[Cons] Anime North Comic Market Goes Full Lottery and Pre-Reg Opens!

Well, I've seen quite a bit about this via some folks on Tumblr and other places. Seems as if the format for getting into the artist alley at Anime North is changing in a pretty big way. Gone is the "First come, first serve" model that had been in place for quite a while, now they're going with a full on lottery system for 2014.

Definitely going to be interesting to see how this plays out, but for a lot of people the lottery was already a part of things in the grand scheme. In the past only the first 50 e-mails received were guaranteed entry, then came a lottery for the next 50 and then there was a waiting list after that. So, unless you were super quick with that e-mail at the stroke of midnight, the lottery was already part of life.

Here's the changes as per the Anime North website:

• Applications will be a FULL LOTTERY.
• We will only be accepting completed/finished art work for artist’s work samples.
• The sales of prints, keychains, and such merchandises as collaborations will only be permitted when both artists are registered to the Artist Tables. However, there is an exception for fanzines, doujinshi, artbooks, etc.

UPDATE: The full rundown is up on the Anime North website for those needing to know!

Shot of Artist Alley from last year's Anime North

More info will be coming out in the next couple of weeks, but overall this does seem like it will even the playing field a bit and makes things a bit more fair overall for everyone. Sure, some people will likely feel a bit slighted or hate the idea, but in the long run this could bring in a more varied and unique line up of artists. Which, is never a bad thing!

I know that it works for Anthrocon and several other conventions and I have little doubt that the folks at Anime North will make this work, even if there's a few bumps along the way. Should be interesting to see just how pans out, that's for sure.

Also for those interested in attending Anime North in a regular capacity, pre-reg is now open and as always there are limits! The event has grown so much over the years that they have instituted attendance caps so that they can stay in their current location(s). The cap this year is set at 20,000 people. Only 15,000 weekend/group badges are available then only 5,000 "day of" badges for each day. So, if ya don't want to miss out...may wanna get in early!

For more info about Anime North you can check out our review of last year's event or just head over to the official Anime North website. We're looking forward to covering this year's Anime North once again, so stay tuned for more info and updates as the info rolls out!

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