Photos from Anime Ohio 2018!
Hello Everyone!
I want to regale you with my experience at the first ever Anime Ohio convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. A few years ago the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky area used to play host to two conventions: Ikasucon and Sugoicon. Ikasucon moved up to Fort Wayne sometime around 2007, so Sugoicon at the Drawbridge Inn in Northern Kentucky was Cincinnati’s premier anime convention- until the Drawbridge Inn closed down a few years ago. It did move to the Crowne Plaza Cincinnati North in 2013, but has been in hiatus since.
From talking to the other attendees of Anime Ohio, they were jazzed that a new anime convention was local to the area again. Anime Ohio is hosted by the Cincinnati Comic Expo, our huge local comic con. So many of the same staff that you see at CCE were present at Anime Ohio.
There were a few panels and five special guests to the show: voice actor Beau Billingslea, voice actress Melissa Fehn, cosplayer Akakioga, cosplayer Paige Cordano, and cosplayer Hailey S. Speaking from a business point of view, by having a limited amount of guests, this made ticket prices and vendor table prices so much more reasonably priced! The only drawback I heard from people in attendance was that there wasn’t enough to do for the nine hours the con was open. By my observations, we had peak attendance between 10AM and 2PM before attendees left for the day. The vendor room ended up closing an hour early, at 6PM, because no attendees were in it and the vendors were left talking amongst themselves. All attendees were watch the cosplay contest taking place a few doors over.
Many of my local artist friends were in attendance at Anime Ohio, plus a lot of cosplayers! I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to walk around too often to take photos or video of the con, I was alone working my booth this time around. But here are a few photos from the day:
Would I consider attending next year’s Anime Ohio as a artist vendor again? Yes I would! I was pleased with how this convention turned out in its first year, and am looking forward to seeing it grow in the years to come!
-Kat
