The Vancouver, British Columbia summer anime convention, Anime Evolution, sent a message out yesterday that it would be postponed due to a scheduling conflict with a teacher's orientation at the usual yearly venue of Simon Fraser University:
With our sincere apologies, we regret to inform you that the Anime Evolution Convention scheduled for Aug 22 – 24 has been postponed.
The Convention has been postponed due to a conflict with an SFU event as such we are unable to proceed with our event, at our current venue on our scheduled dates.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We intend to reschedule the Anime Evolution Convention to a later date; at which time we will update you with full details, when they become available.
We appreciate your patience during this time.
(Message from Anime Evolution's convention forum)
Needless to say, the forums are alight with angry convention-goers right now considering this is only a month before the scheduled convention dates. As a summer convention in the later end of August, this is basically the last weekend before younger attendees have to start getting back into school-mode. Others may or may not be able to reschedule time off of work for any upcoming changes. Of most concern, however, are out-of-town guests with booked buses, trains, and flights among other things. Naturally, the same is also true of anyone with a hotel booked.
Being the end of summer, any date change would conflict with the following weekend's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington and Kumoricon in Portland, Oregon. That said, the usual American visitors to the Vancouver convention are especially caught in a tight spot.
It sucks. It really does. While it feels that Simon Fraser University should have been able to catch such a massive scheduling conflict sooner, the reality remains: this convention's venue is a school, not a convention centre; academic matters will always take precedence. But, if there's one thing I've ever learned from working three years in retail, sitting around telling each other about how upset you are isn't going to change things no matter how (apparently) soothing it feels.
At present the Anime Evolution staff are working overtime to find a new venue, possibly on the same date to still allow as many people affected by the newest turn of events to still come to the convention. Time will tell to see what comes of this.
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The important thing to take out of this is that this is neither the first time a convention has suffered a postponement, or sudden change in date or venue nor is it going to be the last. These things are very much a reality with conventions, especially relatively young ones still growing and developing (Anime Evolution in its present form is only seven years old this year). We'll definitely have to see how this pans out in the long run.
We're all hoping for the best. And, with luck, Anime Evolution can only grow more from here.
