I didn't look forward to The Birmingham con this year, mainly to the absence of some of my best anime friends (And yes that does mean you Sando and Wayne). However I did go along and had a great time. Now, I didn't actually see any anime over the weekend, I strolled into some of the video rooms a couple of times, but I guess I only saw about 5 minutes of anime in total. The dealers room was a bit disappointing, not overly large and didn't have the selection of AD4.
So what did I do at the convention? Well, mainly talk to people, and not just about anime, but the overlapping subjects of anthropomorphics and computers. The type of people that are in anime are also the type of people into furries, and computers, I guess that this is because they are all part of the "Nintendo generation" and like always it is very nice to meet liked mind people.
The non-video programme was excellent, I never have understood why these aren't better support by bigger audiences, but the few people that do turn up to the panels do enjoy them, and I always learn a lot. The Internet panel was particularly good, and I look forward to meeting some of the new recruits on Furry.Muck.
The hotel was much bigger than previous cons, and this had its good, as well as its bad points. There was plenty of space to find quiet cosy places to sit down and chat to friends, but also it was harder to find people, and the con had less of a friendly feel than AD4. There were quite a few new faces at the con, which helped to balance the lack of old friends.
To sum up I thought it was a good con, which satisfied my con requirements, but that is more to do with people and friends than how the con is organized. However Dave and the rest of the committee all deserve a big pat on the back, for what seemed to be a very well organized smooth running convention.