So I went to Megacon this year for three days of fun and excitement. Though not all was fun and excitement. Now, I've been to different sorts of conventions before. Some were huge (Otakon), and some were small (MTAC). With that said, my impression of Megacon was more of a middle-con. It took place it a fairly big size area convention center, and housed a large populace, especially on Saturday. The dealers room was actually pretty massive though, but as far as events went, I found myself bored more often than not. Hell, I left at six o'clock...on a SATURDAY. Isn't Saturday night when everything cool is supposed to happen? On Friday we got there at 11-ish, and we were in what was thought to be the second panel of the day, but in reality no panels actually happened until 1pm? What a joke. I'm not trying to convey that I didn't have fun.
It's just that this con could've been so much better, but it failed to deliver. I wasn't really a big fan of Voltaire, nor am I still. However, his concert was amusing to say the least.
I think the major downfall, was that it was run by an anime club. I don't know who runs Otakon, but they do a good job, and the other convention I go to "MTAC" is run by volunteers who are promised free entry after a certain amount of work. Megacon really seemed lacking in content, and lacking in staff. Nothing against Anime Sushi, but it just doesn't seem to work out if you try to do everything yourself.
I had a lot of fun, but I probably won't be going back again. Something about it just didnt' feel right. Especially when an older gentleman won a raffle prize and they made fun of him and were like, "Well he's outside of our demographic, but here's your prize!". Even though I'm only 21 that kinda stung. I mean, my dad was at the con with me (The whole reason I was at the con was because he wanted me to go with him and visit with him for the first time in a few years). I don't think that's entirely fair to that guy. I mean, older people like anime too. Anime has been around for quite some time, and I've met plenty of people who are older and enjoy Japanese media and that kind of thing. Perhaps it isn't as common though, but still. It's kind of a slap in your face when it's just kinda expressed that Anime is only for young people... Which is sad... I guess. I'm getting older too, but I still enjoy anime quite a bit and different aspects of Japanese cultures (amongst others)
So yeah, if you're in the Orlando area, I wouldn't reccomend going to this one unless you're new to the anime scene. Then there might be something for you to enjoy as far as most panels and events go. Not to say there weren't some decent panels. There were a few panels that were good like the SNK/King of Fighters panel (although that was just a bunch of rabid fanboys and yelling too. It was like...if you weren't hardcore enough people would be mean to you) and the La Nouvelle Manga in which I discovered the recent trend of French artists and Japanese manga artists exchanging cultures and influencing each other thus creating a new 'style'.
Then there's another thing...The AMV contest. They basically just showed almost everything that was submitted. There was so many ones with bad quality, it was atrocious. Some of them looked like they had been recorded straight from the bunny ears TV set. And several used the same scenes over and over again, several of them had subtitles in them, and several had Linkin Park used as source song. It was pathetic. And now only this next year are they actually banning Linkin Park and DBZ videos. Took them long enough!
A lot of times when it comes to smaller cons they say "The con will be as much fun as what you put into it!" but this doesn't really apply to this one. I mean, this con was a lot of fluff and hardly any substance. You can have a really small con, and still have a lot of substance. I think one of the things that frustrated me the most is that compared to the con I go to here in town called MTAC, which is usually held in a hotel, this one was actually at a convention center but had much less content than MTAC. I guess I'm just frustrated that we always ended up going home so early. I mean sure, Megacon has a lot of special guests, but you can't run a convention only on special guests and a great dealers room.
I wouldn't mind going back next year, but I'm definitely not going until I read the list of events. It would be a waste of time to go next year and suffer through the same lack of content.