Anime Expo: The Premier Experience (Part 3) - It's Go Time

By: Mithrandiel

Update (7/8/18): An updated version of "The State of the Con" has been published, you can find my thoughts here.

Anime Expo 2016 is finally here! There's not too much to do here on Day 0, but I made sure to swing by the premier fan lounge and gather my "Swag Bag" - unfortunately there wasn't a lot to look forward to in the bag:It's got a pretty cool poster, but otherwise it wasn't really loaded with anything particularly exciting or worthwhile. Furthermore, the room was out of guides when I first got my bag, so I had to wait a while to get the printed program guide -I gotta say I was disappointed with the swag bag contents. For spending $375 I was hoping that there would be a funko pop figure or something a bit more worthwhile.Not only that, but while we got a small Crunchyroll swag bag, I soon came across a number of people with larger, graphic-design shopping bags of Akame Ga Kill and Parasyte. Apparently they ran out and began giving out...better bags?It seems like the premier fan department dropped the ball on a couple things here - if these bags were available from the start, they should have prepared premier fan bags with them. Being out of guides seemed like a pretty basic mistake as well.Overall, I didn't really feel like they rolled out the red carpet today. I know a lot of the benefits will be experienced throughout the weekend, but if today was my first impression I'm not sure they'd capture me as a premier fan for next year.Still, there was some pretty cool stuff to see in the lobby after I picked up my stuff: I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend, and I'm glad that I was able to trade out my smaller bag for one of the fancier ones, as well as an official AX 2016 shirt!That's it for today! Are you at AX? Feel free to comment or join us on our Discord server!

Value - $200/375

You can find part 4 of my premier fan experience here.