Anime Expo AMV - Farewell & thanks for the memories

[ShadowCat_13]

I had been going to AX since it was at Long Beach. Actually, my first one was when Malice Mizer (who I had no idea who they were at the time.) I think that was 01? Anyway, I had been goi g every year and finally in 09 I started to be staff. I was info booth for that year and the next was AC (access control) this was when the transition from one president to the next and that whole thing at that time was extreme drama. It was just before I think his name was John took over the contest. I had gone to every contest since I went. I skipped 2011 and went to AM2 and helped with the contest at that one but that whole concept was clearly a apart of getting back at the wrong doings of AX the year before and in 2012, I moved to TN.

I too have had recently an issue with the convention that I was one of the co founding members but throughout the 5 years the people as most call that particular convention a cliche. Both my contest and video room were taken due to an incident that had nothing to do with both and I was thrown off of staff because of it as I can’t control what others do or say but clearly it was my fault.

Anyway, thank you for everything that the AMV team at AX did!

[MisterFurious]

AX notified us that they wanted to go a different direction with how AMV was ran.

I know I mentioned this on Facebook, but...

That's the same phrasing they used when they let me go as cosplay host.

[Donaithnen]

Admit it. Y'all are leaving cuz you have my back

Did something happen between you and AX before all this went down?

@XStylus
I saw your earlier, rather ominous tweet about 2019 being the last year to see the AMV Contest in its "current" format, and my SO and i were already sad about that. I'm not looking forward to telling her that we don't even get a "one last time" now. And if it turns out there won't be a sing/stomp/clap-along in the AMV room at the end (or possibly not even an AMV room!) there's going to be some serious mourning going on. (What are we going to do with ourselves if we're not spending 8+ hours a day in the AMV room???)

I think my first time at AX was 2004 or 2005 in Anaheim, though i didn't find out about the AMV contest until a year or two later. And it's been really great getting to relive those early experiences with the Contest Retrospectives. (Something else that will probably be missing from now on, which is a shame because 2009 was A Good, Good Year.)

Depending on what the fallout ends up being we may have to start looking into pricing for tickets up to Seattle for next year =/

[Rider4Z]

Admit it. Y'all are leaving cuz you have my back

Did something happen between you and AX before all this went down?

Yes, actually. I had my own falling out with them for my own reasons shortly before the AMV team dropped. What happened to me isn't specifically the reason they decided to leave but it was certainly a contributing factor that made their decision easier.

[XStylus]

Admit it. Y'all are leaving cuz you have my back

Did something happen between you and AX before all this went down?

Nothing that prompted AX to do what they did. Our relationship with the folks at AX was actually very good. However, AX is very bureaucracy heavy, and that black-and-white adherence to procedure put Victoria in a very heartless situation regarding her child.

I put up with AX's corporate eccentricities over the years because I got to work with good friends and because I wanted to ensure that the AMV community was well represented at the largest anime convention in the United States. But when it started impacting my friends and making them miserable, it really started to solidify my desire to start planning an exit. Thus my ominous twitter post where I hinted that we wouldn't be doing AX for much longer, and suggested that people should come and join us for a 2019 hurrah.

Then came AX's note back in September, and assuming you read my first post, you know the rest.

Anyway, if you want your AMV fix, come to SakuraCon. Everything we did at AX we do there, but better and with 100% less drama. It's the AMV con.

[MisterFurious]

...AX is very bureaucracy heavy...

AX has been like this forever. Their corporate culture compels them to make changes even when things are working well. We all know the previous AMV teams that were let go right when they got things working well. I think it's also one of the reasons they let me go. Even though masquerade was doing fine and the cosplayers loved the work I was doing because I went out of my way to make sure I presented them as correctly as possible, they decided to add Matt Mercer and Kyle Hebert as co-hosts because they wanted to "mix things up", then they let me go the following year because they "wanted to go in a different direction", which actually meant keeping Kyle and Matt and replacing me with someone else.

Bitter? Yes. Surprised? Not for one nanosecond.

[Scintilla]

And if it turns out there won't be a sing/stomp/clap-along in the AMV room at the end (or possibly not even an AMV room!) there's going to be some serious mourning going on.

Oh good, so AnimeNEXT isn't the only place where the AMV sing-along is the last thing scheduled in its room. I always did think it was a fun way to close out the weekend, so I'm glad I'm not alone in that.

because 2009 was A Good, Good Year.)

I understood that reference!

[BasharOfTheAges]

And if it turns out there won't be a sing/stomp/clap-along in the AMV room at the end (or possibly not even an AMV room!) there's going to be some serious mourning going on.

Oh good, so AnimeNEXT isn't the only place where the AMV sing-along is the last thing scheduled in its room. I always did think it was a fun way to close out the weekend, so I'm glad I'm not alone in that.

We did it at AAC from 2012 to 2016 as well. A good way to end the con.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Seems many are following suit as I've been doing that for like 6 to 7 years now at several AMV room I run..

[shorisquared]

Seems many are following suit as I've been doing that for like 6 to 7 years now at several AMV room I run..

You the OG