Conventions of 2024: A Mission's Briefing

 

It's nearing the end of March and with that, local pop culture conventions are once again getting on my mind as I prep for another year of attending big events in person and bribing the artists in Artist's Alley to draw my immense and ever-growing selection of OC's as I tend to do.

...Okay that's not all there is to these events, but considering all the commission dumps I post on my other blog, I wouldn't be surprised if "commissions" were engraved into my brain whenever I attend an anime or comic convention. I suppose that happens when you have a giant roster of original characters and want to see them drawn in the art style of other artists. Anyways, it's March, and with this being the time I post my big lineup of conventions I'll be attending throughout the year, I had to get it done before April rolled around and I start attending events live once again. This time I abolished the Major/Minor event format of last year since it didn't feel fair, deciding the best way to portray the events was to do so on all equal footing.

The presence of conventions I'm attending for the first time, as well as events that I have not gone to in more than a year was a part of that reasoning for every event falling under the same amount of attention. A good friend of mine in the convention scene motivated me to grab tickets to Brooklyn Comic Con after the cancelation of what would have been AnimeNext 2024. Meanwhile, AnimeNYC's move to August has allowed me to fill the rest of Fall with two events. DepycCon and AnimeNJ++. The former I only attended once in 2016 until I was forced to shelf attending further years of the event as it occurred in too close of a proximity to AnimeNYC. The latter will be having its second year and since now there's no other events in the area competing with its timeslot I can easily attend it and see how it works as an anime convention. Based on what I heard so far, both events look good as wind-down events as the winter season approaches, and if everything goes as planned, the Festival of Games will return once more after skipping 2023 to cap off the year.

I'll hold off until the end of the year before I talk about plans for 2025 and beyond, as it's still far too early to discuss potential schedule changes just incase another event pops up that I can attend or if AnimeNext resurrects itself. For now, expect the usual from these events: lots of photos, lots of cosplays, and lots of commissions.