KatsuCon
Feb 14-16
Gaylord National Harbor
I have been attending KatsuCon for twenty years, ever since they were in Crystal City in Alexandria. The convention has sort of evolved to having more of a cosplay focus and filling the Gaylord National Harbor, one of the larger venues in the region with the convention attendance reported to be around 17000 this year. KatsuCon is considered a major stop of the national cosplay convention circuit with major names in cosplay attending partly thanks to the great locations for photoshoots around the venue. If you look online, you will find dozens of pages with pictures and videos of cosplayers at KatsuCon with many featuring its famous indoor gazebo. At the time, since I planned to attend many conventions, I volunteered to make it more affordable. Like most fan cons, KatsuCon runs Friday through Sunday but I visited on Thursday to try to get my volunteering time in early. I spent the time helping with the artist alley setup and was offered crash space for the night, but I had not planned to stay so I headed home
I originally wrote and edited out a long section here about how parking at National Harbor is both expensive and annoying, including the rock climbing I had to do to reach my prepaid parking lot. Let us just say parking at conventions is one of my bugaboos, and the Gaylord is one of those places that apparently enjoys making you suffer for it.
On the other hand, the Gaylord is one of the nicest convention venues I have ever had the pleasure of attending. It is right on the Potomac by the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, where Interstate 95, the major north-south highway for the east coast crosses. Getting there is easy from basically the entire east coast of the US. Once you have survived the parking there is a picturesque area overlooking the Potomac with a landscaped approach from the water up to the hotel. Inside there is a large, enclosed arboretum which has several little houses, paths and a water display. Overlooking that is large balcony that has the famous gazebo. If you have seen a 'best of' cosplay video made in the last decade that had shots of more than a single con, I can guarantee that you have seen parts of the Gaylord. The actual halls, panel rooms and so on are not that impressive, but everything else is.
That said, I am not a cosplayer so all I do is admire the costumes. I am old enough to remember the days when fans passed around bootlegged videotapes taken off Japanese TV, never mind the era of torrented fansubs so I got into the habit and enjoy going to cons to discover and sample new shows while occasionally watching old favorites. I also go to see what fans create and what has the community excited. The dealers’ room does not attract as much attention from me as it once did, because all the once hard to find merchandise is now readily available online so instead, I focus on the artist alley with their unique creations and the various fan panels. KatsuCon also has a track called Japanese Cultural Institute which has more traditional Japanese activities such Japanese martial arts, tea ceremonies and in previous years Shinto services.
Even with all that I had promised volunteer time with my duty on opening day was artist alley's opening. If any of you that attended remember a guy begging to not be run over when the doors opened, I apologize. I had been giving safety spiels every ten minutes for two hours, watching people line up and eye the closed doors behind me and wondered if I would survive the stampede once they opened. That was the major project that I did on Friday, while on Saturday I spent time at the coat check. I checked out some new anime, including a ridiculous exercise/gym one and watched the Anime Music Video contests. Some were good, some bad, nothing that stuck out me as others had in previous years.
I have included some photos in the next post, with comments, but this was an average KatsuCon/anime con for me. I discovered a few interesting shows that I later followed up on streaming sites, watched episodes of shows that I had not seen for a while and made interesting contacts by volunteering but otherwise had a relaxing time. I was surprised to be pumped up to volunteer on Sunday to help break down the convention, but they were so organized they barely needed me, so I left right after closing ceremonies. Yes, I am one of those folks that insist if I drop so much money on a convention, I will be there when it opens on the first day and only leave after it closes on the last day. I would soon learn that not all conventions wrap up so fast.