A-Kon

so I never want to come back to Texas again

Venue:
The building exterior was really neat. The exhibitor hall's overhead signs were useful. It was SO CROWDED in the AA though, the staff should look at moving the autograph booths to a different room and using the extra space to widen the walking areas. Or get a larger hall altogether.

There isn't anything in the area, no Staples or Walmart to get supplies from, no convenience stores, or supermarkets, etc. so be warned. It was also so humid that weekend that walking further to get supplies is out of the question

AA Staff:
Super nice and helpful, and they were readily available to answer questions.

Table Layout:
No bueno folks ): Aisles behind the AA tables were already narrow and artists who have to bring big photo displays and ground up set-ups made getting out from behind the tables even more difficult.

Sales:
I had to fly in so just getting to the con was very expensive for me even though I split costs with friends. It was about 1.5K in expenses (flight, hotel, parking, taxis, food, table cost, etc.). The crowd is the type to window shop and go for low priced merch so if you have a gourmet selection of merch (ex: you print on american apparel shirts, not gildan) don't expect people to understand that when buying, you really have to work for your sales.

On the other hand, you have prints and acrylic charms of the season's trendiest animes and/or you are local or only flying in from a few states away, it is much easier to make back your expenses. People selling well designed Genshin, Hololive, or Spy x Family merch could price their wares lower and afford it because they made it back with the volume of sales. If you're doing OG merch or something not as popular, just beware of this.

It's also useful if you have a selection of smaller items like stickers or mini prints.

ALSO BUY THE CONVENTION'S WIFI IF YOU CAN'T USE SQUARE OFFLINE. Lost a ton of sales because people kept asking to pay via card and I didn't have internet.

I still made a little bit of profit but it doesn't justify the energy expended over 3 days and taking 2 days off work. I could make more at a smaller local con and that's what I'm probably going to do next time. Nothing against the organizers of Akon, they did a decent job, but it's just what it is

Looking at the reviews from 2019, it seems that A-kon is an amazing convention overall.

How wrong was I when arriving at the con.
Tables were literally glued right beside each other. Some of us had to crawl under the table like the grudge. Or walk a long ways to find an exist outside of the long rectangle area that artists were locked up in.

Staff were extremely nice though and were doing their best.

The venue itself had a lot of problems with connectivity and wifi? Barely anybody had reception and it was a struggle the whole weekend. Especially for those that didn't have a card reader and relied on online alternatives.

Also, the layout of the tables were in a weird "S" shape? So a lot of tables were missed because the crowd doesn't know where to walk. A lot of customers mentioned that they missed a whole area of tables the whole weekend because of this weird layout.

I'm not sure if it's because of covid or something, but I've been to other conventions before A-kon, and all of them had people buying not-stop. For A-kon.. it was extremely difficult to sell things consistently. Everyone was buying the really cheap merchandise and window shopping.

The venue is the elephant in the room. It is a beautiful venue, but spaced out and difficult to walk around. Combined with the heat, most attendees stayed indoors. Load in was easy, but it was extremely disorganized. (To has the loading dock, you had to pay $10) parking for artists was free, though!
Attendance was good, high volume of sales!
Food was expensive, but there were a lot of options with food trucks.
Akon staff was great, but the Fair Park staff was very unprofessional and grumpy.
Also, there’s no hotel within walking distance, but they had some shuttles

I was worried that the venue change to fair park was going to sabotage sales but it didnt. this is one of the best cons i've ever done; its thursday was probably the busiest i've ever seen and alot of artists (including me) were pleasantly surprised at the attendance!! the only apparent downside to me, as an artist, was the confusing layout of the buildings in the park.

A-kon moved from the Hilton Anatole in Dallas to the Ft. Worth Convention Center. I forget the reason why, but it doesn't matter - it was a mistake.

First of all, the Anatole wasn't even overcrowded in 2016. At least not the vendor floorspace. Traffic was good, but not overwhelming in the sense that it felt the place was too small. The layout was great, the venue was fantastic, business was consistent.

Secondly, not only is moving to a new venue risky, but it's also an hour away from where A-kon used to be. I can only imagine this discouraged a lot of A-kon regulars from even bothering.

And that brings us to the A-kon 2017 experience. Boy do I regret recommending this con to artists because the difference between this year and last is like night and day.

The layout went from one of the best to the worst i've ever seen. Giant, ugly black barriers separated the alleys and it was disorienting, confusing and isolated. AA staff was friendly and accommodating as always, and I don't believe this was their fault nor do they have any control over it, but whoever does should not be allowed to screw up again because I seriously doubt that artists who attended this year will even bother in 2018.

Sales were OK, but not in comparison to previous years. I made 2/3rds of what I normally do at A-Kon - not a good sign, especially when tables sell for $300 a pop. Long story short - the floorspace too big and the number of tables too high for the amount of people attending. Money was too spread out. People were too spread out. It was just bad.

I think this is just a classic case of a convention overcompensating for its growth. It should have stayed at the Anatole. Literally everything was better about A-kon in 2016, and I will truly miss that place. I won't come back to A-kon if nothing changes, and it makes me sad to say that.

A-kon switched up a lot of things this year with a new venue, way more artists, juried selection, and high table fees. I had a bad feeling about all the new changes, but I’d heard such good things about A-kon I decided to go anyway.

Venue:
The con moved from to Fort Worth this year, and I don’t think the change in venue helped at all. Probably hurt attendance overall, and the con being spread out across multiple hotels meant people were less likely to end up in the AA in the main convention center. If you wanted water, you had to leave the exhibit hall entirely to hunt down a fountain in the con center and then make your way back, and the single bathroom in the entire exhibit hall contained ONE stall, so any time I needed to use it I had to wait in line and be away from my table for 20+ minutes.

Staff:
I encountered one really rude con staffer over the weekend, but everyone associated with the AA itself was extremely friendly and tried their best to be helpful. You could tell they really wanted to make it a good experience for artists, so it was a shame because everything else about the con was so awful.

Layout:
Really, really terrible. The AA was set up behind the dealers hall area with no clear entrance/exits, so people would randomly trickle in from different spots, and a lot of congoers never even made it over to the AA after going through the dealers hall. There were signs above artist tables, but they were only printed on one side even though people walk through the aisles both ways, and the way the signs were printed made it confusing for artists to know which table was theirs when setting up. In addition, several rows were completely reversed from how they were supposed to be on the layout map, so some artists ended up setting up in the wrong spot due to the con’s fuckups. Aisles were cramped, traffic was really uneven throughout the AA, and the huge black walls behind the rows of tables made everything feel even more claustrophobic and made it impossible to see other rows or how traffic was flowing through. I think con attendees probably found it confusing and overwhelming to try to navigate through. Also, the layout of artists was based on the juried ranking, with all of the top artists in the very front of the rows and the bottom artists in the very back, so it felt both unbalanced and like a subtle "screw you" to anyone in the bottom half of the rankings.

Attendance:
The AA had 2 paces: glacial and overwhelmed, and not in a good way. There was either nobody coming in, or a rush of people who had no intention of actually stopping at most of the tables or taking time to browse. Even when it was crowded, it wasn’t crowded with active buyers/browsers. It was just a constant stream of people walking through the AA as quickly as they could like they couldn’t wait to get out. I have never seen such a disinterested group of congoers in all my time tabling, and it was extremely discouraging and demoralizing. Even at cons where sales are slow, I usually still have a good experience talking to congoers, getting feedback, and seeing people excited by/interested in my art, but there was none of that here. By the end of the con, I felt so terrible that I packed up and left early, which I have never done before at any con.

Affordability:
$300 for a table was really steep for something this bad, and it’s hard to guess how they think it was justified, especially with so many more artists and a juried selection.

Overall:
To be blunt, this was the worst con I’ve ever done. Slowest, worst overall sales, worst experience, worst feeling about the whole thing. This was my first time not even breaking even at a con and the first time I’ve ever felt like con attendees couldn’t have cared less and were totally apathetic about my art. I don’t know if there’s any one factor to blame, but if things don’t change drastically for next year, I really wouldn’t recommend this con to anyone.

I did super well at akon last year but this year they made big changes that made it my worst con ever (in the entire 3 years that I've been doing anime cons). They moved from Dallas to Fort Worth which is 40 min away, and I'm sure it affected the attendance.

Next they went from FCFS to juries and increased the artists by double (150 to 300+). There were way too many artists that made it very hard to get sales and everyone I talked to reported that it was super slow. The layout was very weird and felt blocked out since we all had a black panel behind us with not much space. The staff was nice which I appreciated but the profit was terrible. Not even half of what I made last year which is just sad. Not to mention I had to fly in from Canada and stay at a hotel 15 min away which upped my expenses.

I won't be doing it again next year unless they make major changes and there are good reviews again.

Sorry if I sound salty but seriously it was the slowest con I've ever done since I started, and I was lucky to break even but it was not worth coming.

This was my first time tabling at A-KON! I made a good amount in sales but I think I would have made much more if the table layout was better. I was placed in the back, second to last row. The last row was for cosplay guests and guests in general and it didn't really bring the crowd to the back at all. I wish the rows of tables were more vertical (like Anime Expo) instead of horizontally like it was this year. Basically if you're in the back you don't get as much visibility. But all in all it was not too bad. The staff was fantastic and did the best job!

Amazing show with great staff and attendees. This was a con I heard great things about and I made the trip to fly there without any expectations. I was really blown away by how friendly everyone was and the general atmosphere of the con.

Its held in a gorgeous venue which I plan to stay in next time. For the AA, it felt a bit slow on the Friday but things picked up on Sat and I was very happy with the profit I made. The only complaints I have are that the AA room felt really really cold and on the day we were setting up, the ceiling was dripping since it just rained. Other than that, I would love to return to Texas and attend this con again! I'm still sad its over haha!

Efficient staff, SUPER caring. Loved that they offered us water and to watch our tables if we needed to use the bathroom. This saved my bacon and my blatter. great and clear cut layout.
The only issue i had was the room was immensely humid and it made prints feel a little gummy at times even when i stowed them away. I dont think much could be done about that though. still. loved the attendees, loved the customers, and i always am super grateful coming to this show.