Texas for the most part has a lot of anime conventions. From small one day events to a three day weekend, there is always something going on every month. And while this is great for fans, it does make it difficult for new conventions to form and grow. But what if a new convention wasn’t started by fans but from a company that not only runs an already established convention but also has the backing of one of the largest and most popular anime streaming service? The result would be Anime Frontier. Anime Frontier or as the full title in its advertising calls it Anime Frontier powered by Crunchyroll, was a three day anime convention that took place on the weekend of December 3, 2021 at the Fort Worth Convention Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Now while most anime conventions here in Texas were started from the ground up by, Anime Frontier was put on by LeftField Media, the same company that started Anime NYC in 2017 and whose founders also happened to be the founders of New York Comic Con, with one of the founders a former senior Vice President of Reed Exhibitions which is the parent company of ReedPop. The same ReedPop that puts on NYCC, the PAX family of conventions and many others. Needless to say, that is a lot of experience under their belt. With that much experience, how well did Anime Frontier do for a “first year” convention? Here are some of the observations that I noticed during that weekend.
Observations
Decent size convention center- Most first year conventions (or at least the ones that I’ve been to) usually have their first year convention in a small events center or a mid-size hotel. For its first year, Anime Frontier held its event at the Fort Worth Convention Center. The exhibit hall where the main part of the convention was held (artists alley and dealer’s room) is roughly 200,000 sq.ft while the ballroom where opening ceremonies, the cosplay contest and the Final Fantasy concert was about 28,000 sq.ft (according to the convention center’s website). And though it was not used, attached to the convention center was a 25,000 sq.ft arena with a max capacity of 13,000 seats. Needless to say, that’s a lot of room for a first year convention to have, which is always a good problem to have as they can grow into it and reconfigure their layout if they need to. That being said….
Need more room to grow/optimize current space- If the numbers are correct, Anime Frontier has reported an attendance of 13,000 attendees, with 378 vendors and artists. For a first year con these numbers are nothing to sneeze at as most first year conventions would be lucky enough to break 100+ attendees at the minimum. With that being said, Anime Frontier has already outgrown the Fort Worth Convention Center and needs to either use the space more efficiently or think about moving to a new location. Now the way that the exhibit hall was laid out was actually well organized and visibly labeled, something I hope that my hometown convention takes note of. However, as my hometown convention, San Japan, has artists’ alley and the dealers’ room in separate halls, Anime Frontier had both in the same hall which made for some really small and cramped booths. With the size of the exhibit halls that San Japan uses each year, they even managed to fit in a full arcade, console area, tabletop area and at least a dozen ita cars. San Japan also has access to the attached Lila Cockrell Theatre and the Grand Hyatt’s ballrooms if needed. With the additional renovations that have been done as well as access to the connecting Grand Hyatt hotel and the theatre, the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center is able to hold several events at the same time and still have plenty of space left over. This is something that the Fort Worth Convention Center does not have and the organizers of Anime Frontier should take that into consideration over the next couple of years.
Press/media room- Now this is more of an observation that directly affects me as press/media more so than a general attendee is the fact that Anime Frontier had a meeting room set aside for press/media outlets to work and conduct interviews. This might be a minor detail, and again one that does not directly affect general attendees but it was nice to be able to have a quiet space to be able to work and network with other press/media outlets.
Mismanaged Queuing- At some point every convention will eventually have the “line-con/standing-con” meme bestowed upon them and Anime Frontier was no different. Now remember, even though this is a first year con upper management has years of experience putting on conventions. Not to mention that with all of the anime cons that Texas has (the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex having the most) there is no shortage of experienced volunteers to help keep things running smoothly. So there should be no excuse for poor management of line ques, but unfortunately there were. Now arriving on the first day, December 3, attendees had to que outside the convention center till it opened at 10am. This is pretty understandable as the city is the one that owns and operates the convention center so they have the right to set opening and closing times. However, that wasn’t the time that Anime Frontier actually started. Attendees had to stand in line again for about three till around 1pm for the actual convention to start. While Texas mornings rarely get extremely cold, it still gets pretty chilly in the mornings and having people wait outside just for the doors to open isn’t a good idea. The que to get into the exhibit hall proper did have some signage that showed who needs to be where (i.e. VIP, press, Accessibility) , there was no signage directing where you need to be standing in other areas of the convention center other than a sign directing people into the queuing room. And even inside the rooms there was no indication of who belongs where, other than Accessibility since it makes sense for them to be in front of the line. This was made even more evident when my photographer covering the cosplay contest was ushered and passed off to various volunteers before being told there was no line for press and to get to the back of the line instead of being placed back where he was before a volunteer took him out of his spot.
Panel programing- Anime Frontier’s panel programing was a bit on the thinner side, being confined to three main rooms and the ballroom for main event programing (ie. cosplay contest, Final Fantasy concert, opening/closing ceremonies etc). From my understanding there were supposed to be even more panels with more international guests in attendance, but due to Covid travel restrictions and surge/uptick in cases, the panel line up was trimmed down. This isn’t really the fault of the convention itself as the health of the con attendees, guests and vendors/artists took precedence. It did however require the showrunners to curate panel programming to be more focused on anime and other related subjects as to provide the best experience possible.
Game room was very limited- Over the years there has been a rise of companies that help furnish a convention’s arcade/console game room by renting out arcade cabinets and console setups. It is understandable that as a first year convention Anime Frontier wouldn’t be able to afford such services and would have to find other methods in order to furnish their gaming area. Having the small Arcade 1up cabinets would have been good option to have if they didn’t have access to Japanese style arcade cabinets. But to their credit the Electronic Gaming Convention (EGC), the organization that was in charge of the gaming room, did provide plenty of consoles for free play uses and to hold tournaments on. This would have been enough for a first year fan run convention, but as I mentioned Anime Frontier has not just the backing of Crunchyroll but also upper management that has years of experience running these kinds of conventions. The room that the EGC was set up in was pretty small and should have been relocated to a bigger area or into the exhibit hall, as there was still plenty of space in the hall. In addition to no arcade cabinets, there wasn’t a section for tabletop/card gaming. With D&D becoming popular once again through streams like Critical Role and the craziness people buying up Pokemon TCG, Magic The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh and other tcg packs most conventions have a space set aside for that, but not Anime Frontier. I’m guessing its for safety/health reasons which is understandable.
Booths selling authentic Japanese snacks- I’m not sure what the policy is for the Fort Worth Convention Center is, but in the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center, no one is allowed to sell food in the convention center other than the authorized food service/caterer provider that the city of San Antonio has contracted. This extents to snack foods and drinks as well. At Anime Frontier there were two booths that were selling Japanese snacks and drinks for attendees to enjoy. These ranged from shrimp chips and takoyaki pull balls to the more traditional Pocky and various flavors of ramen that you really don’t see unless you travel to your local asian market, if you have at one at all. Much like video games, food is big part of anime culture that in fact there have been several shows based around food. So here’s to hoping that Anime Frontier pushes for the food services provider that they use to allow even more Japanese snack and maybe even offer up actual Japanese food.
Attack on Titan exhibit- As niche as anime is, there are only a few shows that were able to transcend into a wider mainstream audience, at least in my opinion. These are the shows that even non-fans immediately recognize even without watching a single episode. These shows are (again in my opinion) Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, One Piece, My Hero Academia, and now entering the second half of its final season next year, Attack on Titan. With the manga ending its ten year run this past April, the publisher of the manga, Kodansha, celebrated the milestone with a manga exhibit, showcasing the evolution of the series using the original hand drawn panels. Anime Frontier was lucky enough to be able to be the only other anime convention (with Anime NYC being its debut showing) to have the exhibit on display. Being able to see the original manga pages before being published was a really cool experience that I don’t think has been done in other anime conventions that I’ve been to. As mentioned, the exhibit showcase the evolution of the story, from the first appearance of the Colossus Titian to where (being vague due to spoilers) Erin and friends discover that their world is much bigger than they though and right up to where the anime is currently at. My one really minor complaint is that exhibit was actually pretty small, coming in at 900 sq. ft. , which is about the size of a mid-sized booth for a vendor. I also though that since the anime was entering its final season that there would be at least some anime cells displayed, concept art, notes from the manga-ka etc. I guess my reasoning for thinking this was that most of the people who got into Attack on Titan was through the anime and not the manga. In my opinion the whole reason that Attack on Titan became so popular was through the anime. Regardless the manga and the anime had made a great impact within the anime industry and the fandom in general and it was awesome to see it being celebrated.
Final thoughts/Review
For being the third con that I have attended since restrictions have been eased and I am fully vaccinated, Anime Frontier was a very enjoyable weekend. Here’s the thing though, as a first year con I understand that there will be some rookie mistakes made and that’s alright, it’s all a part of the growing pains of being a first year convention. However upper management is made up people who help created one of the East Coast’s biggest comic cons and was part of the company that is responsible for for putting on the PAX family of conventions and with Texas has no shortage of experience volunteers most of these mistakes should have been avoided. Other than optimization usage of space and a bit of miscommunication regarding line placement, Anime Frontier’s first year was a great start. The organization of the exhibit floor was great, panel programing while on the thin side was curated and still had a lot of interesting things to see, being able to buy and enjoy actual Japanese snacks with out the city’s contracted food service provider is something that I want my hometown convention to adopt and seeing the 10 year evolution of one of the biggest series in manga and anime was pretty awesome. I see great potential in Anime Frontier, especially with the experience that upper management has and the connections that they have, for the con to be even bigger and better in the years to come.
