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Anime Central - Author's Notes - 2007 It was another Sunday-only trip for this site, so that's why you didn't see more pictures and stories from the convention's first two days. We'll try to fill in the gaps when we head to Animazement, since we're planning to be at that convention for at least the first two days. The Sunday arrival played into our hands, because there were four interview session on Sunday, more than had been scheduled for any other day of the convention. That gave us a chance to encounter High and Mighty Color again, and we were pleased to find the band was in good spirits and actually recognized us from their 2006 appearance in Houston. We just wish that we had gotten a chance to see their show, and the other four Anime Central weekend concerts. If you went to the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in previous years, you wouldn't have recognized it in 2007. Everything from the front door to the back of the lobby was torn out and replaced. Wood took the place of the old stone, the back room sports bar was moved to the front of the second floor, next to a new registration desk, and the main floor was opened up with more space. About all that was left on the main lobby floor was that odd vertical metal sculpture. The second-floor restaurant got a new look (although the food wasn't as good as last year). Two negatives from the remodeling: a second-floor men's room broke early and wasn't fixed, and escalators from the main floor to the second floor were turned off. We could tell the escalators didn't break because, on Sunday evening, we saw the service crew that turned them back on. Anime Central still uses the combination of the Hyatt and the Rosemont convention center across the street, but they'll have to think more seriously about taking the entire show to the convention center. We heard that the hotel's meeting rooms and ballrooms were all but overstuffed during most of the weekend. There was a hint of that on Sunday afternoon, when the ballroom corridor was filled with fans waiting for the late-running closing ceremonies. Unfortunately, the only larger facility in the area is McCormick Place downtown, and there's nothing of comparable size until you get to Detroit, Milwaukee or Indianapolis, so the Rosemont location is going to be the best that Anime Central can get. The 12,000 or so fans who went to Rosemont over the weekend was around ten times the attendance of the first Anime Central, nine years earlier. (Tenth convention, not tenth anniversary.) That sort of attendance rivals a crowd at the Allstate Arena a couple of miles away. When we rolled down Des Plaines River Road around 3 a.m. Sunday, headed toward our secret cheap motel, we saw more than a few fans wandering toward the convention's overflow hotels, including the Crowne Plaza that had been flagged as a Holiday Inn when the convention began in 1998. Anime Central Main Page