Made In Asia 2015
A new year has started for the anime events in Belgium and the first convention is Made In Asia. This event has really grown and a lot of people like and attend it. The question rises if the organisation learned from previous remarks and if the foreseen space could hold the mass.
When entering the convention area, it became clear that the layout of the event was the same as last year. You had a few ticket booths and a line when you already had a ticket. You had to know beforehand which way you had to go, since it wasn’t easy to get from one line to the other one.
Made In Asia had three halls to offer. The first one was the main hall and the way to enter the event. This area was filled with shops and Japanese related activities. The second hall was a gaming area, while the third one was dedicated to some fun things to do and some food stands. We’ll take you on a tour through the several halls.
The shopping hall was packed with shops that had several things to offer. It has to be said, the products were more diverse but there were a lot of artists that wanted a place on the event. Since a lot of them were painters or drawers, the stands with posters or other related items boomed a lot. A really big remark is that there wasn’t enough room for all the attendants. The walking areas between the shops wasn’t big enough so you had long queues. This means you could take a few steps and then you stood still for a while. This was even worse at the intersections, where you really had to push people aside to get through. At the end of the hall was a Japanese section with some places for workshops and this area was a bit more roomy. The lack of room was something that already was an issue last year and it is a shame that the organisation didn’t keep this in mind. There was another option that might have been used, but more about that later.
The second hall was filled with gaming stands and a few game-related shops. You could try several games, like the new Final Fantasy Type-0 HD or some indie games. If you’d rather watch instead of play a game, there were live matches of League of Legends. Pokémon fans could trade and battle at the designated area, while the boardgame lovers could play Krosmaster Arena . The whole hall was still crowded but felt a lot more spacious.
If you wanted to get some authentic food, you could visit the third hall … if you had a lot of time. There was only one stand in that entire area that served a hot Japanese meal and the waiting line was huge. If you didn’t want to wait that long, you could visit another stand but they only had selected types of food like overpriced sushi and Aïki noodles. The Brussels expo itself has some restaurants but they were packed as well. It was a shame that the ‘food’ hall, that should have been designated for food, only had two real stands. One half of the hall was used for some fun activities, like trampoline jumping, while the other half was almost completely empty (except for the two food stands and the waiting line). There were some picknick tables, but the positioning could have been better, giving more people the chance to actually sit somewhere. This was also a possibility to solve the overcrowding in the shopping hall. If the Japanese section was transferred to the third hall, the shop area could have been more spacious.
This might sound negative, but these are some remarks that aren’t getting solved. The rest of the event is great though, especially the cosplayers were superb. There were a lot of them that attended the convention. The organisation foresaw a special, more remote area to show off their costumes and moves. If you didn’t have a map of the halls, it was hard to find it. This means that the cosplayers had a bit of peace, but they couldn’t show their creations to the big public unless they faced the big mass.
Made In Asia invited several famous people and gave you the opportunity to get an autograph. The waiting lines weren’t that long at certain times so you could enjoy the rest of the event as well.
As a last anecdote I want to mention the posters that were displayed at certain places, namely that touching other people’s private parts is a crime. It seems that there were some incidents and the organisation wanted to do something about it. Just so you are informed.
No Comments