Colorado Anime Fest 2019

Just a quick write up, as I’m editing well over 300 Gb’s of video footage and intake is taking forever.

Colorado anime Fest 2019 was overall a great experience for the fans and the Guests alike. Over 3700 guests attended a new COAF record. I spoke with many guests and attendees over the weekend and they all were having a good time. I myself had a good time overall with only a few things to complain about, but I can say that most of my complaints are likely due to the new space, and not really the spaces fault but rather the folks whom just moved into it, things got better as the weekend passed, and my issues were with the layout and spaces for certain things. Line control was pretty lackluster at times, and delays popped up due to room changes\adjustments and tech difficulties, but these issues as I said were resolved pretty swiftly.

I enjoyed the events and panels I did go to, I wish I could have gone to more, but I found myself pretty busy with mainly main events and wondering about the convention halls. I really wanted to shoot more cosplay and take in some of the smaller panels but I just did not have the time. The dealers hall was improved this year and combined with the artist ally and guest signature area. I think this is a good layout as many other conventions now use this layout, larger conventions like anime expo. The lineup was great, plenty of good stuff to buy and look at.

If this writing seems a bit scattered sorry about that I’m just trying to share my thoughts and I’m putting them down as they come. Ah speaking of which the hotel space was good, it has changed quite a bit since I was last visited, new well everything. The beds were just okay and the rooms were what I would call good average. The space was modern with lots of odd art and lighting. Not really my thing but it made for some interesting footage. We got double billed for parking, and the service overall was not bad, I say three star overall. We had one fire alarm pulled over the weekend, but that was not the hotels fault.

The AMV and main events hall has improved greatly, with the new space came a better setup with bigger screens and a bigger sound system. Overall a pretty good improvement. I spent much of my weekend in the main events hall. There was a sound imaging issue that really stood out and that the right side was getting more sound than the left and if you sat in the center of the room you got very limited sound that favored the right heavily, it was pretty bad during the AMV contested due to were we sat dead center front, so in short we had mono sound from the right and nothing from the left. A center speaker would have resolved this or a set of speakers on stage pointing out would also work. But this is a nitpick I feel can be addressed and improved for a better experience for those seated in the center. I worked at a movie theater as a projectionist in the past and balanced sound was very important for the guests and speaker placement and tuning are things we took very seriously because it matters, we would use a DB meter at space dead center of the theater and measure tone from each speaker and adjust amps and pre-amps to match levels and adjust for timing.

The game room got larger and was improved overall, no complaints, if you enjoy gaming you will enjoy this rather large arcade space with lots of games to choose from. From the feedback I heard from folks they seem pretty happy with the game room.

The guest lineup was great, with tons of great panels and chances to interact directly with these talented folks, I spent much of my weekend learning about acting, and voice acting and working in industry from the folks whom work within the US anime industry.

Bottom line , Colorado anime Fest 2019 was a success in my book and I highly recommend this convention alongside NDK as the go to anime conventions in Colorado.