Update (4/4/2021): In an interview with the local Sacramento news outlet KCRA3, organizers of the event admitted seeing a significant decrease in attendees, dropping from 22,000 in previous years down to around 300. The reason for this being the case is stated to be people’s ongoing uncertainty about going to these large-scale events.
SacAnime Convention recently announced that from April 2-4 they would be hosting their “swap meet’ at the Placer County vaccination center in California. According to SacAnime, they already had an agreement in place with the officials in charge of the center to be able to host their “swap meet” this year. This decision was made at the expanse of their public image which at this point in time is being dragged through the mud for various ethical reasons.
The root of this problem stems from the fact that the vaccination center in Placer County is the main center for the entire county and thus is depended upon quite heavily by local residents to be able to get access to their much need Covid shots. Many Congoers across both social media and the political spectrum have voiced their discontent towards not only SacAnime’s decision to go ahead and prevent people from getting their much-needed treatments, but some are also concerned about and angered toward the people who are running the center itself and the decisions that they are choosing to make during these uncertain times. Others also argue that this is a slap in the face by Funimation who is throwing their own weight around and doing whatever they want or that it could simply be the fact that it is heavily rumored that this convention is hurting for cash.
As the backlash continued to mount, SacAnime released a statement on Twitter, asserting that the clinic never planned on opening on April 1-2 and that SacAnime themselves offered to restrict their space so the treatments could continue. This offer was allegedly declined by the venue managers themselves. This statement was yet again not taken lightly by the community with many questioning key aspects of the overall narrative.
Despite the rampant theories, there may be something not right about what is being said due in a part to the fact that several of the replies to this statement on Twitter were discovered to be hidden in the replies.
At the same time, all this was going down, it has become apparent that several of the voice actors in attendance, mainly Chris Sabat and Christina Kelly came under fire for deciding to take part in the event. This led to Christina Kelly completely deleting her entire Twitter account after unsuccessfully trying to block everyone who tried to inform her about the situation.
Even after all that, SacAnime went and doubled down on the front page of their website by saying they won’t be canceling the event despite everyone’s discontent towards the situation and pretty much have made it clear that they value their bottom line above all else.
The convention is this coming weekend, so whether or not this PR storm has any effect on their bottom line should become apparently clear in the following days and weeks to come.
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