The Nan Desu Kan organizers have certainly done a great job in their first year at this new hotel. Generally speaking, lines seemed to be more manageable, walking around was easier, and the hotel facilities were well laid out and well maintained. We would all like to thank the NDK Staff and Board of Directors for putting on another great convention. As usual, Sunday is the slowest day for me at Nan Desu Kan. I had an opportunity to interview Taliesin Jaffe, so you can look forward to that audio in the next few days.
So you want to run an Anime Convention? with Kevin McKeever
I attended Kevin's panel about how to start an anime convention. He started out the panel with a big reality check. "So you want to run an anime convention? Why?" Kevin went on to discuss some bad reasons for trying to run your own convention: 1) revenge, 2) hopes for easy money, 3) wanting to run the masquerade. Basically, if any three of those are your primary reason for starting a convention, it is not likely to work out and you should probably give up before you lose a lot of money. He then discussed some of the realities of starting a convention. There is a lot of work that has to happen before a convention can start. It is like taking on a second, full-time, un-paid job. Eighteen months is the bare minimum to put together a small convention, at an out of the way chain hotel, with only a couple of invited guests. The cost for this small convention would be about $50,000 and the convention would not likely be able to make that back in the first year. And the convention is only likely to take off if there is a demand in the market for it. It is also necessary to for some type of corporation (either for-profit or non-profit) to run the convention. In order to best decide which type of incorporation, the prospective convention head needs legal advice. On top of all this, many cities have at least one anime convention, and many also have a Comic-Con. So it can be hard for a small, new convention to get a foothold in many markets.
