I recall someone linking me to the Animeoasis site around a year ago, but somehow forgot about it. I suppose I should pay more attention to the Canada cons, too. (Do I need a passport to cross the border, or get back into the US? Mine's expired, and I haven't been out of the country in over 10 years.)
A passport will work. Or you can use your birth certificate(The own that can be obtained by the city you were born in, not the hospital one), and your drivers license. The birth certificate is the big one as that's what id's you as a us citizen.
That's exactly what I mean. I only went to AWA this year because of all the amazing stories I read about last year's AWA on this board. It was worth it. Replace the VAT and massive number of creators that attend with an "average" amv contest, and I'd have no particular reason to travel so far to attend AWA. I doubt I'll attend AX next year either, unless I have a reason to be in the southwest US around then anyway, or am more or less certain I have an amv in the finals.
AWA is truly the crown jewel from what I have read and heard of anime conventions for amv creators. Sure the big conventions pull in lots of creators, but AWA puts the creators forefront in their programming. That's what distinguishes AWA from other cons. I don't know if there's room for an AWA on the west coast or not.
So would I, for the purely selfish reasons of wanting to meet and interact with a larger number of creators at my "home con", and to be able to count on seeing an awesome amv exhibition every year. Having it shown in "the big room" last year instead of a video room where it was hard to see the screen like 2002 was a great thing,
More then likely, the AMV contest will be screened in the main ballroom again in 2004. I'll let Chris though formally announce that though as that's his baby.
but some of the amvs that were shown left me scratching my head a little, wondering how they made it that far. Because of that, I've been pimping SakuraCon's contest to nearly every creator I'm on friendly terms with, hoping to raise the the quality of the contest as high as possible, even if that decimates my own chances of success. (I think fewer vids in the contest, and an "overflow" showing of non-finalists at some other time might be a good idea, based on my experiences from the last two years.)
Last year was strange. We had less submissions for 2003 then for 2002. Hopefully, with better promotion this year(thanks to people like yourself promoting the convention at other conventions), we'll have a larger amount of submissions, as well as creators show up at the convention.
That's enough rambling from me, thanks for all your hard work on behalf of SakuraCon, and taking an interest in this discussion.
Thanks for helping out the convention. I'm happy to discuss this topic with people like yourself. One of the best means of helping the convention is through the "word of mouth". The staff of Sakura-Con strives like most other anime cons/festivals, to put on the best show possible. Hopefully, 2004 will be the best yet.
<j/k>
