Hello Iwai-jin!
As you might have noticed, Anime Iwai has not scheduled our usual three day hotel convention in 2022. This is because our former home hotel, the Ft Lauderdale Marriott North, cannot host us as planned- more on that in a minute. The exciting news is that our next full weekend con will be held on Veteran's Day Weekend, 2023. We are expecting to host a Mini Iwai next summer, date to be determined 3 months prior as usual. In the meantime, to introduce our new home hotel to you, we will be holding a one day show we are calling "Taste of Iwai" on November 20th at the Marriott Coral Springs Hotel and Convention Center. There will be exhibitors, costume contest, karaoke, and a few other hours of select programming. Admission will be $5 or free with your pre-registered pass to Anime Iwai 2023: Horizons.
FAQ:
- Why are you leaving the FLL Marriott North?
The hotel is renovating and could not honor our prior agreement to host a 2022 November con there.
- Why don't you get another hotel THIS year?
Our con is up against a perfect storm of opposition to holding a 2022 con elsewhere, to list:
- Coronavirus created a backlog of events such as weddings, reunions, etc, that had to be pushed into the future, which is now. All weekends at all suitable hotels north of Miami in 2022 are taken.
- All hotels are understaffed, and anime cons are staff-intensive events. Given the choice between a 3 hour wedding and a 3 day con that brings the same revenue, we're unattractive.
- Hotel sleep room rates in Florida this year are as crazy as ballroom space rates, and our target hotels don't need us to sell room nights. In most cases they would lose money on our discounted room blocks.
- In the current market, to host a 2022 con on the notice we had (feb-nov), we would have to pay 3-4x our normal price for the venue. We won't raise your ticket prices 3-4x to match.
- Our only viable option for a 2022 weekend con was to move to a Miami venue, but consultations with our partners in the community made it clear that we should serve, first and foremost, our loyal fanbase of otaku in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Our staff is planning for Anime Iwai: Horizons at full speed. We have our first two industry guests signed and will be announcing them shortly. It's still too early for us to provide hotel booking links, we'll post them when Marriott finishes them. We hope to see everyone on November 20th, 2022!
Anime Iwai
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