Anime Boston and PAX East overlap?!

I’ve only been to one anime convention in my life: Zenkaikon, located in the greater Philadelphia area. It’s not that big– 2011’s attendance was a mere 3,422 paid attendees.

Still, when I was there, it was a total

All the photos are ones I took from Zenkaikon 2011! Can you find me in the background?

I crave greater nerd-fests. Since I’m going to be living in Boston, I naturally would like to go to the two huge conventions there: Anime Boston and PAX East (PAX standing for Penny Arcade Expo). Anime Boston, as you’d expect, is a convention themed around Japanese manga and anime. Last year hosted nearly 20,000 paid attendees. PAX East is the East-coast version of the original PAX (held in Seattle) that celebrates gaming culture. Founded by webcomic giants Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (the author-writer team of the popular comic Penny Arcade) PAX East drew a whopping 69,500 guests– and let me tell you, this is huge.

Anime Boston 2012 was scheduled first. I regularly checked the webpage just to be sure I could go. It’s going to be

But then… but then…

Two huge conventions in the same city, on the same day. Worst timing ever? I think so. There’s already been much consternation on gaming blogs and forums. PAX East has the potential to draw away attendees of Anime Boston, as many comic fans also love games, and vice versa. This could be bad for Anime Boston– as a non-profit convention, Anime Boston is funded solely by the registration fees it collects each year. There will be those who buy tickets to both, of course, but not everyone (me) can afford all that for one weekend.

So it could be a problem. Maybe there’s hope– Anime Boston and PAX East have made a deal to “work together in some fashion” (???) Which is good, since the two conventions have the potential to attract over 100,000 nerds, Boston’s gonna get crazy that weekend.

As for which one I plan to attend?

Wow, this drawing is bad enough to become an internet meme. Apologies, forshortening is obviously not my thing.

I’ve always been more of a comic geek than a gamer chick (first-person-shooters, sadly, are not part of my skill set) and PAX East is guaranteed to be in Boston for 2013, so I’ll get another chance. If there’s overlap again in 2013, I’ll try to get into PAX. Hopefully, though, I won’t have to make that choice.