This is an open letter to all the artists who participated in the Artist Alley at AX 2016, to the AX management staff, and to all the attendees who came and spent their time and dollars at the Artist Alley this year.

Please take a deep breath and read this (very long) letter with an open mind. Everything written here is from my perspective and I am only one person. I openly encourage debate and discussion, as confrontation will only give us the opportunity to resolve conflict and move forward as a community.

First, an introduction! My name is Finni Chang, and I’m a 10-year veteran artist who is currently writing this while sitting at the LAX airport on my way home from this year’s Anime Expo. I first started selling my work at artist alleys in the anime convention circuit in 2006, and in my professional career, I am experienced in art management and art leadership. I spent the last four days in downtown LA for the purpose of exhibiting and selling my artwork, as well as meeting fans and friends alike.

I’d like to start by offering my gratitude to the AX staff for working hard to make the event come together. Having been behind the scenes myself, I’m under no delusion that running an event as large as Anime Expo is anything close to an easy task. For those who don’t know, conventions like Anime Expo are powered primarily by volunteer hours from people who choose to donate anywhere from dozens to hundreds of hours of their free time to create this event. I really appreciated the pre-con communication, informative emails, easy check-in, and early booking. Opening up Day 0 for setup was helpful for many people, and the free wifi was a great gesture. Despite being in a new location and the concerns associated with the move, foot traffic was great and there were helpful signs that pointed attendees towards the direction of Artist Alley. That being said, I feel that Anime Expo and its management staff need to have a paradigm shift on how they treat their artists.

AX is undergoing growing pains, and has been for a while. It has been steadily expanding every year to accommodate more guests, more sponsors, more exclusive content, more artists, and more attendees — reportedly over 90,000 people this year. I understand completely the reasoning for moving artists into Kentia Hall. Overcrowding was a real problem in South Hall with both exhibitors and artists, and in order to expand, the only real option was to relocate the artists into their own hall. For artists who are reading, please try to understand the problem that AX is facing here. Can you imagine the crowding that we experienced in the AA this year combined with the traffic in exhibitors? With the events and additional sponsor activities being held on the show floor, it would have been impossible to hold that many attendees in the exhibit space. This change needed to happen. Complaining that we should be moved back into the exhibit hall is not the right course of action.

What we, as artist alley artists, need from Anime Expo is to be treated with respect.

Artist Alley at Anime Expo attracts some of the best international talent, from professionals to fan favorites alike, and attendees routinely express their delight by telling us that their favorite part of the con is checking out Artist Alley. Artists are always challenged to up their game at Anime Expo, and it is a colorful and creative marketplace that is both inspiring and wallet-draining.

Given that we are a group of individuals that are a legitimate attraction at Anime Expo, I am disappointed that artists are not given appropriate priority when it comes to convention logistics. During setup hours on Day 0 and Day 1, there was little to no air conditioning in Kentia Hall while artists carried in heavy suitcases and built their displays. While I cannot be a primary source of Day 0’s conditions, the temperature during setup hours on Day 1 was hot, muggy, humid, and generally miserable. When I complained to a staff member, they assured us that there would be AC in the room, and sure enough, around 11am I could feel a very light breeze in my area. While this continued for a few hours, the air flow had all but stopped by early afternoon, and the artist alley quickly heated up into an unbearable temperature. It was significantly cooler outside Kentia Hall, and even significantly cooler outdoors upon exiting the convention.

Setup hours on day 2 felt like the air flow had improved. AC was running, although softly, and we waited for attendees to fill the room. But again, the afternoon was sweltering. The number of bodies in a cramped space combined with the physical structure of Kentia Hall made the entire place feel like a sauna. My skin was sticking to itself and nearly every attendee that walked past my table was furiously fanning themselves with a paper fan or a program book. I complained to a staff member, asking if there was any way they could please turn the AC on or if it was on, to turn it up higher. I was told that as artist alley staff, they aren’t able to affect any changes on the way AX is run, and that if I had a complaint, I should fill out a form at the AX AA HQ desk because the management chain would listen more to artist complaints than staff complaints. They also informed me that the reason for the AC situation was that AX management was trying to keep to a budget and save on operating cost.

I was livid. But I was given a method to make my complaints heard, so I followed up with action. Artists who are exhibiting at AA are often chained to their tables — without a trusted helper to watch their table, we’re unable to get up out of our booths for the duration of the AA open hours without risking theft — which made it extremely difficult to submit written complaints. I approached the AA HQ desk to obtain blank copies of the official AX complaint forms, and then passed them out to artists so that we could put our concerns to paper. I volunteered to run these complaints to the AA HQ table so that artists wouldn’t have to abandon their tables. It was hot in the Artist Alley. It was really, really hot, and many people were getting light-headed or close to fainting from the heat (and there was at least one report of someone fainting and an EMT response). We needed the air conditioning turned on and fast. This problem had persisted two days in a row now, and the staff had told us there was nothing they could do about it.

As individual artists, we are small. But as a group, we are strong.

With the help of other artists, dozens of written complaints were submitted detailing the conditions in Artist Alley, and with the help of attendees and the advent of Twitter, Anime Expo’s official account tweeted that they were looking into the situation. By Day 3, AC was turned on and stayed on all day for artist alley. It was a fantastic turnaround and I have but the utmost gratitude for those who made Day 3 and Day 4 of AX breathable.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so I will pause here to say it again. Thank you AX staff for turning up the air conditioning. I understand that it came at a cost. Please let us show you that we are worth it.

Ultimately though, this resolution was reactionary. Something was wrong, the situation was dire, and AX took steps to fix it. However, the avenues that were taken to find the solution were unclear and frustrating; the ideal solution was to have avoided the problem altogether with careful planning and adequate foresight.

In conjunction with the heat, overcrowding was a clear problem in the artist alley. Because of the layout of Kentia Hall and its alternate occupation as a parking garage, it is filled with cement pillars that cannot be removed. However, aisles for attendee traffic were extremely narrow, while clearance behind tables varied from being unnecessarily spacious to being sandwiched by a wall of cement. In many aisles, the pillars were in the middle of attendee walkways, forcing people to walk single file with their bags of swag in order to go around pillars. In artist rows without pillars, there were very few exits to allow artists in and out of their tables. Combined with the temperature, this crowding resulted in an extremely negative attendee experience for those who wanted to peruse the Artist Alley. Many attendees commented that they refused to go into the Alley or refused to return after their initial experience, and those individuals with special needs or disabilities were effectively barred from entering altogether in that cramped atmosphere.

I refuse to believe there doesn’t exist a solution that could have worked with the pillar layout in Kentia Hall that would give enough walking space for attendees to browse and enjoy the art, but it may have come at a cost too high for AX management to make the call in favor of Artist Alley. And I have to ask: why is that cost too high? What is more important than basic physiological needs?

There were a lot of small changes that made it clear that costs were being cut. Compared to last year, the chairs provided to artists were flimsy and lacked support, while the individual trash bins that AX had provided for years were now replaced by a few communal trash cans that were both sparse and difficult to locate. Tabletop gaming, on the other hand, had comfortable chairs (sometimes in excess) and plenty of roaming space. While I have no intention of attacking the individuals that operate and participate in tabletop gaming, I have to ask: how many people participate in tabletop gaming vs. how many people browse artist alley? If AX doesn’t have estimated numbers that they can put next to these attractions, now might be the time to organize that data and prioritize the way that space and budget is allocated and used, or otherwise limit the participation in each of these events.

I am advocating that one of the solutions that Anime Expo should consider is to cap the participants in Artist Alley so that people can have an enjoyable experience. I understand that there is more demand for artist table space than AX can provide. Perhaps there could be a method of curating the AA content and bring up the quality bar. Perhaps there could be a more efficient autograph ticketing system. Perhaps AX can rent out additional space in nearby hotels. Perhaps there could be improved process for line control. Perhaps AX attendance can be capped. Maybe 4-day badges can be capped to allow more unique individuals to attend. Maybe reduce the number of available tables. 600 AA tables is an overwhelming number of tables on paper and it is even more overwhelming in person. It’s the biggest artist alley in the country, and by a wide margin. Do we really need all those tables? I don’t presume to know how AX operates, but I would like to open the door for conversation. Is the goal to sell as many tables as possible so that AA table costs can operate at a profit for AX? Or is the goal to give attendees the best possible anime-fueled weekend experience?

As a suggestion, I think that Anime Expo’s Artist Alley would benefit from having a dedicated point of contact for pre-con, during con, and after-con issues. I think that this person should be paid a salary so that they are compensated for their time and are incentivized to stay with the organization, and that their full-time job should include coordinating the artist alley and making artists comfortable. All artists should know how to contact this person in case there are concerns or emergencies. Let them be reachable in a variety of methods — Twitter, Facebook, email, and phone — and be the voice for artist alley within the AX management chain. Let this person be active with the artists and gain our trust, and let us know that our voices are not falling upon deaf ears. A lot of us have feedback and concerns but no dedicated, centralized place to send in a way that we can feel safe and feel heard. I have seen that change can happen and AX is listening, but they won’t know how to improve if we can’t let them know how we feel.

I urge the Anime Expo management and convention planning team to take the Artist Alley more seriously as a main attraction. We need comfortable working conditions for the hours that we man our booths. We need adequate promotion and dedicated points of contact. We need a floorplan that accommodates the crowds that you hope to attract. Your staff members need to be aligned on their goals and information so that we can make the convention an enjoyable experience. I know that big overhauls like revamping the Artist Alley layout are hard. Little things can go a long way! Give us chairs that don’t cause back pain. Offer water stands inside Kentia Hall. Place a shared trash can behind every AA island. Give everyone a little bit of a taste of feeling like a VIP and I guarantee that it will pay dividends to improving the atmosphere and enjoyment of the convention. Get the artists involved in marketing or promotion. Give a few artists some guest spotlight. Tell us the attendance numbers you hope to achieve and tell us how bringing our best work will make that happen.

And as much as artists are eager to give AX feedback, I’m eager for AX to give us feedback too. Make it a two-way conversation, and tell us what artists as a group can improve on. There are two sides to every story, and I am genuinely open to advice on what artists can do to make the process less painful for everyone involved.

Artists, when you have issues with the way you are being treated, you need to take action and confront the problem and figure out how to make it better. Don’t just complain to someone who can’t affect change, and then be upset that things didn’t get resolved. Be brave! Find out how you can rectify the situation and then take the proper course of action to fix it. Participate in feedback by taking the time to write your thoughts. But when you submit your complaints, be professional. Do so with the respect that you hope to be treated with. Describe your problems with context, and present the facts before you present your feelings. Be polite. You cannot expect to be treated with respect if you do not respect others. This means reading the alley rules, following them, and not being quick to take everything as a personal attack or finding loopholes to exploit. When you are frustrated, ask why that policy exists and how you can help, and then follow up by executing the actionable items of what you are asked to do. And when things get resolved, go out of your way to thank the people that made it happen.

I urge everyone to send thoughtful feedback to Anime Expo using their official feedback form here: http://www.anime-expo.org/contact/?tab=feedback

Think about what you can do as an individual to improve the convention experience. While it is hard to affect change in other people, much less an organization, initiating self-improvement is actionable and independently achievable.





TL;DR —

Dear Anime Expo, please give artists the respect and consideration that we feel we deserve. We need air and attendees need walking space.

Dear Artists, please encourage respect by being respectful. Change will not happen without action. Be professionals about it.

Dear Attendees, please give your feedback about your convention experience. If you don’t write it and submit it through official channels, you can not expect to be heard.

Dear Everyone Else, please don’t forget to give kudos where credit is due. We are psychologically wired to focus on the negative. Be kind and understanding. Celebrate the good things and endeavor to fix the bad ones. :)

Thanks for reading!

