Sakura-Con is an annual three-day anime convention

Anime convention

An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels...

 held during March or April at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center

Washington State Convention and Trade Center

The Washington State Convention Center is a convention center located next to and over Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle, Washington, adjacent to Freeway Park. Planning for its construction began in 1982; construction began in 1985, and the center opened on June 18, 1988. An expansion that doubled...

 in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

.

Programming

The convention features a wide array of activities and programming such as: industry guests, various discussion panels, and anime screenings. It also sports a large and lively Exhibitor's hall where one can buy many things related to anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 or Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Various contests are hosted, including anime music video

Anime music video

An anime music video is a music video consisting of clips from one or more animations set to an audio track ; the term usually refers to fan-made unofficial videos. An AMV can also be a set of video game footage put together with music which is known as a GMV...

, cosplay

Cosplay

, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction...

, fan fiction

Fan fiction

Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...

, and karaoke

Karaoke

is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...

 contests, as well as a fashion show. The event hosts multiple J-Pop

J-pop

, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music, such as The Beatles, and replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene...

 concerts featuring popular groups such as The Slants

The Slants

The Slants are the first Asian American dance rock band in the world. The band was founded by Simon Young in 2006 in Portland, Oregon. Often compared with 80’s synth-pop bands such as Depeche Mode, New Order, and Joy Division, as well as modern acts such as The Killers and The Bravery, the band...

. An art show and auction as well as a charity auction benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation

Make-A-Wish Foundation

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501 non-profit organization founded in the United States that grants wishes to children who have life-threatening medical conditions. The charity now operates in forty-seven countries around the world through thirty-six affiliate offices.The president & CEO of this...

 are also hosted. A variety of gaming rooms provide console/video

Console game

A console game is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment. The game consists of manipulable images generated by a video game console, and displayed on a television or similar audio-video system. The game itself is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld device connected...

, PC/LAN

LAN party

A LAN party is a temporary, sometimes spontaneous, gathering of people with computers, between which they establish a local area network , primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer computer games. The size of these networks may vary from the very small to very large installations...

, CCG

Collectible card game

thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...

, RPG

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

, and tabletop

Tabletop game

Tabletop game is a general term used to refer to board games, card games, dice games, miniatures wargames, tile-based games and other games that are normally played on a table or other flat surface...

 gaming. Cosplay is an integral part of Sakura-Con.

History

Sakura-Con's roots are from within the local science fiction convention

Science fiction convention

Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies and...

 community. A number of anime fans who had decided that there was not enough anime content represented at conventions such as Norwescon

Norwescon

Norwescon is one of the largest regional science fiction and fantasy conventions in the United States. Located in the Seattle area of Washington state, Norwescon has been running continuously since 1978...

, hatched the plan for an anime convention in a Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

 anime video rental store.

Originally named Baka!-Con, (baka or ばか is Japanese for idiot,) the first convention was held at the Double Tree Inn in Tukwila, Washington

Tukwila, Washington

Tukwila is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The northern edge of Tukwila borders the city of Seattle. The population was 19,107 at the 2010 census.-History:...

 in 1998. In 2000, Baka!-Con changed its name to Sakura-Con, (sakura

Sakura

A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese Cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is sometimes called sakura after the Japanese . Many of the varieties that have been cultivated for ornamental use do not produce fruit...

or 桜 (alternately: さくら) is Japanese for cherry blossom).

Sakura-Con's rapid growth prompted a search for larger venues. In 2004 and 2005 Sakura-Con had to limit its attendance to 5,100. Even with the attendance cap, Sakura-Con was ranked the eighth largest anime convention in North America in 2004 by paid attendance figures, and tenth in 2005. When Sakura-Con moved to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington in 2006, it roughly tripled its capacity for attendees.

Since its beginning, starting with 313 anime fans, Sakura-Con has grown to be much more than a local event. In 2006, only about half the attendees were from the area.

Event history

Dates	Location	Attendance	Guests

Organizational structure

The Asia-Northwest Cultural Education Association (ANCEA) is a non-profit organization organized for charitable and educational purposes specifically for furthering the understanding of Asian culture through the use of traditional and contemporary media.

ANCEA is the organization that presents Sakura-Con. Originally a separate board of directors that provided oversight to the Sakura-Con Executive Board, the membership voted on July 30, 2006 to merge the ANCEA and Sakura-Con boards into a single entity. In this structure, the Chair of Sakura-Con is the President of ANCEA.

External links

• Sakura-Con official website
• Sakura-Con Twitter official twitter