London Anime Con Q and A

Written by Ross Locksley on 11 Jul 2013

It's almost time for the London Anime Convention again, this time running from the 20th-21st July. An 18+ event, the con is host to a dazzling array of events, activities and, because it's age restricted, bar-fuelled fun. We speak to Michael Towers, the event organiser, about what's new, what's hot and what he sings at karaoke...

This July’s London Anime Con is said to have a more festival/party vibe – what led to that idea and what can we expect?

This is something we've always wanted to do but have lacked the resources and numbers until now! With Summer round the corner it only makes sense to set the marquees up outside to provide more areas and space!

You can expect more places to chillout, parties until 1am each day, live-music and an all around awesome time!

What’s your personal highlights of the upcoming LAC?

My three highlights are -

1. Our Cosplay Star Guests. A dozen of the best cosplayers across the UK with many accolades to their names. Two of them were on TV the other day; Sean Bonnar as part of The Gadget Show (Was 8 July on Channel 5 as part of a Games of Thrones piece), and AlienQueen (9 July on The One Show BBC1).

2. Namco-Bandai being in attendance with Tales of Xillia available to play a week ahead of the game's official launch. This is part of our Gamers Day event which is raising money for GamesAid and involves a lot of other gaming partners such as GAME, Zen United, Insomnia Festival, Dragons Prophet and so forth.

3. My final highlight is Kitty Brucknel, who stared in the finals of X-Factor last year. She'll be performing, so it'll be exciting to have a celeb of that level involved this time around! Of course we have a fantastic range of live-music throughout the evening on both days as well, so well worth checking out!

Are there any new additions that you’ve wanted for some time?

Definitely!The extra space has allowed us to add a much needed Maid Cafe, provided by Ai My Maid. I'm looking extremely forward to some cake and tea (assuming I can get a break at some point!) We also shall have our gaming expanded with a LAN zone (from fragradio) added, opening up many new gaming possibilities such as League of Legends, Minecraft, Dragons Prophet and many more! The addition of more chillout areas outside has also been sorely needed for some time which should give more space for LACers to grab a drink and have a good time!

Where do you spend most of your time at the LAC? Do you get to enjoy the event, and if so, what’s your first port of call?

I'm usually running around keeping things on track! We manage over 40 voluntary crew (thank you to all of you who help out, you're all awesome btw!) that will be looking after getting on 1,500 attendees this time around, so there will be a lot of co-ordinating involved.

Later on during the evening after about 8pm is a good time to relax a bit. I can be caught in the bar at that point having a couple of drinks and chilling with our crew and regulars – getting to know them is always, to me, my favourite aspect of any con we do.

You have 2 well known voice actors attending this year, Mike Pollock (Dr Eggman, narrator from Pokemon) and David Vincent (Grimmjow from Bleach among others) – how hard were they to get, and (put yourself out on a limb) which one is your favourite and why?

This time around it was surprisingly easy (!). Mike Pollock was introduced to us via our friends over at Summer of Sonic, who were unable to bring him over this year. David Vincent, on the other hand, actually emailed us! He was in the UK anyway as part of his summer holiday, had heard of us and wanted to guest.

Both voice actors have been awesome to work with, very accommodating and friendly, so it's hard to pick between the two. If I had to choose, I'd go with Mike Pollock, solely due to the fact that I'm a massive Sonic fan and having the nearest thing to a real life Dr Eggman at our con is way past cool to me!

You have a Karaoke night – do you partake, and if so what’s your party piece? :)

Only when slightly inebriated (hint hint!) With a sufficient quantity of alcohol donations to the organisers you might well join us in singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody later on!

Thanks for answering our questions – any other items you’d like to bring to our attention?

London Anime Con has always been first and foremost about you, the attendees! At it's heart it's about community. These new additions will encourage that even more, so if you want to make new friends and become a part of something amazing then this con is for you! We look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for talking to us, Mike - if you're going to London Anime Con, why not take some photos and post them on the UKA forum? :)

For more information and tickets, visit www.londonanimecon.com