I just noticed that the Otakon panel list has been updated and now includes an ADV industry panel.
Originally ADV was not listed, making me wonder what the heck is going on (especially since they essentially promised some big announcements at Otakon).
Of course, being listed and actually having the panel are two different things, but ADV is now at least listed as having an industry panel at Otakon now.
I had been waiting for this, and I’m kind of surprised there wasn’t an announcement on the Otakon home page, but Otakon has now released a tentative list of panels for their 2008 convention:
One notable panel not listed in the list is an ADV industry panel. At Anime Expo, they said they hoped to be able to announce some things, including their new industry partner and possibly some new licenses at Otakon. Well, that’s hard to do if you don’t even have a panel. Of course, as I said, this is a tentative list, so they might be added later, but the lack of a panel listed right off the bat can’t be a great sign.
Other industry panels I’ll try to hit include the Bandai panel, the Bandai Surprise! panel (since, apparently, there will be a surprise there), the Funimation Announcements panel, the Kadokawa USA panel, since they may announce some of the production and distribution details from their Anime Expo announcements, and the Media Blasters Announcements panel. The Fansubbing and the State of the Industry panels are on my secondary list.
As for fan panels, I didn’t go to many last year, since not many really appealed to me and this year looks even less favorable. I also see that there is no podcasting panel this year. That is one I wanted to hit last year, but couldn’t since the light rail stopped running before that panel ended.
As for guest panels, the JAM Project and Kano Sisters panels look interesting at first blush.
And of course, I may not get to all of these because of scheduling conflicts, while I may end up going to some I haven’t listed since they may be the only interesting thing going on at any given time.
Of course, the first reason is because of Otakon itself, which has had a paid attendance of over 20,000 for the past four years and will almost certainly will again this year (let’s go for 25,000 this year, since con attendance seems to be increasing generally).
However, that is not the only thing going on that weekend.
First of all, the Baltimore Orioles will be playing home games all three days of the convention at nearby Camden Yards.
Second, The Virgin Mobile Festival is being held at Pimlico race track August 9th and 10th. Luckily it’s something like 4 or 5 miles from the harbor area, but that still means a lot of people (It had an attendance of 42,000 on it’s biggest day and 74,000 over two days, though many of those are repeats I’d imagine).
To just pile on, they are commissioning the $1.3 billion destroyer USS Sterett on August 9th, and that’s expected to bring 5,000 people – and that’s happening right there in the harbor area next to the USS Constellation.
So all-in-all, August 9th, which is a Saturday, could see something like 100,000 people hovering around Baltimore.
If anything, I’m just interested to see what’ll happen when some navy admiral passes someone cosplaying as Yoko or something.
I’ve once again started to look into my options (or lack thereof) for internet while at Otakon. The biggest problem appears to be that there is no easy solution. My choices appear to be:
1) Use Twitter + text messaging to update immeidately, update blog on the web at the hotel at night. Cost: Free. Convenience: Very Low
2) Take a break every now and then and try to search out free wi-fi spots. I tried connecting to the harbor free wi-fi last year a couple times, but never had much luck, and I’m not sure whether the Sheraton next door has free wi-fi that I could just pop in and use either. For instant updates, one is still looking at the twitter option. Cost: Free. Convenience: Low.
3) See if there are any pay wi-fi services in the area. I may have more luck connecting, but I’d probably be looking at $20 per day week, and it still doesn’t do me much good unless I actually get a signal in the BCC. Cost: Probably something like $60 $20 or so total. Convenience: High if I can get a good signal in the BCC. Low if I can’t.
4) Sign up for a wireless access card rental, such as through here. I can probably cut off a day of rental by having it delivered to my hotel on Thursday (if the hotel is up for that), but since the rental doesn’t end until “UPS scans [the return packaging],” I’m going to have to wait until Monday to end the rental when I can swing by the UPS store. This also assumes that I can get it to work. If not, that would be an expensive $90 wasted. Cost: $80 to $90. Convenience: Very High if it works
Someone else can let me know if there is another option, but this just about looks like it to me.
I was fully intending to go since last year, but I just did my hotel arrangements (staying in the BWI area again. Cheaper and the only real negative is that the light rail stops running around midnight), so I guess you can call it “official” now. Now that I have more time to plan what I’ll do with my podcast at Otakon, maybe I’ll do more stuff with it.
I could probably get away with applying for a press pass at Otakon (no guarantee that I could get it. I only have half the unique visitors as they had in their 2007 guidelines, but they also said that it was only guidelines and not a requirement. Now if I was “web based press” and not a blog, I’d meet the guidelines…) but then I’d feel obligated to do things like interview people, which I’ve never done before and I’m not sure how good of an interviewer I’d be. At least I could get front row seats at panels lol. I may try to expand how much I write up what I saw over last year, though.
I still wish that the BCC itself had wireless internet that I could just hop on, and then I could really live blog the convention, but oh well. I’m guessing people will have to wait until I get back to the hotel.