This makes my 4th year at MTAC–and my 4th year cosplaying– and I still love it! For those of you just joining us here at 2 Shots, MTAC stands for Middle Tennessee Anime Convention; it is currently held Downtown Nashville in the “old” convention center, and it is PACKED. We had to share the venue with the Tattoo and Horror convention, but it worked (though I heard there were some clashes with the two cons…). There were..Ahem, over 9,000 people attending MTAC this year–9,691 to be exact. So not quite 10,000, but looking at their past attendance numbers, they’ve come really far along, and it’s only getting bigger! How big? It’ll be at the brand new convention center next year for “MTAC in Love” (2014), and I believe it’s Easter weekend again because of incubators and their contracts.
Here for the start of our “Why Do You Cosplay” project (info here)
And here for the press meeting with Todd Haberkorn
Now how was my experience this year?
Eh….Well it could’ve been better, but I don’t blame it on the con (though I actually do have some issues with how the cosplay contest was run, but well…any complaint I have, has been voiced on the forums already), a lot of it had to do with personal interactions, but nothing to take away from
an awesome weekend! There were some cosplay mishaps, so Sora and Riku unfortunately didn’t light up (we will fix it up so that it will and nothing breaks!) but since Tron Kingdom Hearts cosplayers aren’t very common, we still garnered quite a bit of attention! We wore them first for our panel, and throughout the rest of the weekend but man these cosplays were a pain…I was afraid of breaking circuits, even though they were pretty much already broken, so it was kinda hard for me to move in it and don’t get me started on walking up and down stairs.
Aside from cosplay, unfortunately I couldn’t attend many things this year like I had hoped. I did make it out to the Cosplay Contest, Symphonic Anime Orchestra ,and the Closing Ceremonies (had to leave early as well because I had school the next day >3>), but those were the only big events. I did enjoy what I got to see though; I honestly was a bit worried about the SAO because I wasn’t sure how organised they were and the fact they didn’t sit in sections threw me off, but the performance was awesome! If they make it back to MTAC again, I will definitely drop by.
One thing I really liked about MTAC this year was how the Dealer’s room and Artist Alley was laid out. Any MTAC staff reading this, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING ARTIST ALLEY A ROOM. Last year was somewhat chaotic because they were spread throughout the walkways. I actually want to say the line for the horror con took over the space the booths blocked last year but it was still much easier to maneuver the halls this year, and I’m grateful. Artist Alley felt a tad bit empty feeling since there was a wide portion in the back that was pretty vacant, but it was still nice looking around; kinda wish I could get a booth but I don’t think I’ll have any time in the near future to be able to manage a booth, let alone make enough stuff to sell because of cosplay. Anyways I digress; so the dealer’s room! It was smaller than last year, but if I remember correctly, there was an issue with over booking last year and people lost money so…no complaints. I liked the selection and I got a Ventus charm as well as a cute necklace from Tasty Peach Studios!
Not much else was that different from last year; the few changes that were made things much easier in terms of convenience though. I do wonder why one of the main ballrooms wasn’t used this year actually, I thought it was much larger than the main one they used last year for all the big events like the Ball, Rave, Closing/Opening ceremonies, etc. and that the one used this year was too small. I mean if your cosplay contest contestants have to stand/sit on the floor, there’s a problem (and I know that isn’t something that can be changed). I hope next year space issues get fixed, I know the ball was an issue; I got there after it reached capacity. But then again I know it was because it conflicted with Eric Stuart, so…Anyways, I’m hoping next year the panel stuff gets fixed, this year seemed a bit messy, but otherwise I’m looking forward to MTAC ’14 and I’m already working on my next cosplays!
(I apologise for the lack of photos, my computer is being a jerk! I’ll add more when things are working right again.)