Monday, April 25, 2011

Anime Boston to team up with PAX in 2012

By Rodney H. Brown

Fresh off a record attendance this weekend of more than 19,000, Anime Boston wants the Hub to prepare for what could be a world-ending storm of nerds in April 2012.

That show has officially announced plans to work together with PAX East, which will be happening the same weekend – April 6-8, 2012. If both shows continue to grow at the level they have in recent years, Boston could be facing an influx of more than 100,000 nerds that weekend. In an interview with Mass High Tech, Anime Boston co-chair Andrea Finnin also revealed the theme to next year’s event.

“For 2012, we elected to have ‘End of the World,’ so if Boston suffers a little it will be in concert with our theme,” Finnin said. “A great tie-in.”

While neither Finnin nor co-chair Victor Lee were able to provide any details on how Anime Boston and PAX East will be working together, officials did confirm that representatives from the event firm that runs PAX shows met with the Anime Boston team during this weekend’s show at the Hynes Convention Center and committed to having the two shows work together in some fashion.

Both Finnin and Lee said they were excited about the deal with PAX East but also are looking forward to seeing if there is a limit to how big Anime Boston can grow.

“Growth basically means there is a demand for what we do, which is a good sign,” Lee said. But he added, “If you are waiting in line for everything that’s no fun. Growth does affect enjoyability for the attendees in terms of getting into the shows they want to see and in terms of just having space to stretch a bit.”

The board at Anime Boston has considered moving the venue, but that seems to be an unattractive choice to many of them Finnin said.

“We’ve had a lot of talks about that and we haven’t come to a conclusion that most of us agree with,” she said. “Yes, more space will help, but we are all volunteers and at a certain point it changes from simply adding a room or hiring more volunteers – the scope of it changes logistically. It could exceed our ability to manage it effectively and really still keep the sense of community that is a large part of why I do what I do to help support this event.”

Some of that support also included coming up with and planning a new feature this year – a noodle speed-eating contest sponsored by the noodle restaurant chain Wagamama. On Saturday, a field of nine hungry competitors sat down each with a pound of noodles. The winner was an engineering student from Albany, N.Y., Ibrahim Peek, who has some previous nerd cred from an appearance on last year’s show ‘American Ninja Warrior’ on G4TV. For Finnin, that ability to quickly dream up a new show feature and execute on it is a good sign for the future.

“Before, we were a little shy about programming changes,” she said. “I think we suddenly hit our stride when it comes to a sense of adventure. We had an eating contest, and selling that idea wasn’t nearly as difficult as it might have been a few years ago.”

Both Finnin and Lee are looking forward to taking that sense of adventure into the team-up with PAX East next year.

“Next year is going to be a great weekend for fans of anime and videogames,” Lee said.