With the Fall-Winter convention season upon us you may be wondering why anime conventions only last for three days? More specifically, why anime conventions only last for only three days and two nights? That time frame is more than enough for all activities an average anime convention can offer, such as anime viewings, panels, workshops, video gaming, and various other main events. So why can’t anime conventions people want to extend the entire event from three days to four days (or even more)? It’s not because of economic reasons or resources: Here’s the real reasons.
The convention goers who came to the convention as a vacation, if extended to more than three days they will slowly consider this vacation into a permanent residence. The longer they stay in the convention the more of a chance they will forget their hygiene and diet routines they learned throughout their lifetimes. They will wear the same cosplay costumes they had on as the only they had on Friday. On the other hand, some congoers don’t mind changing their costumes for their normal work attire in order to fund their permanent residence and lifestyle. Some people who don’t have a job and wear the same clothes may develop con funk of the worst kind. To understand con funk think of a gutter punk, some of these gutter punks wear the same clothes, do not practice hygiene for months or even years. Now take a gutter punk to a anime convention, that’s what con funk is. This phenomenon is more prevalent around the video gaming community when going to anime conventions.
The hotel staff will have to deal with the constant threat of damage from wayward attendees. Normally you have people who will stay in a hotel for a short term period and check out when it’s time to go. But with a long term convention, housekeeping staff have to deal with attendees who will mess their beds up daily, people who drink alcohol, people who will stain their rooms with dye from hair dye. Dirty towels, con funk, and trash of all sorts. Especially the drunken con goers, they do a lot of stupid things such as other crap that will cost the hotel hundreds of dollars to repair. And with routine damage to the hotel, while the hotel may benefit with the extended stay with constant income, it’s going to be offset by the amount of constant damage by the con goers. Not to mention that business goers would have to consider going to other hotels in the area because anime cons while cool, are not conductive to business.
Finally you have a convention staff itself. They’re not being paid, except indirectly for food and for the upkeep for the convention. They might have to do a rotating staff or something, I don’t know. Possibly have people who want to volunteer to run the con daily. As for the convention events, by the time the initial three days are over, they have to be creative. Otherwise it’s nothing more than a big social lifestyle event with anime viewings and video gaming. It could get boring eventually unless you have a constant stream of content.
But there is one positive thing about an extended convention. At least you have a society that has one common interest living together despite the fact they have normal lives. As long as they balance these normal lives with their con lives, there should be no problems. You still have the problem with the cash flow and outside relations with the community outside the hotel..
So there’s a reason why conventions only last three days. It’s meant to be an escape or a vacation, not a permanent lifestyle or residence. Nothing lasts forever, even a good thing, not even fish. Even fish stinks after three days.