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Banned From Anime Central, AnimeCon.org Plasters Area With Anime Midwest Ads

Anime Central, one of the oldest Anime cons in the midwest, concluded Sunday afternoon. While the exhibit hall had a fairly long row devoted to other conventions, there was one conspicuously absent: Anime Midwest.

According to people I spoke with, the reasons were quite simple: Ryan Kopf and his company AnimeCon.org/Chrono LC are banned from Anime Central.

I don’t actually know why he’s banned, but I can hazard a guess or two just based off his past professional and personal indiscretions.

Of course, getting banned would never stop Ryan from trying to promote at the biggest Anime con in the region – so in lieu of a table (which other conventions get provided for free by the way), Ryan decided to plaster the area with advertisements, which included a massive digital billboard on the neighboring “Fashion Outlets of Chicago” and at least one bus stop ad next to the event. According to the Digital Billboard, AnimeCon.org had even set up in the Fashion Outlets of Chicago to accept preregistrations. According to several people I talked with, this is the second year he’s done this.

And honestly? This all has me shaking my head.

While it’s true being excluded from the biggest show in the area is a serious hit for Kopf, the amount of expense spent on this campaign surely can’t net enough preregistrations to justify the costs involved. A targeted online campaign would probably produce similar results with a far smaller financial burden.

But hey, if the guy wants to burn his money, I say we let him.

Trae Dorn

Trae Dorn has been staffing conventions for over twenty-five years. They also wrote and drew the now completed webcomic UnCONventional, and produce the podcasts BS-Free Witchcraft, On This Day With Trae, Stormwood & Associates, The Meatgrinder, and The Nerd & Tie Podcast. This leads many to ask how the heck they have the time to get it all done. Trae says they have the time because they “do it all quite poorly.”

2 thoughts on “Banned From Anime Central, AnimeCon.org Plasters Area With Anime Midwest Ads

  • I was wondering why the only Anime Midwest things I saw there were badge holders….and my conspiracy senses are tingling.

    Reply
  • Paul Langland

    I’ve doing some research out of curiosity and I came upon and interesting article about this guy. https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Ryan_Kopf That’s link if you to check it out. It’s just becoming more funny that this guy his making his reputation worse every day. Shoot that little thing list all the stuff he’s practically done in some way or another. Shoot I find it funny that you Trae made it on there. Oh well I’m just hoping this guy disappears soon.

    Reply

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