Convention Report for OhayoCon 2007 written by Doug (TRL)   For my seventh Ohayocon, I was again excited to go to a January con that has always been friendly, well-run, and at a wonderful mixture of Columbus, OH hotels.  A good number of Michigan cosplayers including myself arrived Thursday afternoon and checked in without hassle to the Hyatt, Drury Inn, and Crowne Plaza.            It was only at the beginning of Friday that I learned of how different this con was for this year.  Text message after text message came from friends who spent upwards of 4-8 hours in the registration line announcing how this con failed at registration (due to in part, a technical problem with the computers).            As I was more concerned with attending the cosplay group photoshoots, I had a good time – but I also didn’t attend any panels or events outside of the Masquerade.  Everything I saw and heard from countless friends though showed me that all events ran horribly late, except for the Masquerade which was on-time.  I was informed that panel and video rooms were moved last minute because of hotel / convention center booking problems (and the schedules weren’t updated outside the rooms to show this during the con).  The large Naruto group photoshoot was also kindly escorted out of the convention center because the convention itself did not use the spaces that year (despite us having nowhere else to easily move 100+ people when the weather was raining).            The Masquerade seemed like it was managed well (internal drama aside of course) and the costumes looked great.  The Dealer’s Room seemed smaller because it was split between two large rooms on the second floor instead of in the giant ballroom on the third floor.  Though few vendors carried things I was looking for personally, there was a decent mix of selection from vendors I’ve seen across the circuit.  The rooms also had attendance caps so the lines for the Dealer’s Rooms also got long at some points.            In conclusion, the only thing that made this typically awesome convention wonderful for this year were the tons of friends I knew.  If I had attended as someone new to the anime / convention community, I would have been very upset at the long lines, confusing scheduling, and security that varied from being careless to too uptight.  Though I had no problems with them myself, I just observed that behavior in general.            Don’t get me wrong – this is a very fun convention when properly run, but this year was not the best showcase of an Ohayocon experience.  I’ll attend in the future because it’s the first con of the year for me but if they perform this confusion next year, I may not return, and from all I’ve read afterwards, many people are feeling the same way.            Overall “Grade” for Ohayocon 7 (2007) = C- / D+

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