Convention Fans

Animation & Gaming Ohio 2009 was held March 13 - 15, 2009 in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of my regular readers attended the convention, and was kind enough to send me some feedback on the convention. He also gave a link to share: his photos from A&G Ohio 2009.

Below is some of the feedback from my friend over at The History Follower blog, as well as other A & G Ohio 2009 attendees (collected from various places and forums all over the internet). Overall, it sounds like some of the events were warmly received, but the lack of programming (especially on Sunday) led to a lot of downtime at the convention.

The Good:

Saturday Night was sweet and having the arcade machine out there was a clever idea.

The Guests were awesome. They were all very friend and really fun. Very personal and willing to give their time to the attendees.

Honestly for my first convention, I had a blast. A lot of my time was spent in the game room playing Halo with a friend.

The hotel staff was friendly and dealt the the attendees well.

Ninja Academy was cool and fun, I had a blast making a fool of myself and I enjoyed the whole thing.

There were several good panels and events to see. They were

The lobby wasn’t as loud as some of other cons I’ve been to have been. They also had their own arcade machine set up for free which was really cool.

Good location. Plenty of places to eat and even other things to go do if you’re the kind of person who likes to leave cons to do other stuff. I’m not.

General friendly attitude all around.

The Not So Good:

Dan Slott had an ear infection and couldn’t come.

Sunday was dead. I know of at least five panels that didn’t happen at all plus several of the other things in Main Events didn’t happen. Though the con was suppose to run 24 hours the hotel staff had locked up several rooms being used by the con even though they weren’t suppose to late Saturday/early Sunday.

There was some guy walking around on Sunday with a megaphone which was annoying. I’m sure the small crowd that followed him around on his tour of the con thought he was hilarious. I found him a pain.

The hired security staff (a group that has staffed cons for years now) wasn’t a problem, but it did feel strange having them there. Kind of intimidating.

I think that’s really the part you guys need to work on, making sure you’re not crashing by the time Sunday rolls around.

Vendors room lack variety.

Though I already said there were several good events and panels; it seemed like there were lots of times I couldn’t really find anything to do.

Concerts, rave, and Rock Band tournament were all too loud.

There was the general confusion about events that all newer cons seem to have. Some bad planning, some bad scheduling, and some people not really sure what they were suppose to be doing, but still not the worse I’ve seen.

Cosplay contest didn’t seem all that exciting and wasn’t a big deal. The two ’skits’ were really bad. Of course I didn’t win anything so I’m a little bitter, so take that one with a grain of salt. Though I will admit, I problem had the lamest cosplay there.

There were a couple times where we weren’t interested in anything that was going on, or we weren’t interested in the games.

While I thought the laser tag thing was interesting, I thought it could have been a tad better. I don’t know how many times my niece or I were nearly run into by the people playing with them. Most of them were okay by it but some of them … I was a bit put off by them.

I felt that there were times when there was nothing going on. I think that there could have been better events right before/after the masquerade.

Overall:

Ohhh this con made lol. Nothing to do con-wise, but had an awesome time with my friends. Best room mates for a con ever. Wouldn’t go back, though.

Yeah, tiny con is tiny. I didn’t find a lot of events that really interested me. Probably not going back, but enjoyed myself regardless.

Overall I had a lot of fun and can’t wait to see how it improves each year. I can already tell it’s maturing thanks to the hard work of all involved.

I think at the end of the day you have to ask yourself ‘would I come back to this con next year?’ and I have to say yes. I’ve got some issues with them but all and all they did do a good job.

I think A&GOhio was amazing, and I plan on showing up again next year.

One thing I would suggest though, more events. The events that you guys did have were pretty cool, but not everything appeals to everyone, and there were times when I just didn’t have anything to do. So maybe more events?

This was my first convention and it was a complete blast.

A great group of attendees and guests supported by great staffing usually is an awesome combination, and once again that formula has been proven correct.

Did you attend A & G Ohio 2009? Post a link to your photos, videos, and/or convention reports! Be sure to check out feedback from other recent anime conventions!

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