Animeleague

We'd like to thank all of you for attending London Anime & Gaming Con!

We look forward to seeing you all at the next London Anime & Gaming Con this 12-13 August 2023! You can get your ticket for that now at this link.

Got any stories, photos or feedback? Put them in this topic

Over all a really good event, it was my son's first time at this kind of event and he wasn't disappointed.

One small observation though, we were both excited to hear from the voice actors, the sound system wasn't sufficient enough for the environment or audience size, the control area for the sound was also placed directly in front of the main stage, this obscured a lot of the stage for anyone not 6ft tall. We left after 5 mins into the Q&A because it was so bad.
Such a shame, the rest of the convention was great!

Joeb wrote: ↑

13 Feb 2023, 21:20

Over all a really good event, it was my son's first time at this kind of event and he wasn't disappointed.

One small observation though, we were both excited to hear from the voice actors, the sound system wasn't sufficient enough for the environment or audience size, the control area for the sound was also placed directly in front of the main stage, this obscured a lot of the stage for anyone not 6ft tall. We left after 5 mins into the Q&A because it was so bad.
Such a shame, the rest of the convention was great!

Hi there!

We were trying to fix the sound system for the Q&A, we basically had a performer on beforehand who likes their music to be quite loud and lots of bass. We are going to fix this for next time. We will also think about where to put our tech desk, but this is mainly so no one knocks over the lighting rig (you'd be surprised how clumsy people are). I do appreciate the feedback though and we will try to rearrange a few things for the event in August.

Hey, great event as usual. However I gotta say it was a slightly different atmosphere this year. Saw plenty of bag searches going on and got searched 3 times myself, which created a rather weird high security atmosphere. Did you guys have problems with drugs last year or something? Also saw lots of rowdy youths walking around being boisterous and observed one unfortunate incident where a staff member got verbal abuse shouted at him ("f*** off you fat c****"). Also watched the same types aggressively hitting on girls during the party later. Also regarding the party - it was incredible last year with the videogame music and the hypeman. This year no videogame music and no hypeman, and that was a big disappointment. Everything else awesome though. Currently unsure if I'll be going August/next year

Hello all,

Thank you for the event, overall I think it was really nice. My feedback would be

1. Manga seller. I was shocked that despite the many vendors there wasn't one single manga seller. Most, if not all, anime conventions I've been, and even some which aren't anime related but convention on japanese art and culture, had people selling manga of different kinds. Felt strange that this wasn't a thing in this anime convention. I doubt I was alone in being surprised and slightly disappointed at this fact. I went hoping to maybe find some missing volumes for my collections.
   
2. K-pop random dance event: really fun and I participated a lot, vibe was great, the only con is that the room it was set up was quite small and with a low ceiling, dancing wasn't super easy and I think everyone was trying not to hit someone.
   

Hi all,

First time posting but my third event I have been to in London, I take my sisters so our parents don't need to and I enjoy each visit I come but I do have some observations.

Firstly I visited the gaming section and was impressed with the range of consoles/spaces available given the space. However for the tournaments the spectator area is basically the available floor space between two rows of gamers, with chairs available it quickly becomes an obsticle for participants and viewers alike.

I would suggest having two screens and a splitter so that participants sit behind the screens with the mirrored image projecting the other side of the table to a viewing area where people can sit to watch ensuring enough space that smaller viewers can see, and so that there is safe access and egress to the doors. In the event of a fire that area would be a hazard for everyone present in a panic given the bags on the floor, chairs and seated gamers among other viewers all cheering were an alarm called it could lead to accidents.

My second observation was the innacuracy of the maps. Having to eventually ask staff to be told what we were looking for was not where it was displayed on the map, I expect this led to a lot of transient foot traffic where people who aren't confident enough to just ask wandered around a lot confused by the difference in layout to the printed maps. A lack of signage over missing repair station further compounded this.

I suggest a QR type map as a redundancy in the booklet allowing it to be updated with changes live or a sign in the lobby notifying visitors of the changes (or lack of repair station in this insatnce) to prevent unecessary roaming.

The karaoke was great, let down only with the poor Mic/sound system making it a lot quieter then it needed to be, given how popular it was the room could also have got away with being larger as it was full to where people were standing around and inside/outside the door. Again not a particularly big problem but it was frustrating to visit the front to sing only to return to stuff having been moved, or chairs taken by new entrants unaware of who was/wasnt sitting where. It may be worth having this in one of the staged room as the sign up sheet was significant and very well received. To those that where there, the little kid singing superman was a highlight for me!

Had a great time, I hope next time I can get a costume together but overall my sisters loved it.

yuki-san wrote: ↑

14 Feb 2023, 09:52

Hey, great event as usual. However I gotta say it was a slightly different atmosphere this year. Saw plenty of bag searches going on and got searched 3 times myself, which created a rather weird high security atmosphere. Did you guys have problems with drugs last year or something? Also saw lots of rowdy youths walking around being boisterous and observed one unfortunate incident where a staff member got verbal abuse shouted at him ("f*** off you fat c****"). Also watched the same types aggressively hitting on girls during the party later. Also regarding the party - it was incredible last year with the videogame music and the hypeman. This year no videogame music and no hypeman, and that was a big disappointment. Everything else awesome though. Currently unsure if I'll be going August/next year

Hi @yuki-san Glad you enjoy yourselves!

You'd be surprised how many people tried to smuggle in things. It is basically last year we had a lot of alcohol brought in off-site which the venue doesn't allow and items that shouldn't really be at a convention last year, hence the bag searches. I know sometimes it can really put a weird atmosphere, however, this is for everyone's safety and you will be surprised what we confiscated, but I won't go into details. Lets just say London can be crazy sometimes

The youths definitely we were trying to keep an eye on them, again London is crazy that is all I can say. Handled more incidences myself which took me away from stage. I will have Reno (the hypeman) back for August and he will be DJing himself. He was just busy this time round.

I will ask ChibiKitty about putting their KPOP Dance Event on Stage, they always want it in the panels room, when I do think it is suited more to stage.

jumalaspina wrote: ↑

14 Feb 2023, 10:20

Hello all,

Thank you for the event, overall I think it was really nice. My feedback would be

1. Manga seller. I was shocked that despite the many vendors there wasn't one single manga seller. Most, if not all, anime conventions I've been, and even some which aren't anime related but convention on japanese art and culture, had people selling manga of different kinds. Felt strange that this wasn't a thing in this anime convention. I doubt I was alone in being surprised and slightly disappointed at this fact. I went hoping to maybe find some missing volumes for my collections.
   
2. K-pop random dance event: really fun and I participated a lot, vibe was great, the only con is that the room it was set up was quite small and with a low ceiling, dancing wasn't super easy and I think everyone was trying not to hit someone.
   

Hi @jumalaspina Thanks for your feedback! I do know there were two sellers selling manga, however it is a small section, so I may speak to them and see if they will sell more manga. I will also look into bringing in some manga sellers if I can.

We are still working out the best Video Gaming room floorplan, so I will take your suggestion on board and take it to the VG team they will appreciate the suggestion.

Maps in the conbook I hold my hands up to that as I was trying to get it printed off in time and did not notice I was using the old one from last year and we made several changes last minute. This will be corrected for next time

I will be bringing this suggestion out, but would you prefer Karaoke on the Stage? I have karaoke on stage for the smaller cons it is only London where it isn't as I have bands and such.

I thought the tech desk was perfect, I could see the visualizations readout. Also The performer your probably referring to was absolutely awesome, he got up on a chair behind the tech desk and actually rapped directly at me.
What I didn't like was security being really OTT, they were picking on a 13-14 yo who dropped a love heart sweet accusing of her of cocaine, bad guys after I made a complaint about the bad security before I came about last years event I expected more.
Then back to the security, I bought tickets for all-day Friday no security came and gave me a wristband at all and i was in all day never got asked. Mayaswell not of even paid for that day!
also the security could spend time better moving peoples bags off chairs so people can sit down in the gaming area so the chairs are not saved and people can game, also bookable slots for popular gaming consoles so people don't spend all day on them and not shut it at 6 six for gaming
defiantly was not enough manga stores, two small stores was not enough for anyone

Hi, first off well done to everyone involved in running and organising the event. It was me and my partners first ever convention of this type and we both had a blast on Friday. We did find it all a tad confusing as to where everything was, maybe just a little more signage on the walls was needed but once we had explored a bit we then could get around fairly easily, the hotel itself was really nice. Definitely add to the request for more manga ha! As we only went Friday and the downstairs bit was fully open it’ll be unfair of me to fully comment on the vendors but it would have been nice to see some more manga sellers and also maybe some Anime Blu-ray importers and also video game importers too selling some Japanese video games. There’s some good importers in and around London who would probably find it easy to bring some stuff over.
But yea on the whole we had a great time and nothing dampened our experience, we’re definitely going to look at coming back in August and do the full weekend too! Also the karaoke on Friday was so much fun, being on the stage area I think meant that we got the most from it judging by what other people have said about the other days. Thanks again to everyone for all your hard work!

First time at an Anime con. Bit surprised at the lack of anime and manga available but still managed to spend more money that I should have on merchandise. Loved the costumed and friendly atmosphere, apart from all the people injudiciously carrying swords which kept poking bystanders. Agree with previous comments about the poor audio quality for the talks and bands. Both sound stages seemed to be set up for just bass and the voices were inaudible unless you were directly in front of the stage(s).

I expect I will probably return for the next one and I may even hang round long enough for the Saturday evening cosplay parade.

Been for years but first time as an artist and everyone in my room had a blast! Thank you Ann & Alexis for checking up on us throughout the event

I think the crowd handling was a lot better than last February too so good job with that, even with how busy it was it was a lot easier to get around with the distribution which was much appreciated <3