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[BreakerDeeEss]

Originally Posted by dreamoflife02

Yeah, the way the premiere was set up was bullshit. :/ The room was way too small, and even if you got in, the screen was way too small and the subtitles were barely readable-- and that's even if you didn't have six or seven heads in the way.

It did sound like everyone inside had a great time. Just wish the movie premier could've been executed better.

[Zouziias]

It was awful.
No anime.
I have Carpal Tunnel from typing about how much I hated it.

They're combined next year.
I'm not going ever again.

[snowkirby]

Originally Posted by mrgetalife

And its not that there wasn't much cosplay. It was very hard to shoot or find it because of the crowd. The ones you did find in the open were people working with photographers already in shoots.

I apologize for going with a lot of experiences mostly from Comic-Con (I never can make it to Anime Fest), but I had this problem too last year. Again, crowds. Saturday. It happens at every convention. If you wanna find cosplayers, you keep on walking around and see if they're towards the lower floors. I found tons of cosplay; trying to take a pic was a different story, but it's not the end of the world either. If you can run into them that's great, if not oh well. There's other cosplayers.

Originally Posted by mrgetalife

The construction going on also didn't help the looks.

There's always construction. Welcome to New York.

Originally Posted by dreamoflife02

Okay, but there were about four manga booths total. I was looking for four or five different series-- and not obscure ones, either-- and couldn't find anything I wanted. Usually at anime conventions there are TONS of different places to look. I'm not saying there's no overlap, and I'm not saying anime conventions never have unrelated stuff, but I'd say that the dealer's room was 90% non-anime.

Okay 90%? Were we at the same convention? I saw at least 15 or so booths of anime stuff, or anime related merchandise (cosplay, hats, body pillows for God's sake, etc). I'm sorry you couldn't find what you had wanted, but this isn't Wal-Mart. Maybe they sold out or just didn't carry the series in their inventory ::shrug::.

[tsutaya]

holy crap all i can say if shove, push and dodge much? it was just way too crowded so it made it unbereable to even want to step into the dealers room where you could not even walk single file cause of the huge mess there was in the anime area.

like someone else said. nyaf seem like it was just a little corner of the con and that made me kinda sad since thats what i went for.... there was fairly little on vendors for anime. it took me a while on friday to even figure out where the anime stuff was! i thought it might be on a different floor since i couldnt even find any of it...

im not going next year anyways cause of something i have planned but damn they need to do something cause nyaf was really just overshadowed by everything else....

p.s. if you want to give freebies to ppl next year give soap out... not tooth paste...

[dreamoflife02]

Okay 90%? Were we at the same convention? I saw at least 15 or so booths of anime stuff, or anime related merchandise (cosplay, hats, body pillows for God's sake, etc). I'm sorry you couldn't find what you had wanted, but this isn't Wal-Mart. Maybe they sold out or just didn't carry the series in their inventory ::shrug::.

I just copied the list of exhibitors into Excel for a quick count and there were 600 booths. There were definitely more than 15 anime-related booths there, but I doubt there were more than thirty or so. And frankly, you're sounding kind of rude here. I go to a lot of anime conventions, and I know that it's not Wal-Mart. I'd just like to be able to have fun shopping in the dealer's room, rather than pushing and shoving my way through aisles where I can barely breathe just to find that there's barely anything I want to buy. And if your experiences are mostly from comic-con like you said, then you're dealing with a different breed of con than the typical anime convention, so maybe that's why you can't understand why we all have issues with it.

[Call Sign]

Originally Posted by mrgetalife

The masquerade was mismanaged badly. They just didn't put the right people in charge of handling it.

Really? It looked like the judges were the same as last year and Uncle Yo was there. Who was running it this year and why was it mismanaged?

NYCC ruled over NYAF. The dealers room for the anime related stuff was put all the way in the back where there was the least room. I was surprised that it was placed so far away from the action of NYCC.

I heard a rumor that eventually NYAF will be phased out and everything be part of NYCC. Any truth to that?

Also, had a hard time reading the online schedule. Wish they would do a giant pdf of all the events.

Is Wizard world like this?

[Alphonia]

I was disappointed with this convention on many levels. It felt like NYAF was eaten by Comic Con. I don't particular have any interest in comic books and the whole reason I came to the con was because of 'New York Anime Festival'. But upon arrival, I got lost looking for anything Anime related, all the signs besides the artist alley said COMIC CON. I tried to look at the maps they have at registration but it was completely confusing and we just tried to explore to figure things out.

The anime dealers were put in the most obnoxious spot possible. On sunday I was getting shoved and elbowed on many occasions rudely by angry con attendees. I didn't want to set foot back in the dealers room until the last hour of the con on sunday. The aisles were too narrow for the amount of people going through it.

If it ever is combined again I won't go because NYAF has become a frustrating convention for an anime only fan to attend. It's too crowded and poorly organized. It basically felt like I paid for Comic Con rather than NYAF.

[MagentaFox]

Originally Posted by snowkirby

Again, crowds. Saturday. It happens at every convention. If you wanna find cosplayers, you keep on walking around and see if they're towards the lower floors. I found tons of cosplay; trying to take a pic was a different story, but it's not the end of the world either. If you can run into them that's great, if not oh well. There's other cosplayers.

You're obviously outnumbered as far as experience, so stop being so argumentative and accept that the rest of us did not enjoy the con like you did. I've been going to cons since 2003, and I've been to over 20. This was the most crowded one I've ever been to, and the least populated by cosplayers. The anime merchandise we massively lacking.

On top of that, the men at the con were the creepiest I've ever encountered. Men took my picture without asking, some of the back of me, and many just wanted to get their picture taken with me and had no clue who I was cosplaying. Some people just came up to me, looked me right in the eye and commented on my body.

I went there because I like comics, cartoons and anime. I left hoping to never got back again.

[BreakerDeeEss]

AAARRRRRRRGGGG!!!! Still massively pissed of that I didn't get to watch Awakening of the Trailblazer!!! I kinda now wished that I didn't locate and meet up with my friend that has no sense of direction to give them a ticket to replace their lost one. ****! ****! ****!

I think was the first time in a long time that I've been this ticked off. Need to sleep now to forget about what I wanted to go to NYAF on Sunday for.

[Antiku]

I wished that Comic Con and NYAF didn't combine. My friend and I spent countless hours just trying to find the anime section of the dealers room and were surprised that it was pushed all the way into the back of CC. It doesn't help that the staff didn't even know where everything is. It was so crowded on Saturday and I wasn't able to move around much. I also walked around in cosplay and so many con goers were stepping on my dress and didn't apologize. This one kid at the CC entrance almost ripped my dress because he wouldn't take his foot off my dress no matter how nicely I asked. Not to mention he stepped on my dress on purpose because I saw him walking past me and then came back to trample on my cosplay. When he finally stopped after I threatened to get the con security, he gave me a look and mockingly said "sorry".

If only it was just NYAF, I would have been much happier. I've never experienced such rude people throughout my years of cosplaying at conventions except for this one.

I paid for NYAF and everything seemed to be overrun by Comic Con. Sorry to say but anime conventions should really be separated from comic/video game conventions. It just doesn't mix well.

[emmisu]

Originally Posted by MagentaFox

You're obviously outnumbered as far as experience, so stop being so argumentative and accept that the rest of us did not enjoy the con like you did. I've been going to cons since 2003, and I've been to over 20. This was the most crowded one I've ever been to, and the least populated by cosplayers. The anime merchandise we massively lacking.

On top of that, the men at the con were the creepiest I've ever encountered. Men took my picture without asking, some of the back of me, and many just wanted to get their picture taken with me and had no clue who I was cosplaying. Some people just came up to me, looked me right in the eye and commented on my body.

I went there because I like comics, cartoons and anime. I left hoping to never got back again.

I have to agree on this. I've been to NYAF and NYCC every year since 2007 (the birth of NYAF) and this was the worst of either.
NYAF every year leading up was crazy fun, I never wanted to leave even when it was congested.
NYCC every year, even with the comic books I still had a great time with no problems until this year.

I'd honestly rather them cancel NYAF and have it just be NYCC if it's going to be like this. There was about as much anime at NYAF/NYCC as there has always been at NYCC in it's previous years. And what was that huge room dedicated to IBM? A big waste of a lot of space that could have been used to clear up foot traffic.

The difference is mainly that in all the previous years people have gone knowing what kind of con they were going to. NYAF was fun and random and everyone was crazy and friendly.
NYCC was always expected to be fun, but on a more serious side with a lot more adults attending and a higher expectation of maturity to go along with that.

Instead what we got was angry and confused crowds coming in with no idea what to expect, trying to preserve their con experience with little regard to the people around them.

TL;DR: It is possible to both have a great time and have complaints about the event at once. If I had paid for my ticket, I would probably have been totally pissed off.

[Big appleton]

Not only is the dealer's room traffic a standstilll, the size of the anime-related portion of the con is minimal compared with the magnitude of it's comic counterpart.

I must also add the "helpfulness" of the staff and volunteer as well. When I went to AnimeNext, the staff and volunteers were to go to guys for event location and schedule, but for NYAF/NYCC, they all give different answers when asked the location of a panel, some of them also tends to be on the stubborn rude side as well, not giving a crap about you or trying to find excuses to kick you out and taking your badges >.>

[SpellMeRed]

Originally Posted by MagentaFox

On top of that, the men at the con were the creepiest I've ever encountered. Men took my picture without asking, some of the back of me, and many just wanted to get their picture taken with me and had no clue who I was cosplaying. Some people just came up to me, looked me right in the eye and commented on my body.

My friend on Friday was a Slytherin student, while we were leaving, we were stopped by some guy with a fancy looking camera, and asked her to take pictures. She agreeded and she posed with the wand, and he asked her to do a certian pose....it was really creepy. He just walked off after.

Never mind the creeper that we got on Sunday, just following us around and asking questions.

[Kaze Saffire]

Originally Posted by Big appleton

Not only is the dealer's room traffic a standstilll, the size of the anime-related portion of the con is minimal compared with the magnitude of it's comic counterpart.

I must also add the "helpfulness" of the staff and volunteer as well. When I went to AnimeNext, the staff and volunteers were to go to guys for event location and schedule, but for NYAF/NYCC, they all give different answers when asked the location of a panel, some of them also tends to be on the stubborn rude side as well, not giving a crap about you or trying to find excuses to kick you out and taking your badges >.>

Truth. They were VERY good there. And this Sunday, I managed to come up the stairs from bag check and catch a group of people doing dances and stuff, so I decided to join them. They were a pretty cool group of people, and didn't seem to mind me being there ( at least I hope ) Songs were played, and if anyone from the little group knew the dance to it, they went out a little and did it. There was almost always a crowd of people ( nothing too big though. By no means were they blocking traffic ) and they all seemed to enjoy it. Cameras/people recording everywhere. Then somwhere down the line, a cop came and broke it up, and staff threatened to kick us out ( meanwhile, the people I were with told me they did this Friday and Saturday just fine. They did it on Saturday...seriously? That was the most crowded day. And Sunday was the last day anyway. Friggin morons... ) We come to a convention to unite with common interests, and this is what they do to us ( we were all cosplaying anime characters too. I imagine it was some comic con moron who couldn't appreciate us -.- )

The whole combination thing was a joke. WAY too many people on Saturday. I gave up on going places and because of that, I couldn't even make my way to any panels I wanted to attend. I didn't like the fact that there weren't all too many anime dealers. I actually found a stand with a CRAP load of cheap anime cards ( some tcgs I don't play, I just collect the cards and draw from them ) and I couldn't find it again. The staff didn't really have their stuff together at points. Hell, even this guy at the Bandai booth failed at knowing autograph signings. And don't even get me started about how two guests that were announced on the page were hidden in the funimation booth. QUITE pissed about that.

Basically, it was just like "Let's drown out what 15% of the people like, and flood it 85% more of what most tri-staters/New Yorkers are into." For the love of god, I saw so many Star Trek-ers/people wearing Star Trek shirts it wasn't even funny. I'm suprised I got as much attention as I did in my two cosplay costumes on Friday and Saturday ( very few Sunday ) I hope to GOD they don't shut NYAF down. It deserves another shot. And on it's own this time. Last year was so pleasant. Room to breathe no matter where you went. And I probably woulda been able to do more stuff if it had been the same way it was last year ( which I was hoping it would be, even with NYCC. I thought they were gunna seperate it by floors or something. BOY was I wrong )

[_Emmy_]

Absolutely agree with most of the people here. I really didn't have much fun this year either.

I walked in thinking that Comic Con and NYAF would be on separate floors and sections. Was pretty disappointed when I found out that the NYAF portion was pushed to a small little corner. It was like 90% Comic Con and 10% Anime Festival. The mood was different too. Like, I dunno, everyone seemed aggravated. When it was NYAF by itself, there was more room to breath, run around and have fun.

Really hope they never do this again. I miss NYAF by itself ~_~;

Edit: Oh and the AMV contest sucked. Who the hell chose the finalist? They were horrible videos! I've seen better ones on You Tube >.>