written by Justin Prince (@prince_justin)

For as long as I’ve been an avid convention goer, I’ve hit Sakura Con in Seattle every year. For my group of friends, it has been our yearly tradition… staying true even now after myself and Riri decided to launch Lifted Geek. We’ve seen the high and the lows, how much this show has grown over the years.

As far as anime conventions go, Sakura con is still the largest and most popular anime convention in the Pacific Northwest area. Though attendance numbers never seem to hit the sheer “sea-of-people” levels of conventions like the recently held Emerald City Comicon and PAX Prime (both shows boast attendance numbers more than triple that of Sakura) it still manages to pack a good amount of fans into the convention center.

Looking at numbers isn’t always the best way to judge a convention, but I feel I need to point out that attendance felt a tad lighter than recent years. I think we can blame that partially on the fact that several other cons around the US were held that very same weekend. Lifted Geek alone had a presence not just at Sakura Con, but also Fan Expo in British Columbia, Anime Matsuri in Texas, and Wonder Con down in Anaheim. With three major conventions vying for fans… and Emerald City Comicon being just a week before… this years Easter weekend was a cup runeth over for geeky cons.