Ohayocon: A Decade Later

As the new year begins that means another Ohayocon has come and gone to a close. Yes, we went to Ohayocon 2020 sorry for not telling you sooner. The Max@Play  team has been doing a lot of recovering from the holidays and planning for the future to make sure you get all your gaming, nerdy, comic and anime culture needs. To cover the basics of Ohayocon the majority of things remained the same. There was a game room with tournaments, photoshoots from every fandom you can think of vendors and dealers to spend unnecessarily large amounts of money panels were ranging in times and topics. You could still get tea and crumpets with Deadpool and when all that done you were able to dance the night away. Preregistered attendance was expected to be at 20,000 not including those who bought tickets on-site. I expected a lot more from Ohayocon as this was a special anniversary. this year was special to Ohayocon because it was their 20th anniversary the convention began in 2000. Yet nothing about the event signified that to me. Attendees got bags that had 20 on it, but if we didn’t know any better we just saw it as another year. One thing they’ve never done before was that they secured Korean K-Pop singer, Kevin Woo and J-Pop singer Diana Garnet to perform a concert. Something new that we (although this was their second year doing it) discovered was the “ribbon game” different staffers and vendors offered ribbons to anyone who completed their challenges some of which you had to talk about your favorite video game others you had to buy from vendor or artist some you simply had to ask for. I’m going to switch things up and speak from a first perspective Instead of telling you about all the events I attended.  I’m gonna talk about what I saw outside the rooms. Here are some perspectives from attendees.

Either last year or two years ago (I forget which), they started emulating Youmacon’s dealers’ room, and the improvement was immediate. Ohayo’s dealers/AA used to be just alright, but now I think it’s one of my faves.

The arcade makes me sad every year since they lost Tokyo Attack. I really wish they’d been able to repair that business relationship, but alas, I fear that ship has sailed.

My main complaint is that I feel like there’s not very much dynamic programming. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of updates in style of panel from year to year, and it becomes a bit monotonous.

– Natasha, has been attending the convention since 2013

“I thought this was the best Ohayocon in terms of environment and fun. [The] panels I just wasn’t too interested in, but that might be because they just kind of the same as usual. I liked the dealers’ room a lot more though.”

– Zach has been attending the convention since 2014

“As far as programming goes, I’m looking forward to the next few years. The new director, Sarge, held a “How to Panel” panel on Sunday that was basically “this is what I look for when making the schedule, give me more of this,” and it seems like he’s looking for a lot of exciting, unique content. I think this year was a shot in the arm for the con, and it’s needed that for a while. I’m excited to see where it goes from here.”

– Kyle, has been attending the convention since 2012

Next, let’s talk about the navigation of the convention upon entering the Hyatt hotel convention staffers are there to direct and politely inform you of the information you wanted from panels, photoshoots or where the nearest restroom was. Unfortunately, whenever the attendees get upset for whatever reason and we know they will turn to the internet to badmouth the convention as a whole instead of going to higher superior and addressing their discomfort. As a result, this in turns halts any newcomers who may be interested in this convention because of bad interaction where there’s a possibility it could’ve been avoided altogether.

These people are the reason for Ohayocon’s tagline “Ohayocon is for everyone” The accessibility team I don’t know of many conventions that offer wheelchairs, have ASL sign language interpreters, and they used to offer some med medical attention like bandages and call emergency medical services. Whenever one of you would have too much fun partying.

Safety and Security: I love cosplays! It’s one of the many reasons why I continually go to conventions. Props and praise go to those who spend thousands of dollars and time for those intimate details to become so accurate in their craft. Let’s talk about the weapons it’s scary the amount of accuracy the type of weapons you guys have like swords or guns some of y some of you even would buy real ones /which isn’t allowed in the convention or hotel/ the security or S.O.S department as they call themselves is there not only to do weapons check but to also keep you safe from people who occasionally sneaking real weapons who could endanger you to fires drugs and whatever else they may happen which I assure it has.

Live Events: They make sure you have tons of events to go to, and if you don’t want to go to a panel there are numerous alternative activities which don’t require knowledge of any fandom television show movie or anime, Like Werewolf, Cards Against Humanity