So it’s no secret that Matsuricon is one of my favorite events and it’s one that is very near and dear to me. This year makes my fifth time attending and more often than not I have an overwhelmingly positive time. This year while I had a ton of fun we did see some unique highs and lows this year that I want to really talk about in detail.

First the guests because wow was it an incredible list. In my experience Matsuricon has never disappointed with it’s list of voice actors and this year is no different. The list was stacked with talented individuals including David Vincent, Chris Hackney, Dorah Fine, Tony Oliver, Brandon Mcinnis, J Michael Tatum and the list goes on. Now normally Matsuricon has it’s own unique take on autograph policies as it used to have a subset of their guests in a special autograph session where attendees could go up and get one free item signed during a one hour time slot. This year they did away with the free autographs sessions and guests signed at their tables most of the weekend. This made it to where guests were more accessible than any of my other visits to this event, but this had some affects on the Platinum VIP passes which I’ll get into shortly.

Next I’ll talk about the panels because things were a little different than what I was used to. In previous years the convention featured a lot of panels based on the popular franchises of their guest list but this year it felt like we got less of that. You did have some panels like a Bluelock panel, but this year what we got were more unique events I don’t see often at conventions. This year featured multiple voiceover panels where you could compete for a chance to win voiceover coaching as guests like Dorah Fine and Tony Oliver judged. Or other panels hosted by various guests going over great voiceover teaching resources and character creation. You also had some unique late night events featuring most of the guests like radio show reenactments and a cabaret performance that literally gave me chills. I thought I would miss seeing a wide variety of the standard group Q&A format panels but I really enjoyed seeing something different and I can say these were some of the most enjoyable panels I’ve attended all year.

Moving onto the vendors Matsuricon has a vendors hall that’s more on the smaller side than a lot of the other conventions but even so you can manage to find some incredible gems within the collective merch to buy. For example I found a Golden Sun pillow and I meant to go back and buy it but I ended up forgetting. If the vendor ends up reading this I still want to buy that pillow so please reach out. Matsuricon also had one of my personal favorite vendors Loading Crew Crafts and more. It’s not an event where you’re going to spend a lot of time shopping but what you’ll find in that length of time you are likely to love and everything is spaced out well enough that I never felt crowded. It’s spaced out to where if there is something there you want to buy you stand a great chance in finding it.

Additionally if you ran into any free time where you didn’t feel like shopping or going to panels you can also play the ribbon game and get ribbons from panels, vendors and other fans. If you’ve followed my reviews you know I love this game. I once again traveled around the event and managed to quite easily collect enough ribbons for my badge doing various things like buying merch, answering trivia questions, rolling a dice (I rolled a one for you D&D fans), and more. I best describe it as video game achievements but for a convention and it’s just as addicting as it’s always been.

Now sadly onto the issues with the VIP pass. Less than a week before the event started platinum pass holders got an email which stated while we were still getting one free personal item as promised with the pass but we were no longer getting a private autograph session. Instead were to line up at the guests individual lines throughout the weekend. Now the reason they couldn’t do this is to uphold contracts to keep guests signing most of the weekend. I get that and I understand it was tough to put it all together but if a perk that has been paid for has to be taken away the wrong move is to just say it’s gone and hope everyone is satisfied. It becomes their responsibility to provide something in its place.

I would have been happy with many alternatives especially a one time use fast pass per person. Instead after a lot of complaining from the pass holders we were told we could use our 30 minute early vendor access on Friday and the guests would be ready to sign autographs. We were also given 15 minutes early access again on Saturday. Not only were the guests not ready till that allotted time was over but we were told so many conflicting details of when and where we should be during that time that attendees and staff were in a constant state of frustration and confusion.

Even with as badly as the private session aspect of the pass was handled I will say it’s still by far the best VIP pass of any event I’ve been to as it quite literally pays for itself with the autographs you can get. I can be very empathetic about disorganization and even failed ideas because that happens but what I don’t like is how a perk was just simply taken away and nothing was done to resolve this until fans complained. This is in my opinion a very big if not one of the biggest mistakes an event could make.

I do want to point out how amazing the staff was. They did not have an easy job this year dealing with the results of an unorganized mess and they were very understanding, kind and really tried their best to resolve any of the confusion even while oftentimes being confused themselves.

Overall I had a really hard time trying to come up with how I want to talk about this event. The panels, guests and vendors were amazing and there was no shortage of fun stuff to do. The platinum VIP pass is still the best pass you can get at any event. Really I shouldn’t have anything bad to say but the convention genuinely thought it was a good idea to just take a massive perk away and do nothing about it. This singular mistake is enough to leave me upset to the point I thought long and hard about attending Matsuricon in the future. Is the event still fun enough that I want to go to it or did that mistake break my trust enough that I don’t want to go again? So here’s where I ended up with that. I do want to consider going back for future years, but I’m also left wanting to see who’s attending and what perks are left before I spend my money, time and effort planning for a future return. The reality is if I’m going to be comfortable spending my money on something the first thing I need is assurance that I will get what I paid for.