Nekocon 8
November 4-6, 2005
Hampton Roads Convention Center - Hampton Roads, Virginia
Nekocon arrives again in 2005 with a touch of the new. Newly located at the Hampton Roads convention center, it housed all the attendees of the convention, even though only parts of the first floor of the facility were used. Even though many parts weren't used, it showed 1) it has now solved its issue with space unlike the previous years and 2) it shows Nekocon has the potential to expand if needed.
For Nekocon, there was a lot of activity and some hectic activity, but then again it's not an anime convention without one it seems. An artist alley filled a section of the given space provided a lot of unsystematic anime things to buy and be thrilled about. Just walking into the area, ubiquitously were there people there no matter what the time was, to either hang with the artists or to examine anything the artists offered.
After six conventions, the slack admin of the site finally got the nerve to attend a cosplay event. Held in the spacious main event room, there were enough seats available to hold the entire convention and probably more, and the only minor problem with the even was a sound performance of the event. Overall, both the contestants and hosts seem to please most of the audience during the duration of the event, giving quite a few
With the new facility, everything was going to change, including the dealer's room. The size of the dealer's room looked smaller than the 2004 by the arrangement of the booths, but in contrast never judge a book by its cover, since going through thorough thinking it was pretty much the same size, just almost. Besides the size of the dealer's room, something was missing; in fact two main products of an anime convention were missing in the dealer's room which some otakus tend to die without it. Due to the convention center, Pocky and Ramune had gone astray for Nekocon and their attendees to consume and enjoy.
One of main components that make an anime convention is which guest of honors attended the convention to be the best at who they are? To provide the quick 411, here were the guests of honors, Greg Ayres (Voice Actor), Sonny Strait (Voice Actor), Laura Bailey (Voice Actress), Stephen Bennett IV (co-founder and art director of Studio Ironcat L.L.C), Robert and Emily Dejesus (artists), Team Draconia (Web Comic - 2wconline.com), Dizziness (Artist), Novablade Studios (Artists - novablade.com), Mike McFarland (Voice Actor), and Micheal "Mookie" Terracciano (Author and artist dominic-deegan.com).
The game room seemed to be a bit on the empty side; then again the room was on a lights out procedure to let the players concentrate more so getting the observation of the room was vague.
Now to the second component of what makes one anime convention unique from the others. Well more like what makes the same convention unique from the previous years. First of all, there was the new convention center along with the new hotel, being the Embassy Suites at the Hampton Roads Convention Center, located conveniently right beside the convention center itself. Yes it was a covered walkway, just with out the walls to protect you from the wind, but a roof for the rain. Absolutely spacious rooms with nice amenities including the double bed rooms with two beds in the bedroom, a sitting room with a pullout couch for another bed, and a glass window for viewing who's walking by...lol. Oh yeah, how could anyone forget, for all the people staying at the Embassy Suites hotel, and of course FREE BREAKFAST! It was quite useful for a jump start for the body for Nekocon.
The convention center designed to represent a sail boat with a design representing a sail covering the entrance of the convention center. In front of the entrance was a driveway which looked more like a sidewalk for the convention, having no curbs but lights lighting from the ground to represent lanes. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, BUT Nekocon isn't in Vegas so out with the strange happenings of Nekocon. Since the convention center wasn't used up, there were possibilities of other events going on at the same time, and out came the other events. Mixing in with Nekocon were the Marine Corps ball somewhere in the forbidden upstairs are of the convention center, and catholic group gathering also in the forbidden area. There were some confusion for those groups, since after all, being all serious about a formal event then walking through an anime convention would make you wonder.
-Quadrain.com Staff