Billed as the largest convention of it’s kind Project A-Kon, this the annual Anime & Convention Expo, this year being their 27th installment is something that in spite of having little to zero interest or knowledge of anime & it’s culture, is an event I’ve attended twice before.
First time was 5 years when I was hired to DJ a late night rave beginning at midnight – That year I had just flown in and went straight to the gig and not much time to look around or any idea what I was getting myself into. I swore I’d be back and last year I made good on that promise.
So now, back for the attack as it were I was hoping the navigation process might be a bit easier after last year’s confounding experience.
Project A-Kon 27 – June 3rd-5th – Hilton Anatole – Dallas, TX
The first thing you see when you enter the hotel (after you have battled insane parking issues) is that it has been COMPLETELY taken over by the convention. There is no formation or people directing any sort of order, it’s just complete MADNESS that gives the event it’s pulse that it’s patrons seem to thrive on.
Nothing informs you of that greater/quicker than the sea of awesome Cosplayers EVERYWHERE.
Left to Right
Sam & Morgan Bordelon & Victoria Sanchex Cespedes
Kalyn Hay (left)
Catnaps (right)
Lucy HInderliter, Megan Ainsworth & Claire Fontenot
Like last year, we profile who IMO had the best costume & overall personality, attitude etc. Basically just who kicked the most ass & I defy anyone to declare that anyone was more awesome this year than Katrina George.
Her Cosplay freaking slAAAyed each day of the convention, she is so super talented and with all due respect to the amazing people I met & networked with, Katrina was probably my fave to have met as she was as charming with the best attitude as she is talented.
A-Kon is not exclusively about anime; it offers something for everyone from gamers to steampunk enthusiasts, ravers, kinksters and everything in between.
A-Kon seems to be engineered to have socializing as it’s focus and with so many activities going on (at ALL hours) the place was literally hemmoraging with energy.
For me, a music fanatic, I loved that the convention also offers live performances of acts that you would not normally get a chance to see.
Be it, in this country and certainly not in this intimate context.
The two acts performing on the Friday night, were two bands that I previously had never heard of, listened to one note or knew of their existence moments prior.
For me, this is extremely thrilling as I LOVE not knowing what was coming & potentially was about to be exposed to something that I previously would never have had the chance to.While all of my hipster friends were down the street watching Refused & my other friends that share my bad tastes were across that street catching Whitesnake, I had a dilemena at first if I should leave to go catch one of them but that was now solved with this new potential (& not having to park the car again).
Was crossing fingers they’d be Metal.
Season of Ghosts
I made my way into the giant ballroom for the first of two acts – Season of Ghosts who made quite the grand entrance themselves.
Led by Frontwomen Sophia Aslanides, the Venezuelan born/Greek raised/later Japanese ex-pat foxy looking singer.
I give it up for her confidence, and she had to be feeling strong in front of such an adoring audience that was pouring over her every move but at times it really did feel like low hanging fruit. Very dramatic as needed in their presentation and sound, if not wholly original they put the look & drama over huge.
Yousei Teikoku
Again, having zero knowledge, not even an image to go on, incredibly I almost thought to skip Yousei Teikoku’s performance as it was conflicting with a few panels I was thinking of catching. What a colossal fucking mistake THAT would have been!
To illustrate my lack of knowledge, I thought it was gonna be some aging crooner or something haha.
That is until I was flipping through the program and saw perhaps the greatest promotional photo ever taken – check THIS out.
Bam! One photo and I was already a fan (see the power of image?) I got to say the words Japanese Gothic Heavy Metal Band (& just think I was actually contemplating Whitesnake over this) Female fronted and Metal – I couldn’t wait, I literally ran down the steps to get back to the ballroom, just in time for their equally awesome entrance. Apparently the band works for the goddamned Yokuza or something as I couldn’t take any photos (more on this in a bit) so you’ll have to settle for this live pic from a recent gig that I shamelessly (had to) steal from an ESP endorsement campaign to give you an idea of what I was looking at.
Also led by a powerful Frontwomen who even calls herself Empress Yui & with a stance like that I’d hoped she back it up which she along with the band did ten-fold.
Although probably clueless to the most of the audience, I thought it was very cool as a Metal band, knowing their history (& geography) they gave a nod to hometown Metal hero Dimebag Darrell by ending their set with a few bars from Pantera’s Mouth for War.
A very unique and real pleasure to see this act live.
Fuck The Staff
Now, the same cannot be said for the staff that handled this portion of the convention as you can’t imagine the baffling abuse of so-called authority by teenage volunteers led by this wannabe biker chick who was thoroughly enjoying her newfound albeit brief status.
Let me explain: I walked in to see the first band Season of Ghosts and took a seat sidestage where they had two rows of chairs reserved for press and the handicapped. Directly in front of the stage separating the crowd from the performers was a roped off area of about 20 yards deep and about another 40 yards wide teeming with activity of photographers, videographers and gaffers, all very distracting.
Though I had a press badge and walked in with my camera already around my neck, I was told I couldn’t take pics by biker woman.
Ok, fine but like everyone around me was doing that obnoxious cell phone thing the whole show, so I thought I could just pop off a few with my phone, surely she meant no professional photography.
This pimple faced teenage volunteer tried to tell me I couldn’t even do that (in Biker Women’s absence) until I showed her my press badge and she fucked off.
That’s the pic above of Season of Ghosts.
Ok, so when I returned for Yousei Teikoku, I took my same seat and Biker Women gave the same no-photography spiel but this time seemed a bit put off by me.
Again the band starts, roving activity upfront and what seemed like every patron there was taking photos with their phones, including the volunteers that would occassasionally rudely stand at the barricade right in front of me like I wasn’t even there to do so. Like they don’t want me to photograph this, now they don’t even care if can see this damn show, starting to think this press badge isn’t worth the plastic it’s printed on.
This was all but confirmed as again I snapped a couple off with my phone and returned to enjoying the show.
Only for this girl that was sitting a few seats over to my left for both performances who looked like she probably worked at Hot Topic (or will eventually) and this guy I couldn’t figure out if they were sitting there due to a potential handicap (his), to walk over to Biker Women whisper something to her and then sit back down.
Seconds later, Biker Women turns to me and is all over me insisting I hand her my phone so she can delete the pics I took with MY FUCKING PHONE.
Not only that but she was doing so with this condescending disgust that she was clearly enjoying, bristling with authority and loving that I had given her an excuse to try to shame me. Then it occured to me, Hot Topic girl had told her that I had taken them! This emo/acne hybrid had actually tattled on me to illustrate the immaturity I was dealing with. She even walked in front of me to do so to further illuminate how much she wasn’t sweating me, Who am I? Charlie Fucking Brown?!?!
I legitimately didn’t know how to do what she was asking in terms of deletion from my hard drive and was fumbling all the while she doing that thing where she acting like I’m lying to her – like busted but still feigning innocence. While this was happening everyone around us was taking pictures I pointed out all to which she gleefully had an excuse as to why they could & I couldn’t. In fact at one point I might have been the only person not taking photos.
Humiliating, deflating and just sour fucking grapes to the point I just left the show and contemplated leaving the convention.
If the producers of A-Kon are reading this, I will NEVER return if I’m ever treated remotely with such disrespect again.
Panels –
Among the overwhelming amount of things to choose from their are panels all through the convention (at all hours, more on this later).
The first of three I attended the first day were:
Story Telling
Kink & Consent
Both played to large, standing-room-only audiences to varying degrees of cohesion.
The first one was largely out of my wheelhouse and though the punchlines were occasionally funny, the reality that I was squashed in between two dudes eating Cheetos in an airless, windowless room close to midnight listening to a dude in a Fedora spout puns became too palpable until I moved on to the other one next door – KinK and consent
This one was actually quite informative, researched and presented well, namely by a kink couple that sourced their own lifestyle experiences as influencing references to an increasingly restless crowd. It felt very 1970’s & in my male Darwinian bullshit mindset the whole thing was gonna end in a key party with free rooms for all attendees until the power point presentation snapped me back to reality. In all seriousness, it sent a loud and much needed reminder that consent is everything.
Lastly after hitting the rave for a few hours and mingling to stay awake I sauntered in for the final panel of the evening (or perhaps the first of the morning)
A special (but holy-shit-who-booked-this-at-this-ungodly-hour) presentation from the girls of Cosplay Deviants.
Cosplay Deviants
From L-R
Cerise Zeller
Civil Heathen
Two newest applicants &
Hex Hypoxia
I caught the girls earlier in the day (pic above) who are all awesome, very sharp, driven & business-minded individuals and co-miserated about the impending late-night hour to which they confirmed that indeed it was NEVER their idea to go on so late.
Obviously it being 18+ subject matter & competing with the rave, they got the sad luck of the draw apparently.
However, impressed with their aptitude and being a fan of the site, my attitude was, if these wonderful humans can stay up to do this for us, the least I can do is go support it.
This is with all due respect to the girls who really did their best to soldier on, but given that their presentation was a bust due to a corrupt file, they attempted to rally with a spirited Q&A. However the sparse attendance of around 15 people where half were drunk and talking amongst themselves & another fourth that were transparently creepy left only a few with a genuine agenda. Those had to navigate the aforementioned pratfalls & aim their queries at a panel desperately in need of a moderator. But then Amanda Kee showed up and suddenly all was right with the world.
However, these girls could have told me I was gonna die in 10 mins & thanks to their infectious presentation I still would have left the room happy.
Cerise w/
Amanda Kee & Mira Shiver
Saturday –
I returned on Saturday to witness even more amazing Cosplay, many preparing for the Cosplay Contest to be held later that evening.
Kelsey Topper & friends –
Kelsey (center/purple) is one of the most talented cosplayers today & one of the nicest you’ll ever meet.
She made our Top 10 Cosplayers list last year & this year she has raised her game exponentially & just KILLING IT at every con & being featured in major publications. As you can see here when she arrived at A-Kon, she came to slay.
Kink Panel
Ok, so I only attended a single panel on Sat was on Kink Culture but it was not only the weirdest panel of the Expo but perhaps one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Let me try to unpack this as best as I can:
Literally having NO IDEA what to expect I entered the room to see it divided (randomly) down the middle.
Our panel “leader”, a bespectacled mega-nerd in his mid-twenties who (admittedly) given the late hour (around midnight) was well on his way to being drunk, had no use for a microphone as he shouted every syllable while eating pasta out of someone’s SHIRT POCKET (I’ll let that sink in for a sec).
Ok so in my observation a large percentage of the 18+ crowd of A-KON also identify as strongly as members of the Kink community given the increasing SRO panels on different sub-topics (this was all but confirmed when this panel was crashed by a mid-40s swinger couple whose female half revealed herself as a size queen & got the room really sharing – see pic below)
The idea of this one was seemingly about creating a fun way to get strangers to be social and discuss their kinks in an open format.
And the “format” was this: Everyone was to write down their #1 kink on a post-it and stick it to their foreheads revealing it to all, then randomly the leader would point to those with their hands raised (most in crazy cosplay) to say something supportive about said kink (to which randomly selected attendees would volunteer to have the platitudes written somewhere on there bodies). Said “writer” was the leader’s assistance, an even drunker more shouty man in a leotard & tutu combo combined with a 90’s alterna-rocker haircut. (Imagine a cross-dressing member of early 90’s Pearl Jam).
Got it? Weird right?
Then the leader would end that individual discussion with picking someone that wasn’t into said kink to offer a rebuttal & then collectively it was up to everyone to shout what it said about “us” as a society.
Here’s the Good, the Bad & the Ugly of that scenario:
The Good – the leader despite his shortcomings proved to be somewhat irresistable in his delivery & keeping everyone engaged.
(At times) it was actually very fun & the sexual undertones were so palpable that it inspired that literally just about anything could happen so you had to stick around to see what was coming next.
The Bad – The room was about 3 times too small given the supply and demand exchange and it became downright styfling hot in there.
The responses soon became competitions for the best puns or the sexually frustrated to air their greivances.
The Ugly – It was painfully immature – It was a peek into what young nerds consider to be “partying” and the jokes were such a garden variety of “low hanging fruit” that would get ripples of laughter. The “final” kink was (consensual) “rape” that cleared half the room (me included).
On to the Rave!!
On top of everything this crazy festival had to offer, on both Friday and Saturday nights they offer a late-night rave that doesn’t even begin till midnight and goes till 4am. This was actually my introduction to A-Kon as I was hired to DJ this rave about 5 years ago and just showed up right before I went on not knowing anything else about the convention.
Held in the massive ballroom, it does have a very young & geeky feel as their is no alcohol served but that for me is the total appeal as it doesn’t look like a bunch of zombies wacked out on drugs or a competitive fashion show. As a performer this is ideal to just see alot of people having a genuine good time.
…..aaaaaaannd as if that wasn’t enough, they were showing the Rocky Horror Picture show in the atrium with an awesome shadow cast performance from Dallas art collective Los Bastardos.
All in all what a crazy, surreal, insert under used adjective here to describe what an amazing experience Project A-Kon was & is every year.
If you haven’t been, make plans to check this wild ride off your list next year!
Photos –
Roy Turner
Kathy Tran
Rodderick Pullum
