Once again I had made the trip down into Sydney for Day Two (well technically Day Three) of the Animania Festival. Armed once again with the camera and flash, a moderate amount of cash, and a lack of sleep. At least I had good friend sevion to keep me company as we made our way towards Town Hall. So does Sunday turn into a complete flop after the massive crowds of Saturday? Do I get to walk away without blowing anymore of my money? Well hit the jump to check out the Sunday Report. WARNING: Picture intensive post.

Like in previous years, Sunday is always the Calm. This time around I arrived at 10 a.m. rather than getting there early to see that I could just walk in straight away and pay. But like stated before, I paid again $35 for entry price. Personally I think it’s too pricey for a Sunday, and if I knew you can buy a weekend pass, I would’ve. Once inside, there was a small amount of people. Just looking around the stallholders you can tell some are pretty tired from Saturday.

Also since I was pretty tired, I kind of got lazy at the start and didn’t bother taking photos. Instead I decided to relieve myself by doing some shopping! I bought quite a bit this time around but I shall make a separate post of the merchandise that I bought. Though I can say that some people will be surprised by some of the purchases I got.

With it being so dead, why do I bother turning up on the Sunday besides taking photos? For one good reason. Karaoke Finals! Karaoke Finals is the one thing that I enjoy very much as there are quite a number of talented singers out there. Personally I can’t sing so I would never enter the competition.

This year’s karaoke competition was different this year as well, as in they actually had judges for the finals! In the past Animania Festivals, the winner of the Karaoke Finals is based on the reaction of the crowd, which can be really unfair. The judges this year were previous winners of the Karaoke Competition and as an added bonus, they also sung for the crowd.

Normally I would just take photos and sit back and enjoy the show. This year I tried something different, and that is video record the Karaoke Finals. Obviously photography and filming are two different things and I thought it would be nice to give it a try. However I can say that it was immensely hard to do both at the same time. Though I probably pissed a few people off by constantly moving up and down or standing up whilst filming and taking photos. The videos of the Karaoke Finals will go up in another post when I get the chance to edit them.

There are also various events that I also miss out on, especially the panels. This one in particular is the Otaku-dom in Australia. Despite me knowing the people in the panel, it’s something that has always interested me as anime fandom in Australia is growing at a slow rate. Though I only managed to listen to the last 5 minutes of it which is a shame.

Various other events occur on the day as well as shows. Sword Demonstrations was an interesting addition to last year’s Animania and they have brought it back again this year. We have the Sydney Shinbukan Kendo performing right here. I didn’t bother taking too many photos as I wasn’t in the best place to take photos. Just before the Cosplay Competition, they also had the Haruhi Dance Finals. I’m hoping next year we’ll see a Lucky Star Dance competition.

Once the cosplay competition was over, the last show was a dance performance by Dancekool Studio showing us various kinds of dancing to some anime themed songs. It was good, and they even did a bit of Lucky Star dancing but it was more of their only revised version. But with that, the Awards Ceremony and a few announcements to end Animania Sydney 2007.

Impressions

Sunday to me seemed no different to last year. There was really nothing to do for the first 3 hours of the festival that really interested me hence why I got lazy and couldn’t be bothered taking photos. But with a moderate amount of people in attendance for the first few hours made it easier to move around. Not to mention that I can actually see what the vendors have to offer.

Animania as a whole for the entire weekend has improved since last year, but only in certain areas. Most noticeably was the cosplay competition with the introduction of the online registration as well as the filtration process to enter the competition. They weeded out all the cosplays that suck, the skits that didn’t go on forever, and got rid of the stuff that deemed inappropriate. Though I think on the Sunday this process was more lenient as they didn’t expect many cosplayers, but it felt like Sunday’s competition went on longer than Saturday.

An announcement was made about next year’s cosplay competition which I find to be pretty awesome. Animania’s cosplay competition is now going to be an entry into the World Cosplay Summit. Pretty much the winner of Animania’s Cosplay Competition will be sent as the Australian representative and will compete against other countries like Italy, Germany, France, Spain, China, Brazil, Thailand, Singapore and Japan. Something like this is definitely going to be interesting as I think the level of cosplays will increase as there is a huge incentive to enter the competition, and with the new policy, we’ll only see the best.

Though for me this year, only cosplay has shown improvement. There are still areas lacking in Animania such as the ticket price, location, vendors, and the layout of the place. The ticket pricing is still expensive, and Animania is still the most expensive convention in Australia. This is Animania’s third time it is at Town Hall and I think by now the price should be lower, especially for Sunday. With the lower crowd etc, I think the price should be lower for the Sunday as I don’t think it was worth $35 for the entrance price.

Now Town Hall is a prime location to hold an event, but it’s time to move. The lighting inside is just horrible for photographing as in some areas it’s too dark and the use of tungsten lighting isn’t good either. I found that with the use of my flash, due to the dark areas, it either overexposed or underexposed photos. The entrance of paying for tickets was horrible as the tables to register your details was placed in a V shape where we have a bunch of people enter, and it gradually gets smaller. A bit hard to describe without photos but I think the entrance will need to be revised.

However I was surprised by the announcement that this year is Animania’s last year at Town Hall and they are going to a different location. Probably the best decision they made, but this makes me wonder how this will affect a number of things. Will the ticket pricing be cheaper? Will there be space for the large crowds like the Saturday crowd? Will the price for stallholders, artists, clubs be cheaper? That is one major concern for artists as I know that it cost them quite a bit to have a table there. Artists will be lucky to break even of the items they sell to cover the cost of the table itself. But with a new location, the space may be increased, which may also mean a lot more vendors, and a lot more artists.

Still, this year was enjoyable and I was kind of looking forward to this year’s Animania. Probably due to SMASH last month. It was nice to catch up with friends and people of the Internet. Again this year was a learning experience with photography as I had a flash this time and I’m kind of glad I bought the flash beforehand. So with Animania now at a close, we’ll have to wait till next year to see if there are any new changes, and hopefully by next year I’ll have even better equipment to take photos with. But for now, Supanova is in two weeks!.

Also to check out some more photos, Bubby from AnimeSydney took a massive amount of photos. Not to mention he was using WAY better equipment than I was. Check out his collection here.