Geek Babble- Sabotencon 2022

 

When it comes to convention schedule conflicts, Memorial Day weekend takes the cake, with at least 4 major conventions taking place on the exact same weekend.  However, Labor Day weekend is not far behind, with 2 or 3 conventions taking place at the exact same time.  This year, like last year, my choices included Denver’s Nan Desu Kan, Phoenix’s Sabotencon, along with Dallas’s A-Fest, and I chose the second of the three options.  Now, all 3 of these conventions are midsize conventions, though Sabotencon claims to be the largest, with the website claiming 23,000 attendees in 2021 (though Wikipedia claims about 12,000 or so attendees in 2018, the last year for which data was available).

 

So, first impressions on Sabotencon were from its flashy website, with vivid photos and exciting announcements about various guests who were going to be attending the convention.  However, when it comes to practical matters about the convention, such as policies, legal matters, and events, information was either difficult to find if not nonexistent.  Oh, and forget about maps, and good luck contacting the convention itself if you have any complaints or questions, as there was only one email address to send inquiries to.  Now, I had sent two emails to said email address to inquire about a panel I had submitted, only to have no response whatsoever.  Panel submissions were also approved in an incremental manner rather than all at once, and I received neither a notification of acceptance or rejection.  At least booking a hotel room was relatively easy, and the rates were very reasonable, at $132 per night for the venue in the downtown area.  However, it wasn’t until I had landed at Phoenix Airport that I realized why:  early September was still low season, with temperatures in the mid-100s Fahrenheit.

 

Now, Sabotencon has addressed this by having their entire convention located inside the hotel, a very large Sheraton which was only a few blocks north of the city’s one and only light rail line which thankfully had a direct connection to the airport.  While badge pickup began on Thursday evening, one portion of the website indicated that badge pickup would start at 7:00 PM, another section on the website indicated that it would start at 4:00 PM, which turned out to be the case.  However, for some reason, staff members decided to route the line of waiting guests outside of the building, even though the lobby was very much empty.  No matter, at least the line moved fast, but there were few if any events taking place on Thursday evening, as the exhibitor hall and panel programming did not start until Friday.

 

Things gradually ramped up during the late morning and afternoon on Friday, with events such as panels, guest meet-and-greets, the photography booth, and the exhibitor’s hall starting between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM.  Now, several things I found odd were the complete lack of group photoshoots, in addition to the enormous emphasis on guests, many of whom had booths set up outside of the exhibitor hall.  Even stranger than that was the actual exhibitor hall itself, a largeish room which was used to house both the dealers room and artists alley.  For some strange reason, Sabotencon has chosen to dedicate 80% of the exhibitor hall to the artists alley and the remaining 20% to the dealers room.  Now, many of the artists who had booths at the convention were regional artists who I had not seen before, and there was a distinct focus on crafts along with traditional instead of digital art styles.  It was refreshing to say the least, though despite a large variety of items for sale in the dealers room section of the exhibitor hall, Sabotencon is perhaps not the con to attend if you are looking for a specific item from the dealers room.  In addition to the exhibitor hall, there were other “artist-like” booths in a hallway outside, and on a few nights, there was another hallway dedicated to a flea market, where attendees could attempt to sell their own fandom-related belongings to other attendees.

 

Now, as for panels themselves, it’s a strange mix, with large amounts of emphasis on panels hosted by guests and cosplay-related panels.  There were also many general-fandom related topics, game-show style panels, and video-game related panels, but when it comes to panels about specific anime, analysis on anime, or industry panels, Sabotencon falls a bit short.  Furthermore, of the panels I had attended, many of them were held in rooms where they were occupied to no more than 20 percent of capacity, with the exception of the “How 4Kids Ruined Anime” panel.  However, one thing that makes the convention stand out is that instead of the convention ending on Sunday, Sabotencon continues into Labor Day on Monday, with panels taking place and the exhibitor hall also being open well into the afternoon.  But here’s the thing:  many Sabotencon attendees had opted to just integrate the convention into their existing weekend plans, and as a result would just attend the convention only whenever they had free time or for the days in which they wanted to rather than block out their entire weekend for the convention.  In fact, I myself had done the same thing and also did some sightseeing and other events outside of the convention.  There was only so much that interested myself at Sabotencon and it did not take long to walk around the venue space.  Despite the presence of several restaurants at the Sheraton along with a nearby small shopping center, there were much better food options just a short 15 to 20 minute walk away, despite the heat discouraging walking outside.

 

So in the end, where does this leave Sabotencon?  Well, it’s a bit hard to say.  It’s perhaps best described as a good starter convention, not too overwhelming for those who have just started getting into conventions or anime itself, since it sure did not feel like a 23,000-person convention.  But otherwise, while it is an average convention, it is not one where a lot of effort should be put into going out of the way for to attend it.  Even if one was only able to attend for a portion of it, that would still be fine, and it seems that many of the attendees treat it as such.  The attendees were friendly overall, the staff were helpful and cordial, the venue easy to navigate, and it was relatively inexpensive.  But after experiencing all that the convention has to offer, it still had areas that fell short.  The organization and communication to attendees about policies and information was loose, the dealers room was too small, there were no photoshoots, and the panel selection was a strange mishmash with no overarching theme other than a slight emphasis on cosplay.  Sabotencon did not seem like a convention that was worth traveling long distances for and what made the trip much more enjoyable was also being able to do other things outside the convention.  It’s a good regional, low-commitment convention, but would I attend again?  Probably not.