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Middle Tennessee Anime Convention - Author's Notes - 2006 The high point of this weekend for this site's author came in the hotel parking lot on Saturday afternoon. We'd been getting pictures of the celebrity dodgeball game, had switched sides of the court and was changing camera memory cards when the card popped out of the camera and fell into a drainage grate. There was no way to budge the grate, and the hotel staff said they didn't have the tools. Then we realized that we had the tools in the trunk of the car - lengths of PVC pipe we use as photo backdrop supports and had brought to the convention, just in case. It took two three-foot lengths of pipe and some gaffers' tape on one end to get the job done. We fished around, found the right angle, and got the end of the pipe to the bottom of the grate where the memory card stuck to the gaffers' tape. Recovering that card was our biggest triumph in months, and let you see all of the dodgeball pictures, along with costuming pictures of people such as Kell's Belle gown. The Middle Tennessee event joined the large number of conventions that moved out of an area's main city and into a suburban hotel. The convention had been held in Nashville since its inception, but they moved about fifteen miles south to Franklin, the area's upscale suburb. The 2006 location was at a Embassy Suites hotel operated by John Q. Hammonds, the fourth anime convention in recent years to be held at a hotel run by the company that specializes in atrium hotels. It'll be the only convention at that hotel, since the place was stuffed to its limits over the weekend. Every room was used to capacity and the dealers' room was overcrowded. It got to the point that the hotel couldn't serve any more food on Saturday afternoon because of the large number of people at the restaurant. Fortunately, the shopping area on the other side of I-65 had plenty of restaurants, fast and sit-down. Next year, the Tennessee convention moves down the street to a supposedly larger Marriott hotel. The weather improved as the weekend progressed. We drove to Tennessee in Thursday night rain that slowed interstate traffic, and the rain continued for most of Friday - although it was nothing close to the severe weather that's plagued Tennessee this spring. Saturday dried out, fortunately for the fans who traveled to the convention, had to register at the event and found themselves in a line that stretched outside the hotel and wrapped around a corner. Good thing that the convention planned in advance and got permission to use a neighboring office building's parking lot on Saturday and Sunday. And it was equally convenient that a drive between the lots was closed so the convention could use it for the dodgeball game. That pavement also was the site for something we missed because of a Saturday lunch break, a Golden Boy-inspired pentathlon of sorts that involved riding a small bicycle and a toilet filled with water. The event's big stars were the dub voice actors. Vic Mignogna and Travis Willingham spent the weekend hanging out with fans and making every possible Edward Elric and Roy Mustang joke, while Caitlin Glass finally got to bring her mother to a convention. Mom Glass watched in wonder at the way fans reacted to her daughter, accompanying her one moment and trying to bring her food the next. All three were at a packed Friday afternoon panel discussion when Mignogna enthusiastically interrupted the proceedings to introduce Steve Blum, whose arrival had been delayed by a late flight. For once, fans seemed more interested in Blum's roles in shows such as the Final Fantasy Advent Children film than in Spike Spiegel. Greg Ayres also was late, but he made up for lost time by spending the hours with fans, amazed by the high quality of some of the fan art he was asked to sign. Those actors had a Saturday autograph line that wound outside the front entrance. A Nissan Z car was parked inside that front entrance on Friday, but it got moved outside on Saturday because of the number of fans, we'll guess. When singer and songwriter Lisa Furukawa held her second concert of the weekend on Saturday, she didn't mind if fans walked past her when she was performing - because the concert was part of a launch party for her latest CD music release. There was a steady flow of fans up to the front of the hall, encouraged by Furukawa, to get some of the food that was served. Furukawa sold nearly every copy of the new CD at the convention. Nearly as popular was para para dancing, with several weekend performances by an area group and well-attended dance lesson sessions. Looks as if para para is becoming the otaku version of country line dancing. Some weekend oddities: the cramped dealers' room closed at a surprisingly early 2 p.m. on Sunday; the costume contest announcers had a lot of trouble with name pronunciation and never explained what "the big one" award was (best in show?); after that contest, one of the security staff warned that the hotel wanted people in the atrium to stay quiet (snowball's chance in hell for that to happen); fans loved the Saturday appearances of a bunch of Star Wars costumers - including a Chewbacca that seemed to be eight feet tall - and no one complained that they were "non-anime costumes;" and that group also had with them an Alien from the first Alien movie. The Tennessee convention was the first of three planned convention trips in as many weekends for this site, with the Shiokazecon in Houston coming up next, followed by Anime Central in Illinois. At those events, we'll try to find how many costumers are interested in a chance of appearing in the Japanese magazine Cure, the lavishly-printed chronicle of visual kei music. Cure has a back-of-the-book feature where J-rock and gothic lolita costumers are featured, and we've been recruited (through the Jpophouse people) to get pictures that could appear in that feature. We've already pulled some images from our library for the first set of submissions, and we chased down fans at a Sunday lolita tea party who are interested in the deal. We'll look for more at the other conventions in the weeks to come. Middle Tennessee Anime Convention Main Page