AnimeCon.org’s Anime Midwest has been held every July for the last half decade, and since 2013 has been held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. Their 2016 convention, scheduled for July 8-10 continues this tradition.

…but this time they won’t be alone.

In a bizarre coincidence, this year Anime Midwest will end up sharing the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center with the Exxxotica Expo, a touring convention for “Adult Entertainment.” Exxxotica bills itself as “the Largest Adult Event in the USA Dedicated to Love & Sex.”

While Anime Midwest’s management (I’m just guessing) probably wants to distance themselves from Exxxotica publicly, Exxxotica management has embraced the proximity between events. Apparently, anyone with an Anime Midwest badge is being offered discounted admission to the porn expo and is planning “adult anime” events including a cosplay contest and “sexy anime seminars.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

This is… probably terrible? Pretty sure this is terrible. Frankly, many anime convention attendees are under the age of 18, and the idea that these underage attendees are going to be in immediate proximity of this kind of event doesn’t really do anyone any good. There are a list of bad things that could happen from the merely uncomfortable to the dangerous that are racing through my head.

I want to be clear that this is patently not Anime Midwest’s fault. It’s not a big enough event to rent the entirety of the Stephens Convention Center (which also is the home to the much larger Anime Central), and they cannot control what the owners of the site do with the space they don’t have under contract. We’re not huge fans of AnimeCon.org around here (for both obvious and not so obvious reasons), but honest to god there is no way they could have seen this coming.

And it’s kind of amazing.

Update 5/12: Anime Midwest organizer Ryan Kopf has released an official statement about the situation.