>>10953770
>Animecon lost half their visitors, is slowly falling to irrelevancy and going through severe financial problems (again)
Correction, they were not halved. I mixed up total and unique numbers. No numbers have been released yet for the 2025 edition. But what we did get was the chairman explaining on stage that there were far fewer visitors this year and blaming the overlapping date with Comic Con Holland. This was also when the financial problems were shared with a heartfelt plea for donations. But pointing fingers at CCH is easy. Fact is their visitor numbers have been in decline ever since the move to the Broodfabriek.

The way I see it, Animecon has lost their identity and is struggling to regain themselves and their audience. During the World Forum days, Animecon (rightfully) established a reputation of being a rock-solid, high quality convention. Expensive, but worth every penny. With Ahoy in 2019, an attempt was made to become a hybrid between the old “Dutch style” and the Comic Con experience was becoming more popular among newer crowds. Risky, but understandable as change is required in order to remain relevant. Unfortunately Ahoy did not meet its targets, Animecon Classic was a “more luxury and more classy” flop and to make matters worse covid happened.

The 2022 Broodfabriek edition continued the hybrid path but was stripped of most content as money was tight. But the result was a convention which felt like a TomoCon XL and not the high quality convention Animecon was known for. 2023 was slightly better in terms of content but killed off C4 and in 2024 they truly figured the optimal use of the location. But one thing remained the same, it never got back to feeling like the good old Animecon we grew to love. The hybrid approach is simply not working as regulars are feeling alienated and people used to Comic Cons don’t see why (day)tickets are more expensive compared to DCC or CCH.

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