So this is the second of two posts I have for the day and I decided since I’m not far from Knoxville that I would try out Knoxville Anime Day and see what it was like. I was already considering being in the area for ChocolateFest so I thought why not do two events in the same city in the same day, plus admission is just $5 a person. 

So first thing I’ll mention is the vendors. There weren’t many vendors here but it’s also a one day convention with a low admission price so there was no way I would expect a large number of them. With that being said most of the stuff they had to offer honestly wasn’t all that unique. I did find a couple that had items that interested me but overall it didn’t even feel like stuff that was hard to find. Most of the vendors I felt like I’ve seen several times at events like Fanboy Expo or Yama Con anyways which is likely why I wasn’t so impressed here. 

I decided since I wasn’t overly interested in the vendors maybe have some fun and do some grab bags so I got one from three different vendors a snorlax bag, anime bag and a gamer box. The snorlax bag and the anime bag were winners as I got some cool pixel art, cards, a My Hero Academia tumbler and socks. Though the gamer box was a complete and total bust. All of the items were opened so I had to make sure they were all there and there wasn’t much in the box to begin with. It was $20 so it wasn’t a loss I’m going to sweat but at the very least a vendor shouldn’t open the merch before putting it in the grab bags/boxes. I also got a pretty nice acrylic stand of Raphtalia from Rising of the Shield Hero but found apparently the vendor got it on clearance from Gamestop and charged me a little more for it since they left the original price tag on the back that I missed before buying it.

Another problem with the vendors was the crowd. Because it’s such a small event it was very crowded so it was very hard to walk around anywhere. If someone decided to just stand around and talk it bottlenecked the entire pathway. In fact my wife went to go buy something and the vendor had to make people move just so she could walk up to pay. 

The event had panels but it was various Q&A stuff from various animes which seemed cool but I wasn’t overly interested to sit in on any of them. They also had a video game tournament which I decided not to enter because I really didn’t want to stay long enough to wait for the tournament to start. There really wasn’t anything that motivated me to stay all that long.

Overall I did have fun at this event, but not because it was fun. Instead I decided to make a game out of various grab bags and found enjoyment in that. This event is way overcrowded for vendors you can likely find at more enticing events in the same city or nearby and those events have guests to meet. Sure for $5 it’s worth it if it’s a short drive and you don’t already have plans for the day but even a drive that’s barely over an hour like in my case feels too much for what this event has to offer. If I’m going to make this trip again I’m going to do it for events that have more vendors and guests that I can meet in the meantime so this is likely the first and last time you’ll see me at Knoxville Anime Day. I think it’s great for people who live in Knoxville but any further and it’s not worth the time investment.