Taiyou Con 2019 – Growing Pains

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Last weekend, at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, AZ, the 9th Annual Taiyou Con was held. Taiyou Con is an anime convention focusing on J-Pop Culture, Fashion, Music, Art and Gaming. I attended the convention along with our con photographer Kincart Photography. Here is a synopsis of our experiences…

Programming


Taiyou Con had A LOT of programming. They hosted panels for their guests, concerts for their performers, a masquerade for their cosplayers and panels for their attendees that focused on everything from Retro Anime to Cosplay Basics. The only trouble is that their programming grid was out of date or incorrect regarding times, locations and even the panels presented. To counter this the convention strove to post the new/updated programming every day on their Twitter account.

Unfortunately, many of the attendees did not know this and I had several/numerous people enter my panels over the weekend expecting one thing and receiving something different. I would have preferred to see printed programs posted at all major entry ways with the new programming. It may also have helped had the event posted their new grid to Instagram and Facebook as those social media sites saw more activity during the event than Twitter. Despite these programming snafus we still had good turn out in our panels and I heard from other presenters that attendees were happy to sit through the panel even if it wasn’t what they expected.

Food


Taiyou worked REALLY HARD to keep everyone fed at this event. They invited food trucks, hosted cafes and the hotel they were connected to served lunch/dinner in the lounge. Unfortunately, with the sheer number of people present food trucks began to run out of stock. Thankfully, more restaurants were within 5-10 minute walking distance (including an AWESOME coffee shop called The Lost Dutchman). So food wasn’t too hard to come by. Plus, there were places where food delivery cars could easily drop off munchies for the starving attendee. Overall, Taiyou did well with their food selections and accessibility.

Cosplay

Attendees BROUGHT THEIR A GAME to this convention. We have SO MANY IMAGES that we have had to break them out over a series of days on our FACEBOOK page. Here is the link to Day One of Taiyou Con Cosplay: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2352668374961868&type=1&l=b6bb60de3e

We’ll be posting more images over the next two days but here are a couple preview images for your viewing pleasure…

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We recommend this event for new attendees. The prices of tickets are low and the atmosphere is relaxed. We wish this convention the best as it grows into it’s 10 year celebration in 2020!

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