The Exhibit Hall (dealers' room) was the place to be on Friday, the first day of the con. That day, every dealer had all their merchandise up and ready to be sold. When I arrived at the con, I headed straight for the dealers' room. There was a long line waiting for it to open, but I wasn't surprised —that's the way it always is.

Friday was fun, though, once I got past the line. That night, of course, they neutered the place. . . When I found out about this, I was mad. Extremely mad. Sure, hentai is not my favorite genre, but it's still part of the anime category. Also, Himeya Soft and Doki Media, both of whom had to leave, have been dealers at this con as long as I've been attending. I remembered reading that AX and the SPJA had sole control over the convention, which conflicted with all the stories I heard about this incident. The otaku generation of course blamed Disney for all of this. I admit, I still do blame disney. No problems ever arose in past conventions about this and minors have attended many past cons. So I wonder, if Disney is to blame for all this. Is this all a coincidence, that the con is held at Disney and problems arise? I think not.

On the brighter side, the exhibit hall was still one of the biggest events of the con. The big name companies such as ADV, Pioneer, Bandai, etc. all had huge booths. The most noteable was the Bandai Entertainment booth. They didn't sell any merchandise but they had previews of all their upcoming releases as well as a Gundam game for the Dreamcast and another game for the playstation. The best thing they did was to have contests (as far as i can tell, whoever could yell the loudest won,) and they gave out original cels and t-shirts. I, sad to say, was not part of that mob. While everyone was trying to get free stuff, I went off to look for the X LD Box Set, and found it. ^_^ ADV also had an amazing booth. Under their logo was a TV showing some episodes of Evangelion and other series they distribute. Behind the TV, amazingly, there was a private meeting room for the executives of ADV. Pioneer also had an intersting booth. They had wallscrolls up for just about every series they have the rights to, not ordinary wallscrolls, but the thousand-dollar floor-to-ceiling monsters. What caught my attention at this booth was what they had behind the glass. A Lain lunchbox, holding the Lain DVD Box Set. Manga Entertainment did not have a stunning booth, which disappointed me. But all of the X posters certainly caught my attention ^___^. Of course, I bought one for myself.

The exhibit hall went strong for all four days. When it came time to close out, the dealers started to give out free posters and other wonderful stuff, since they didn't want to carry it back with them on their trip home. This year's hall was not as great as some of the past. I personally liked the Anahiem Convention Center as exhibit hall. I was looking forward to seeing Animenation.com at the hall since I read they registered to sell. I wanted to yell at them for not giving me an artbook I ordered months ago, but they apparently decided to hide from me. Cowards. ^_^

And I can always look forward to future halls. . .

note from the editor :

the initial version of this article was written before i had a chance to spread the facts regarding the con's. . . bizarre adventure. at the time, every attendee, every staffer, had a different and conflicting version of events. the speculations i cut out of the article are posted here, the beginnings of a Disney rumors page.