Pacific Media Expo is perhaps my favorite local Asian pop culture convention of it's size and scope. Despite its small size, taking place at the LAX Hilton, this event has everything all tried up in one sweet package. One may argue that there's hardly anything to do at Pacific Media Expo. I digress. There was plenty to explore and plenty of opportunities for fun and games. You just gotta look around the corner.
As always, the karaoke room is one of my favorite parts of the event. I was able to sing a few pop ballads with a lively crowd. You never know who is going to sing what next. The highlight of the night was Deb, originally going to sing a love ballad, singing "I Will Survive" because the karaoke machine inputed the wrong number. The whole house was on fire. Saturday night in the karaoke room is always party, and there's not much of a wait to sing. Western songs are available, and it seemed like top 40 songs were quite popular; like this cover of "Hanging by a Moment" by Jonathan Meza (Anime TV).
I also admire Pacific Media Expo's ability to get guests that cut across the board. While we were not able to get designers from Angelic Pretty and Innocent World from previous years, we were able to get a local designer, Doll Delight to showcase and talk about her work. Indie lolita brands are making waves in the US. I also liked the variety of goods in the artist alley and dealer's hall. I found more interesting things in the artist alley such as lolita jewelry and accessories and hand made soaps themed after various anime.
Pacific Media Expo also has programming that appeals to fans of anything Asian pop culture. Anime and cosplay are huge in this respect. PMX often times is written as an anime convention because of the many anime and video game cosplayers that are often stopped in the lobby for photos. It is a nice place for photos and meeting new people. However, I do like being at an event where I can rock Alice and the Pirates and Angelic Pretty and meet like minded lolita fashionistas. I also had the pleasure of meeting MYX TV's marketing crew. With the addition of the Allegiance creative team, it was nice to see Asian American artists having a presence at Pacific Media Expo.
The only issue I had with Pacific Media Expo was not allowing much time for set up for our WoWoWTF panel. We had video issues that had to be resolved for the panel. Set up ate up too much of our panel time. The previous panel also required tear down and clean up before our panel could even start, which also ate into our panel time. Otherwise, the other panels we ran went pretty smooth. We are happy to report that Moon Prism Poptarts, History of Lupin III, Convention War Stories, and WoWoWTF all had a decent turnout.
The other issue I had with PMX was the space for certain panels and events, particularly the Ladies of Tenchi Muyo panel. The room was air tight. Whomever thought this was a good idea to place in a small panel room is dead wrong. This panel should have had a larger space, even if they had to combine panel rooms 2 and 3. The same also applies to the Richard Epcar Roast. The room was pretty crowded and people were having a tough time finding seats. I know I had a tough time finding a place to film the roast.
Despite minor flaws, it clearly shows that the the PMX staff is there to make an awesome event and not alienate fans. Old school anime fans can appreciate Richard Epcar and old school mecha anime. New fans have the dealer's room to score the latest plushies and dvds. J-fashionistas have Atlier Pierrot and H.Naoto to surrender their wallets to. I am very glad that this convention knows their audience and what can make people come back for more. Shoutouts to Paula, Todd, the programming crew, and everyone who has made Pacific Media Expo possible. Many thanks to our press team for gaining as much ground as we did at Pacific Media Expo. Special shoutout to Fremen for taking photos of my Sailor Pluto cosplay on Saturday. Everyone we encountered made this weekend awesome.
I reccomend this event to anyone who is a fan of Asian pop culture. There's plenty of things to check out and expore. This is also a great con if you're on a budget since this is one of the few coventions that has a food truck on the premesis. Otherwise, if you are just looking for like minded people in your hobbies - doll collecting, martial arts, cosplay, etc - this is the place to go. If you are a veteran of anime conventions, check it out for a day if there's a guest you want to meet. I have always admired PMX's ability to get high profiled guests that can make everyone happy. Otherwise, PMX is one of our last events of the year. See you at Bent Con!
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