It is with a heavy heart that I express disappointment in the panel selection this year. Now overall Otakon is still Otakon. When you have a convention with panels from the like of AWO, Mike Toole, Charles Dunbar, Geoff Tebbets, and Viga you’re already ahead of 95% of the conventions. The great thing about Otakon has always been that there were almost always nothing but great panels outside of even the usual suspects. You occasionally found some stinkers or mediocre panels but more often than not the reasons you would not like a panel was a matter of personal preference as opposed to objective objections. This year I felt there was still a very good selection of panels but the ratio to panels that were up to Otakon’s normal standards as opposed to under-performing panels was not as disparate as it has been in previous years.

In a year where Otakon was a little underwhelming, it only added to that feeling especially considering how much of a highlight fan panels usually are for me. Now considering the fact that most people only go to two or three fan panels in any given year it was not that hard to just pick winners and have a great time but as someone who spends so much of my time in panels, it was a depressing way to bid farewell to Baltimore.

DISCLAIMER: For full disclosure, I  did submit several panels to Otakon this year and all of them were turned down. I don’t think that I am so petty as to be overly critical of the panels this year because of that but we are rarely aware of our own basis.

 I went to a couple of panels over the weekend that had been waitlisted and then added onto the schedule just a few days ahead of the convention. The times this was mentioned by panelists it was an excuse for being less than prepared. That is not really OK. If you are on a waitlist in this situation, you are supposed to be ready with it. That’s what it means. If you weren’t ready, then you should have simply declined and Otakon would have moved on to someone else on their waitlist.

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