Bloglanta

DragonCon Junior, AKA Anime Weekend Atlanta, has hit and it has twice the orientation acceptance yet an average age of attendance of half of DragonCon.

If you live in Atlanta, you know the wildest party of the year if DragonCon.  In fact, it’s the wildest party Atlanta has seen since Freaknik.  It’s people in all manner of get ups invading downtown for the weekend and essentially shutting down Peachtree Center.  We all know it’s wild, we all know it’s licentious (if you’re doing it right), and we all know we want those tourist dollars.

Many of you may be unaware that about 20% of the people who went to DragonCon will come back inside the perimeter this weekend to put their Bleach costume back on and go to AWA.  People come from Florida, Tennessee, Chicago, Texas, and even Japan to participate in the convention.  Thousands of people attend and thousands dress in costume.  The Waverly and Galleria are used almost exclusively for the conference (in fact, if you’re part of the Log and Timber Show, you’re in for a surprise).

What makes AWA interesting is that while it’s nominal focus and events are more narrowly targeted, the anime focus makes explicit more of the funnier and more adult parts of DragonCon.  This while the audience is generally younger.  While topics focus heavily on anime, it’s production elements, on creating the costumes, and new releases, there are also elements that acknowledge certain fetishes and those who like them.

There is a sub-genre of anime that specifically deals with ‘boys who like boys‘ and the girls who like them.  At AWA this year, there was a meet and greet specifically for fans of this genre.  This was then followed by another 18 and up session dealing specifically with the art of Japanese Bondage.  What makes this amazing is that because a large minority of the anime produced is expressly sexual in content, the convention reasonably deals with it and expects participants to be generally tolerant if not open and affirming of people of different orientations.  This perhaps reached a fever pitch with an ad hoc march/conga line of the furries through the Waverly.

The people running the convention are walking a very fine line.  They want to attract a diverse audience and give people room to dress up as it ads to the atmosphere.  On the other hand, they are expressly concerned with the well being of thousands of attending children and the concerns of their parents.  Not only have they made some events strictly 18 and up, but they make a serious effort to keep other events G-rated and put serious constraints on what can be put into a costume.  They even (perhaps wisely) have decided that silly string is a weapon.

Still, these restrictions don’t seem to cramp the style of the convention, which has a formal ball, a Jazz night, and a higher percentage of participants in costume than DragonCon.  What AWA needs to do now is add programming.  They have a few tracks, but they are limited.  If the number of participants grows, adding more seminars will give people a place to go, add to the quality of the presentations, and raise the prestige of the event.   That should make the convention managers, Cobb County, and local vendors very happy indeed.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Venues and Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.