18,399
The unofficial attendance number for this weekend’s New York Anime Fest is 18,399! The number includes fans, professional attendees, press and exhibit personnel for the weekend. This is a 24% jump from our launch last year which brought in just over 14,000.
We are still waiting on final ticket sales from a few of our retail partners but I don’t expect those returns to move the needle more than a few hundred tickets or so.
From my observations and a detailed look at the registration reports, Friday was a slow day while both Saturday and Sunday dramatically exceeded last year’s numbers. Saturday in particular was an outstanding day. The line for the Masquerade on Saturday night was several thousand people long. We even tried, I admit somewhat ham handedly, to extend the hours of the exhibit floor on Saturday. We attempted this not just to keep the masses milling about the booths, but to try and mitigate the mass exodus from the show floor directly into the masquerade line. The crowd control challenges are reminiscent of New York Comic Con (albeit on a lesser scale and with more ya0i paddles in the crowd).
Without offering a full critique, it does seem clear that we need to look closely at our Friday hours and perhaps run the exhibit hall later on Saturday as well. I also think we need to find a place for Artist Alley to stay open a bit longer. There was some concern about that from the residents of that area.
On the whole though I am thrilled with a 24% attendance increase after just on year of running the event and extremely proud of the way the volunteers and show team ran the event. By most accounts it was an extremely smooth event – no small task to accomplish!
Remember, same time (September 27-29) and same place next year!
-Lance
6 comments:
While I thoroughly enjoyed myself at NYAF, I think the masquerade should have been moved to a different location. I was very, very disappointed that I waited in line for so long and couldn't get in.
The AMV contest also needed a much larger room. Speaking of AMV contest, when do we find out the winners lol?
Congratulations on another successful show!
I enjoyed myself this weekend, but the masquerade was a disappointment. Perhaps next year, you might try distributing tickets for it or holding it during the day while the show floor is still open.
I would have liked to see a video game room and another screening room to give people more things to do, but those are minor nitpicks.
Friday was actually better attended than I expected. The rain undoubtedly kept people away, but people were in school/at work during the early hours of the show. You don't open Comic Con to the masses until 4 p.m. on Friday. The 12-4 hours are aimed at the professionals, press and VIP ticket buyers that are able to be there for them.
Congrats on the great show. I was an Artist Alley vendor myself, and found that area very pleasant and easy to just do our thing all weekend. While I agree with the concern about the hours, I think sharing space with the dealer's room really helped the entire alley get a tremendous amount of traffic.
The most stressful thing, and something I really think should be addressed in the future is the shuttle to the NJ-NYAF hotels that was provided to the attendees. The hours they ran really were not conducive to enjoying the full show. The friday morning shuttles stopped running even before the show opened (and hotel check-in), and the night shuttles all weekend long stopped running long before the show was over. Saturday was really a pain, with no transportation running after the masquerade. Attendees and exhibitors staying at the NJ hotels had to make a choice of enjoying the night-time events or hightailing on the last shuttle. Even our bus driver, jokingly, questioned the fact that we were leaving 'early', with so much obviously still going on.
Better yet... what happened to the AMV contest?! I heard it was canceled?
Hi, I was an Artist Alley vendor while at the con, and I overall enjoyed the con. I think if the hours could have been extended, that would be great! Like Friday 2-7, Sat 10-8, Sun 10-5. Something like that. Every little bit more of time helps with recuperating back costs.
Would it also be possible to have more hotels in your official hotel block for next year? Even if they are hotels that are a bit further away from the convention, but have a subway, bus, or lightrail connection directly to the area of the convention, that would be great.
And please keep inviting great guests to NYAF! They were a great highlight to the show :)!!
All the best!
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