Embodying the sunshine of its namesake, HizashiCon brought a celebration of anime and Japanese culture to Pensacola, Florida earlier this fall. The convention is organized by the Japan-America Society of Northwest Florida and is an official grant-supported participant of Florida’s Foo Foo Festival, a 12-day celebration of arts and culture. With it came an event that made an incredible use of unexpected spaces; the convention primarily takes place inside of a church, with the spaces and rooms of a convention hall replaced by the tall-ceilinged areas and rooms of a place of worship. Despite being in a space that isn’t too common for most anime conventions, HizashiCon managed to hold multiple panels, a maid cafe, themed meetups, and a cosplay contest successfully with many happy attendees.
My experience with anime conventions has mostly covered the larger ones, often those with more of an industry / professional focus. The latter category includes conventions like Anime NYC and Anime Expo, which bring in hundreds of thousands of attendees and every major player in the industry. I’ve also attended smaller but still large cons that manage to occupy most of a convention center, like Otakon in Washington D.C. or Anime Central in Chicago. Conventions like HizashiCon in comparison are the lesser-known, unsung heroes of the convention world and represent the majority of conventions (by number) across the United States: regional conventions that survive and thrive off of the continued effort and enthusiasm of local fans. While they may not have the same volume of content or guests as say an Anime NYC, they often feature a comparably intimate and warm atmosphere and truly feel run by the same kinds of fans that attend. This isn’t to say that larger or corporate run conventions are bad (both kinds of conventions offer different benefits and experiences), it’s more to note that these smaller conventions have merit and are worth being sure not to overlook.
For HizashiCon specifically, what initially stood out most to me was its funding structure, which leverages grant funding from a Florida-based non-profit. That piqued my curiosity, but the overall potential of the convention got my attention. And sure enough, in attending this year, I feel confident that HizashiCon (only in its second year now) is an excellent model for a means of proliferating local anime conventions across the country and doing so in an open, inviting way.
Arts and Culture Funding Meets Anime
I mention Anime NYC not only as a point of comparison in terms of size, but also funding. Anime NYC (as well as the upcoming Anime Frontier and a number of other conventions) are run by LeftField Media, a division of Clarion Events, Inc. For events in North America, Clarion is backed by Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Much of Clarion’s growth is connected to strategic acquisitions alongside purely organic growth. While this doesn’t mean that every convention / event held by LeftField or Clarion lacks the sort of personal, fan energy that one would like to see at a convention, those conventions are explicitly part of a portfolio, with a responsibility to institutional investors and shareholders. Irrespective of your opinions on the motivations (profit-driven or otherwise) of companies backed by major financial institutions like Blackstone, it’s a fact that companies like LeftField serve as an underpinning that allows for large events to have the sorts of resources they need and for future ones to get access to those resources, especially in the absence of other options.
Comparatively, HizashiCon’s underpinning stems from the grant process for events that take place as part of Foo Foo Fest. Foo Foo Fest started in 2014 when Art, Culture, and Entertainment, Inc. (“ACE”) approached the Escambia, Florida County Commission with the idea of using money from grants and distributing them amongst art and culture organizations in the Pensacola area. ACE is a non-profit organization that receives Federal, State of Florida, Escambia County, City of Pensacola, corporate, foundation, and personal funds and distributes them. It represents a surviving funding mechanism for the arts and culture during a time when the idea of slashing and otherwise defunding the National Endowment for the Arts / Humanities is becoming more and more of a common one. In the wake of federal level cuts to national programs like those, many states have acted to prioritize arts funding and keep many similar programs and non-profits alive across the United States. Florida is one of the many states which increased its appropriations for the arts this year, welcome news especially after the state’s governor’s decision to veto tens of millions of arts funding in 2024.
While state-based arts funding tends to oscillate with the general performance and cycles of the economy, I do think it represents an interesting opportunity for smaller anime conventions. These conventions aren’t, by and large, looking to make large sums of money, or even profit. Rather, they intend to recoup costs associated with their operations and are largely run by volunteers to begin with. I think considering anime conventions as candidates alongside more traditional arts-based events for grant funding is a strong means to ensure up-front funding for events exists. Somewhat ironically, the kinds of arts related funds supporting these grants might end up in the hands of places like Blackstone anyway for investment purposes, but these investments will generally be investments seeking a low risk return, at least one that is comparably low in risk when compared to private equity acquisitions. I think there’s a route here for smaller conventions, at least until they grow to the point of needing more funding than a grant can provide, to not necessarily forgo the corporate route in 100% of instances, but to have another option when it comes to setting up the monetary foundation of the con’s logistics and operations.
All of this is to say, I think it’s a remarkable idea for anime conventions to spring up in states that offer grant funding to arts and culture conventions, and I think HizashiCon and Foo Foo Fest writ large are strong examples of leveraging those grants to create positive cultural and artistic celebrations.
Immersive Panels
But enough of that, HizashiCon programming is worth praising alongside its underlying funding structure. The convention featured three panel rooms in a building alongside the building that housed vendors and much of the other programming. A few of the panels were about interesting topics such as “Yokai and Shinto in Anime” (which I regrettably missed due to a flight delay but that sounded incredibly interesting) while others spotlighted the convention guest voice actors from English anime dubs and video games. Voice acting talent included some incredible guests for a convention of this size: Branden Loera (Heaven Official’s Blessing, BLUE LOCK), Bryson Baugus (Haikyu!!, Danmachi, Gachiakuta), Drew Breedlove (BLUE LOCK, Reign of the Seven Spellblades), Felecia Angelle (My Hero Academia, Genshin Impact), and John Patneaude (Genshin Impact, Yu-Gi-Oh: GO RUSH!).
The two panels I did get a chance to attend (“Voice Actor Q&A Panel (Anime)” and “Voice Actor Q&A Panel (Video Games)”) were both fantastic for a few reasons. What was most noticeable was the overall atmosphere of the panels. Perhaps due to the conventions overall small size, both panels had ample opportunity for every person who wanted to ask the voice actors a questions to do so, with some people getting to ask multiple. The question and answer portion felt less like a rehash of the same sorts of questions you’d hear at other conventions for the umpteenth time; the back-and-forth very much felt like a conversation. At times, the actors on stage would comment on each other’s answers and reveal nice little stories about their time recording or about shared experiences from production. Since multiple of the voice actor guests worked on some of the same anime dubs (BLUE LOCK, for example), attendees were able to get multiple perspectives about a single series from multiple of the voices from it and the actors were able to riff off of each other a bit. Personally, my appreciation for the amount of work and devotion that goes into anime dubbing has increased almost entirely from the time I’ve been able to spend hearing directly from dub voice actors. The amount of passion and care they put into their work, even for shows that might never get mentioned by the majority of people in a given anime season, is palpable and infectious.
For the video game focused panel, the energy and experience was similar but with the opportunity to glean a few of the differences in experience when it comes to voice acting in anime and doing the same in video games, especially massive properties like Genshin Impact. We even got a bit of insight into the process of voicing audio books courtesy of John Patneaude — something I did not expect but appreciated nevertheless.
The only real miss for the panels had to do with queuing — because there wasn’t necessarily a large space to wait for the next event in a room while the current event finished up, sometimes conversations and noise from outside the panel were audible inside. These aren’t the insulated rooms of a convention center after all but rather sections of a church, so I don’t fault HizashiCon very much for there being some noise on the boundaries of panels.
A Lovely Maid Cafe
One thing I was especially intrigued about was the Heartstrings Maid Cafe, which featured a medium-sized space decorated for Halloween and featuring a mixture of drinks and snacks served by maids in maid outfits. I had never been to a maid cafe (or even seen a maid outfit in person before) and my entire understanding of them conceptually came from anime or games that featured them. Thanks to games like Persona 5 and recent episodes of shows like DAN DA DAN, I had at least an image in my head though.
HizashiCon’s maid cafe was nicely done in my opinion but definitely ran into what is arguably a good problem to have: far too many people wanted to get in. There were multiple sessions set up in the overall schedule and the maid cafe had ticketed general and VIP seating. I was able to get in for a seating so it wasn’t immediately clear to me whether the bulk of the people waiting in the line outside the makeshift cafe space were ticketed folks waiting to get in or whether it was people who were not ticketed and wanted to try to get a seat day-of. In either case, it was a very popular event and one I’m sure HizashiCon will need to dedicate more hours, space, and people to next year.
The food and drink items at the cafe mostly consisted of sweet drinks and treats, though there was also a hummus plate option if you wanted to go the vegetables and hummus route instead. Between the 8 or so people at my table, we ordered every item on the menu and everyone seemed satisfied with their choices. Some of the dessert type snacks were apparently a bit sweet for some people’s tastes, so keep that in mind if you’re not someone who is super big on sweets in the future.
Looking Forward to the Future of HizashiCon
There are plenty of aspects to HizashiCon that I didn’t have the chance to experience. The convention featured a J‑Pop, J-Rock, and vocaloid concert, a J-Fashion show, and of course plenty of booths for vendors selling incredible looking art and many of the sorts of trinkets, prints, and collectibles cons are perfect for buying at. It’s also worth noting the con, from my observations and to my knowledge, is entirely family friendly and had some excellent content either for a seasoned anime fan or a complete newcomer. It exhibited one trait that I think is essential when it comes to these sorts of events, and that’s a demonstrable ability to be inclusive of a lot of different kinds of fans, or even those who aren’t fans of anime at all (yet).
Looking toward the future for the convention, I foresee a world where the more traditional convention activity portion of the event, which right now is limited to Saturday, expands to multiple days such as Sunday. Even longer term, I imagine HizashiCon may outgrow the church space it currently takes place in, but, to the Japan-America Society’s credit, they make very good use of the limited space they’re given.
Ultimately, I think HizashiCon is a story of early success, likely growth, and certain potential. I think non-profits being behind anime conventions is a good thing, and I think arts and culture grants including anime conventions as eligible events for funding is an excellent thing. I hope there will be much more HizashiCon for many years to come and that the convention will continue to provide Pensacola residents and those who make the trip over with a wonderful experience.
Disclosure: Anime Corner was provided with covered travel to and from HizashiCon as well as lodging during the convention. Anime Corner was not guaranteed to provide a favorable review of the convention and retains full editorial control over related content.
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