Anime Washington is a new fan convention that celebrates Asian pop culture, anime, manga, music, movies, video games, and its fandom. It is taking place on January 27th and 28th, 2024, at the Tacoma Convention Center in Tacoma, Washington. It features cosplay contests, vendor booths, special guests, and an after-party. The guest list is pretty sizable, but the vendor and panel information was only recently flashed out on their site.
Website
The Anime Washington website has some formatting issues, with the header taking up a full third of the page on a Full HD monitor, and the overall appearance looks dated.
Organizers
The organizers of Anime Washington apparently also organizes other cons, like the Washington State Summer Con. It also runs the Washington State Gaming Expo, which will oddly fall on the same dates as Sakura-Con, the largest Anime convention in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. However, all the links to their other cons don’t work, and the organizers offer no email, phone or physical address to contact them.
Vendors: Exhibitors and Artists
Despite claiming to feature “hundreds” of vendors across “80,000 sq. ft.” of show floor, there’s much less of both. According to their vendor directory, there are 78 Artist Alley booths and 42 exhibitor booths, for a total of only 120 paid vendors, and they don’t include any big industry names like Bandai. Hundreds maybe, if you count each person at every booth. And, according to the Tacoma Convention Center floor plans, the fifth floor exhibition hall and pre-function space, where all the artists, exhibitors and guests booths are, have a total of only 59,000 sq. ft.. 80,000 maybe, if you count the floor space for other activities, like panels.
Daytime Schedule: Panels, Photo-Ops, and Contests
There are about a dozen panels a day, spread across 3 panel rooms, many of which will be attended by the voice cast guests. The largest Panel Room A looks to have a capacity of about 450 seats.
There will also be cast photo ops, which seems to be the highlight of the con. For an average photo-op in Anime Washington, which includes a print and a digital copy, we calculate a rate of about USD $30 per guest present, plus $10 for the con. So, a My Hero Academia Cast Photo Op with 11 guests cost $340 ($30 x 11 + $10). Divided by up to 4 fans per op, the price seems reasonable.
There are a variety of contests, ranging from TCG Tournaments, video game tournaments for Street Fighter 6 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and a cosplay contest. The video game and cosplay competitions seem to have pretty sweet prizes, in the tune of hundreds of dollars for the champion, definitely a better payout than Sakura-Con.
Nighttime Schedule: After Party and Games
The After Party is held across the street in the Courtyard Marriott Ballroom, and it includes a food buffet, for $14. That alone is probably worth the entry fee.
There are also a trivia game show, while video and tabletop games are also open. Everything runs until 10pm.
Guests
We think the large roster of 29 English dub guests is the main draw of the con. There are also 2 cosplay guests. In addition to the cast photo ops, every guest has a table (and line) in the exhibitors hall and a price list for the various goodies they offer. The goodies, which are similarly priced across guests, include autographs from USD $40, selfies from $40, and quotes or video recordings from $20. Every guest has a price (list). This is unlike non-profit cons like Sakura-Con and Anime Expo, where autographs for guest of honor are free, but takes much effort of queuing (and planning) to get.
Value Predictions
The tickets are USD $48 for 2 days, or $32 for just Saturday. Half price for children. Unless you are aiming for the contests, whose payouts can more than pay for the trip to the con, we think the main attraction of this con are the ones that require additional payment past the entry fees, like the cast photo ops and guest goodies. Adding in the cost of lodging and/or parking, the total cost of attending Anime Washington is considerable. Considering the small list of vendors, lack of large-scale exhibitors, small number and variety of panels, the value proposition of this con might be low for most people.
The ticket prices are half of Sakura-Con’s which are currently $100, but Sakura-Con is 3 days long, larger, and the guest meet-and-greets and autographs are free (in terms of money, not time).
Another nearby con, Emerald City Comic Con in end February, also boosts an impressive guest list (e.g. Elijah Wood), but also packs more quantity, quality and variety of panels and vendors, in a larger space, over a long duration (4 days), might make the $145 4-day ticket price more worthwhile for a trip. And, the low price of the $30 Kids 4-day ticket could also make the ECCC better value for a family outing.
Attendance Predictions
We think the expected turnout for a small convention ranges from 5,000 to 8,000 attendees. Kumoricon, a growing Anime con in Portland, Oregon, had over 11,000 attendees in 2023. The organizer has also posted ticket sales warnings indicating low availability, which could be a ploy to boost last-minute purchases, or could indicate better-than-expected turnout. Either way, by also considering convention center’s capacity across different floors, we estimate a potential attendance of between two to five thousand people a day based on space utilization.
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