxi cabs at least one manner (I take 'em both means, but I'm impatient). Cab fares for a trip from your hotel door to the convention middle are usually no more than $10, and if you lot slice out $20-$xxx a day for cab fare, yous won't ever take to worry virtually getting there in fourth dimension, fighting the shuttle crowds, or getting stuck in traffic on the bus. Well-nigh congoers are reluctant to spend a few bucks on a cab, so there are unremarkably plenty of cabs available and y'all'll be on your way in condolement the infinitesimal yous step exterior and ask the concierge to hail you one. It'southward a pocket-sized expense, but absolutely worth it.
Only you can brand fan Q&A worthwhile.
Most panels at anime conventions come in two segments: i, at that place'due south a presentation or a invitee interview, which is followed by opening upward the floor for questions from the fans. This elicits eyerolls and consternation from every attendee who'south been to more than than i convention, because it unremarkably means you're in for about twenty-xxx minutes of bad-mannered questions the invitee or industry representative tin't or won't answer. It isn't just grizzled onetime vets that groan at the annunciation of a fan Q&A – ask anyone else in line for questions and they'll tell you the other questions being asked are lame as hell. Funimation now actively warns people to not ask questions about shows they haven't licensed, and people still saunter up to the microphone and enquire when they're going to license some show they oasis't appear. If information technology isn't a question that can't exist answered, it'southward something else – a request for a hug, or a line reading, or some other personal moment the fan wants that involves nobody but themselves and the guest – non particularly compelling content for anyone else in the room. Every now and and so you might get some insight nobody thought to inquire before, just this is pretty rare. You're more likely to get a three-part question which somehow involves BOTH a question they can't answer and a hug request.
Then in that location are two things you can do when faced with a fan Q&A session: leave, which is a groovy idea if you have another panel to get to, or y'all tin can make it line yourself and take up fourth dimension past asking what you think is a smart question that other people in the room might be interested in hearing an answer for. This sort of matter won't ever change unless we change information technology ourselves, so if yous're headed to a panel where y'all think there might be fan Q&A, commencement thinking well-nigh what you'd like to ask the guest ahead of time, something that other people might detect interesting as well. Sometimes even one proficient question can save 28 minutes of license requests and fake union proposals, then get ahead and exist that trailblazer that isn't merely there to waste everyone's time. I will personally thank yous for it if I take hold of you doing it.
If you're only killing time, sit in the back.
Panel presenters at conventions are usually a large wad of nervous energy – these things are run and attended by nerds, who aren't known for their spectacular public speaking skills or approachable confidence, then putting on a panel is a big effect that they've probably been preparing for for months.
Which is why it'south extra crappy when con attendees who are merely looking for a place to sit and have a load off during the show wander in to their console and make their fashion down to the outset couple of rows, plunk their stuff downwardly and start checking their phone or talking to their friends. If yous're only using the panel room as a rest stop – which anybody does at some bespeak, no judgement calls on that one – sit all the way in the back. Your consummate lack of attention to whatever the panelist is saying will go totally unnoticed and they won't care when you get up and leave fifteen minutes after checking your messages. This might sound like obvious advice merely the sheer number of people who sit in the very front when they're only in there to kill time and sit somewhere has astonished me over the years – the panelist always feels like a failure afterward, also. Just sit in the back. Nobody will notice or intendance.
That mega panel with the 4-hour line isn't worth it.
It sounds harsh, simply it'due south true. The major events at most conventions are typically a concert, the masquerade, and whatever marquee guests have shown up to announced on panels. At San Diego Comic-con, y'all have people lining upward for hours – even days – ahead of fourth dimension merely for the take chances to be in the aforementioned room as a guy who writes for Sherlock or the cast of some Syfy evidence. Anime Expo commands hours-long lines like that for hotly predictable panels, like last twelvemonth's large Crewman Moon unveiling.
It isn't that the content in the panels is fundamentally bad or not particularly worth your time – ofttimes, what happens in these panels can be fun (provided it isn't merely an hr-long fan hug request) and the excitement of being in a room with thousands of amped-upwardly fans can be pretty thrilling, simply man, those long lines make it really not worth information technology. If you're at Comic-con, the panel you lot are about to watch – almost without exception – will be a glorified DVD extra, some fluffy "interviews" with bandage members and maybe a trailer that you would've seen at domicile the next day anyway (followed by hug asking/line reading time). There are no incredible hidden secrets panel attendees become that yous won't hear nearly afterwards, and if you're salivating over exclusive footage of an unreleased movie, you were going to see the film in a few months anyway. Further, unless you were one of the dedicated few who showed upward Wednesday night for a Saturday morning time console, you won't exist anywhere near the front, so you'll be watching the panel on a Boob tube closer to you (which adds to the whole "yous're watching a DVD extra" affair). There'southward nothing happening in that room that you can't get access to in some other way later, without the enormous line.
It'southward a simple rule that might brand your convention experience a lot more fun and a lot less frustrating: never wait longer than an 60 minutes to become into any i panel. Unless it's the one affair you're at the convention specifically to run into and yous've literally planned your entire trip effectually that one thing (which isn't smart anyway – don't do that, you're setting yourself up for major thwarting if the panel is less than the 2nd coming or you don't get in) – it isn't worth your time. More and more at present convention panels are filmed for release later or simulcast, so you'll really accept a better time (and the same view) watching it on your laptop in your nice, air-conditioned private hotel room that y'all got back to in no time at all thanks to a speedy cab ride.
Have any undercover tips for congoing that yous never meet in convention communication manufactures? Share them in the comments! Who knows – possibly you'll make someone's vacation just a petty scrap better.
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