Friday, March 29, 2024

Event Reports (6)

Monday, 04 December 2023 08:44

Fan Expo SF 2023 Report

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Fan Expo returned for its second year in the heart of San Francisco on Thanksgiving weekend. Not only is Fan Expo an event for people from all different fandoms (such as movies, television, video games, comic books, anime, cosplay, Sci-Fi, etc.), but also across generations. 

Wednesday, 04 May 2016 20:03

MIKU EXPO Satellite Events in Review

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The concerts of MIKU EXPO 2014 were accompanied by what was more or less a Hatsune Miku village full of exhibits, merchandise, music, and lots of fun. Fans in Los Angeles and New York were treated to a unique experience. This year's MIKU EXPO is going to be a bit different. Being that the expo will stop at ten cities there won't be anything as grandiose as a village. In its place will be a variety of satellite events all featuring Miku. San Francisco happens to be the only location in the entire tour that has every event and I'll be giving you a quick rundown of each.

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Gencon was held again this year at the Indianapolis Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Known mainly as a tabletop-gaming convention, Gencon celebrated its 47th year of running this year. The convention has expanded to include areas such as anime and other geeky categories to its schedule and is no doubt, one of the biggest conventions in the Midwest. Last year, the convention boasted an attendance record of 49,000 individuals from all 50 states and 32 countries. This year, the convention had experienced yet another jump in attendees by more than 10% with a unique attendance of 56,614 individuals at the convention.

On Sunday, I was one of the few lucky people in Los Angeles to attend the premier screening of Aniplex's Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works, which was sold out. The location was the Downtown Independent Theater, next to Little Tokyo, and doors did not open until 12:15 PM. Since I had to drive and didn't want to risk getting stuck in LA traffic I left early, but to my surprise there was a long line of fans already in line once I had arrived. At first I wasn't sure if I was at the right place, but once I got closer I heard someone playing music from the Fate/stay series and saw a Rin cosplayer. I signed in and got in line and waited for the doors to open. Once they opened, we were allowed inside the lobby, which had posters of the Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works series and people were taking pictures with them along with the cosplayers who attended the event. Aniplex gave every attendee an exclusive "Unlimited Blade Works Memorial Record" lithograph which has Saber, Shirou, Rin, Archer and Kotomine on it along with the locations of the screenings and date at the bottom to commemorate the event.

Maynmain

J-Pop Summit Festival 2014 took place on July 19-20. This was the sixth rendition of the event and by all accounts the biggest. Just a few weeks ago it seemed hard to surpass last year's event which had Kyary Pamyu Pamyu headlining it but J-Pop Summit Festival seems to have done it. Fans of Japanese music were treated to the sights and sounds of performers like Tomomi Itano (newly graduated from AKB48) and the fresh faces of Tokyo Girls Style. The event may have formally closed at 6PM in Japantown but those willing to hang around were able to see singer extraordinaire May'n and end J-Pop Summit with a bang.

news-yoshiki-classical-world-tour

Notorious for his talents as a songwriter, drummer and pianist, Part 1 of Yoshiki's 2014 world tour is starting later this month and will include ten different countries: US, Mexico, Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, China, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. In the US in particular, he will be performing in Costa Mesa (4/25) and San Francisco (4/28), California.