Uh-oh. The con I help run is creeping towards the upper limit of the carrying capacity of its facilities, the Baltimore Convention Center. That news item about Anime Expo, our largest national competitor, suddenly ballooning up over 25,000, is a worrying indication that we might see similar numbers. The fire code limitations on the BCC is, max, 25,000. Now, AX always has better guests and industry support, so maybe we'll get lucky and not see quite such a crowd. The prereg numbers - about 10,000 - suggested that we *won't* see such an increase.

Some folks were convinced that the L'Arc en Ciel concert would bring in great droves of J-Pop fans. I somehow doubt this, but then, I had thought that there would be crickets chirping at last year's TM Revolution concert, so what the hell do I know?

All I know is that I'm registration, which means I'm on the front lines if we get bowled over with an unexpectedly large crowd. Admittedly, I'm *night* registration, which means except for helping on Thursday night, I'm not going to be underfoot for the really big rushes.

If we're lucky, we won't be the biggest anime con in the country for a second year. If we're not lucky, we can just hope that the fire marshall doesn't go too nuts about enforcing fire codes.

If we're really not lucky, we'll have some sort of crowd-related accident. That would suck.