A Love Letter

Let me preface this by saying: I don't hate big conventions. They're fun, and you generally get to see and meet more people. If you prefer larger conventions, I'm not trying to tell you that you're wrong. They have benefits, but this is pretty much a love letter to the "perfect" small convention.

I prefer smaller conventions. Part of the reason might be that they're so hard to get right. If too few people attend, it's five dorks playing D&D in a hotel lobby. There's also the chance that it'll die off due to lack of attendance (Anime Reactor.) The amount of attendees needs to match the venue almost exactly. If the convention overfills its space (as a result of being too greedy/ambitious), the convention is a disaster. Fire hazards, annoyed attendees, hour-long waits to use the bathroom, etc.

So, the logical conclusion would be to just expand, right? You can purchase a larger hotel space, or rent out surrounding hotels for extra space. That mindset will eventually force it to evolve into a large convention, and lose a bit of its soul.

"Why wouldn't more people be a good thing?" It's not about the instantaneous friendships. It's about the gradual, more natural ones. Let's say you have an engaging conversation with someone while waiting in line. You forget to take down their contact information. (Pretend Facebook doesn't exist, for argument's sake.) The following year, you have a much greater chance of remembering (and finding) that person again, for a second chance. There's a sense of community that you don't get at large conventions.

When you meet someone at a smaller convention, you can safely assume they're very passionate about whatever the theme of the convention is. For every one of those people attending a large convention, there's five people behind them that are just there to drink in an area where they normally can't. They've seen an episode or two of DBZ when they were growing up, but they ultimately don't give a shit. They would go to a knitting convention if it meant public intoxication.

Larger cons have to become very strict with rules and regulations. You can't allow everyone to carry around 7' buster swords. You can't reasonably feed everyone at the convention with complimentary food. You have to strike up unfavorable deals with those who own the space. You can't hold any sign whatsoever, even if it's not soliciting anything. (This is much easier than arguing semantics with everyone who has a sign.) The list goes on and on.
Guests are a pretty big part of conventions. Large cons have to provide "huge" guests, so that the list satisfies the most amount of people. Unfortunately, this boils down to voice actors and the J-Pop equivalent to Nickelback. It doesn't matter if they're good or entertaining, just that they're popular.

A bit of an aside about voice actors: I know that it's neat seeing the face behind your favorite characters, but you're getting about a half-minute of entertainment out of that guest. "Remember when I did the voice for that guy? Man, that was great. Check this out, I'm gonna do the voice. Ha! Well, see you guys in the autograph line!" They're not known for their own personality, they're known for the character they read the lines for.

Again, I don't hate large conventions. They're just not quite as magical as a smaller convention. Anime Central 2013 was a lot of fun this year, but Anime Midwest blew it out of the water. It felt like ACen of years past, before it got overwhelmed by the popularity.