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A Portland anime con moved its Artist's Alley to a parking garage three days before it opened (and now regrets it)
Wasabicon PDX's Artist Alley was dubbed DungeonCon after a surprise move to a hotel parking garage.
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WasabiCon has quickly became a key convention for anime fans in America, with the one-off convention launched in 2012 quickly becoming a chain of multiple conventions a year in Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon. But following its July 2024 WasabiCon PDX event again hosted at the Hilton Portland Downtown, word has come out about poor conditions for vendors and fans after a plan to use a parking garage as an exhibition hall went awry.
According to Adrian Sjoquist (who co-owns N2Operation which was a vendor at the event), three days before WasabiCon PDX opened its doors to the public the 88 Artists Alley vedors were notified that they were being moved out of the space originally allotted for it and into the convention hotel's nearby underground parking garage - which the hotel and con was dubbing its new 'Exhibit Hall.'
"They sent pictures of a very well-lit, clean area. And then when you got down there, it was extremely dirty," Sjoquist told Portland's NBC affiliate station KGW. "Someone we knew personally approached us and said 'we saw the mice and when we were packing up all of our things, the mice were in our belongings.'"
According to KGW, Sjoquist and business partner Rhys Anderton stated that tabling in the unconventional convention space resulted in them being "covered in dirt, tar and grime" - let alone the heat from being in a parking garage in July for two days (plus a set-up day). Some of the Artist's Alley vendors and fans came to call the area 'DungeonCon' over the course of th ethree-day event.
"We've never been in a place like that," Sjoquist said. "By the second day, I was feeling very lightheaded, dizzy, not very good."
According to Anderton, access to WasabiCon PDX's Artist Alley was limited to a steep ramp intended for vehicles to drive into the parking garage, or an elevator.
WasabiCon PDX charges $240 for each Artist's Alley table, and has stated in marketing that the tables sold out early for the past three years. WasabiCon PDX was held in the same hotel in 2023, but did not use the parking garage as an exhibit space. It had planned to expand to a three-day convention 2024, but in February 2024 it pulled back on the third day and added extra convention space (assumedly the parking garage-as-exhibition hall). According to attendance figures released by the con, this year's WasabiCon PDX welcomed 4,634 attendees - down 16% from the previous year. According to Sjoquist and Anderton, their sales were 83% down compared to their previous years tabling at WasabiCon PDX.
In a statement posted on WasabiCon's Instagram page, show manager Tom Croom said they moved the Artist Alley to the parking garage after "reassurances" from the host hotel, as well them seeing Los Angeles' Anime Expo using a parking garage as a convention hall successfully in the past.
"As we soon learned, application of this concept did not move foeward as smoothly as everyone had hoped," said Croom. "Both the hotel team and WasabiCon PDX staff worked extensively over the weekend to pivot and make any changes they could. However, it still resulted in a less-than-perfect experience for our Artists and, for that, we apologize."
On the Monday following the event, WasabiCon PDX staff met with the hotel's management, and three weeks later the convention began the process to give the 88 Artist's Alley exhibitors a refund of $60 - 25% of the total booth fee. WasabiCon has said it will remain at the Hilton Portland Downtown hotel, but will not be utilizing the parking garage as an exhibit space.
WasabiCon PDX will return in 2025 at the Hilton Portland Downtown for a two-day event July 19-20.
Here's a list of all the major comic convention around the world.
About WasabiCon PDX 2024
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