Hello, Nebraska! For years, five or more of our top staff have been natives of Omaha, Nebraska, traveling across the country to all of our conventions. And yet, we still hadn’t organized a convention in their hometown. We’re proud to announce that changes today.
We’re happy to announce Kanpai!Con will be taking place this February in Omaha!
Held at the Ramada Plaza Omaha and Coco Key Water Resort, this convention offers three full days of fun and cosplay, hanging out with your friends and making new ones in a beautiful, iconic Omaha location.
The convention will feature several of AnimeCon.org’s signature event, including our Formal Fantasy Ball and Date Auction on Friday evening, video gaming tournaments scheduled throughout the weekend, and our masquerade on Saturday.
Kanpai!Con, whose name comes from the word “Kanpai!” used as a way of saying “Cheers!” in Japan, is meant to be a fun, relaxed experience similar to our other conventions in midsized convention hotels, like Anime-ZAP! and Anime-zing! As we grow, we expect to add a full Maid Cafe and ConSweet.
Our first two guests, Greg Ayres and Paul St. Peter, will be joining us for a wonderful weekend filled with unique panels. Keep an eye on our website for future guest announcements!
I have a few dozen friends of my own in Nebraska from years of attending other local conventions, and I’m very happy to be able to see them at an AnimeCon.org convention. Our metrics also show that more than 80% of attendees come from the state in which the con is held. As cons continue becoming more accessible to more people, we’re very happy to bring a convention to our Nebraska friends.
Other Cons: We’re happy to invite every other convention local to Omaha to have an ad in our program guide free of charge, subject to availability – first come, first served!. We are always happy to promote other nerdy and anime centric events.
Occasionally, attendees will think that new conventions are in competition with old ones – in my opinion, nothing should be further from the truth. As we at AnimeCon.org spend money advertising online and offline, with banner ads, transit posters, and more, we raise the profile of Anime & Nerdiness in the community – bringing in fans who may have never otherwise attended a convention. Having multiple conventions in town generally just makes the largest convention even larger. If you’re worried that adding a new convention may take away from a bigger, more established convention, your worry is for naught. In fact, the opposite is quite likely to happen as the growing local convention scene draws more people to the community and increases everybody’s attendance!
Sometimes as we start a new con, people might be worried that our dates will be too close to another anime con. That’s why we choose February. While there’s always a small risk of snow, we’re expecting a nice, clear weekend!
Hotel rooms are just $104 per night this year, so you’re encouraged to stay the night with us!
Note: Hotel rooms this year don’t include waterpark tickets (they are available at a discount for our attendees) – the venue requires a convention to have at least 1,000 people guaranteed attending to include complimentary waterpark tickets with hotel rooms. In a future year, we’ll get them included!
As always, we encourage you to attend every other con in the area! Conventions are like Pringles – you should never stop with just one.
We look forward to seeing you in Nebraska!