A couple of months before the trip to British Columbia, the author heard some scuttlebutt that Aka-Kon had only a few people register in advance. And it was very easy to reserve a hotel room at the convention rate a couple of weeks before the event, well after the announced cutoff date. So how many western Canada fans showed up for this event? 

In numbers, it was another small event like AnimeIowa or Sugoi-Con. The proportion of fans of Asian descent at the event seemed to be higher than at Anime Expo, which should be no surprise for an area that saw a large influx of people from Hong Kong in the last five years. And there were many people who drove up from Washington State, including some last seen at Sakura Con seven months earlier.

The author heard that around 250 people registered in advance, and he was told that around 700 were on hand for the weekend. The numbers likely would have been larger had the convention been held on a more typical Friday-through-Sunday schedule instead of the unusual Sunday-and-Monday format. The previous Monday had been a national holiday in Canada, but Nov. 27 was a work day for most people (even though it was parliamentary election day).

The first day of the convention felt unusual because there seemed to be fewer people on hand as day turned into night, where the opposite usually happens. That probably was because the convention opened on Sunday and fans tend to make early exits from conventions on Sunday. And there is an enormous amount of entertainment competition in Vancouver, which has a remarkably lively downtown district (much like Buckhead near Atlanta and Rush Street in Chicago).

Also, things were more confused than usual at this convention than at other events in 2001, showing that the promoters have a few things to learn for the next event. In fairness, the promoters said that some of the confusion came because the hotel lost some of their materials. While there was some trouble with volunteers, others put in endless hours to get things done (a few may have gotten only a couple of hours sleep during the weekend). The convention planned to post a thank-you note to the volunteers at their web site.

Still, there were people hanging around the hotel until the very end of the event on Monday night. And the convention can't be blamed for the Sunday rain.

Furthermore: Steve Bennett of Studio Ironcat made an important observation when he handed out his judges' award at the costume contest. Bennett asked all of the first-time convention goers to raise their hands - and nearly every hand in the hall went up, including the costumers.

The back of the badges had an ad for the 2001 edition of the convention (literal-minded people like the author thought the printers got the date wrong for this year's event), which means we'll get a chance to see a bigger and better event in one year.

Just like the 1999 trip to the Canadian National Anime Expo, this was one of those "no way in hell is this going to happen because it doesn't make any sense" sort of trips. Halfway across North America for an anime convention? On an airline where the workers are having a slowdown? During the busiest and worst travel weekend of the year?

Well, after a couple of weeks of thinking it over, the author peeked at a travel web site and saw that plane fares weren't desperately high, so he decided to take the risk of making the trip. The author arrived on time but his suitcase took another 12 hours to arrive.

There's one bizarre thing about traveling through the Vancouver International Airport: you have to pay extra to get out of the country. The airport has an extra tax to pay for improvements, but instead of hiding it in user fees they collect it from the travelers just before they get on their flights out of town. Cute idea, especially when the RCMP found that some of the airport workers were slimming some of the cash off the top. At least it was only in Canadian dollars, which a good friend jokingly calls "Monopoly money."

While waiting for the new year's convention season to start, there could be something to watch that developed in 2000. Recall the Katsucon coverage from February and the story, from Chris Oarr of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, about potential censorship of comics stores that sold anime and manga? According to the fund's web site, a criminal case is going to trial against a Texas store that sold manga adaptations of "Legend of the Overfiend." The fund's site noted that one of the defense witnesses could be Dr. Susan Napier, who was featured on this site when she appeared at Project: A-Kon.

That prosecution is worrisome, but there might be some better news in the mid-November pronouncement from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it would not take any action against entertainment companies that were thought to have "targeted adult-rated material at children." The commission said that those companies should police themselves. Unfortunately, the commission's decision left a couple of unresolved questions: who decides what is "adult-rated material," and whether the new U.S. federal administration under the winner of the presidential election is going to attack entertainment companies or not.