SMASH! (Sydney Manga and Anime SHow) is a fan run convention held at the University of New South Wales and is one of the newer conventions on the Australian scene. This was the first year for myself to attend and it was also the first year for them to expand to two days. How did things go?

Where: Roundhouse@UNSW
When: 8th & 9th of August 2009
Website: SMASH! Website
SMASH! '09 Photos

AVCon, Adelaide’s famous fan run convention for games and anime, took the big step of moving from university campus to the Adelaide Convention Centre. This was a bold change for a non for profit, fan run convention with lots of people not convinced it would work. However it has to be said it worked extremely well and the increase in attendees and sponsorship buy television station channel TEN is testimony to that.

Where: Adelaide Convention Centre
When: 24th to 26th of July 2009
Website: AVCon '09 Website AVcon '10 Website
AVCon Photos

An exciting, new event has been added to the calendar in the Australian Cosplay community.  The first Madman National Cosplay Championship (MNCC) swept through the Australian cosplay scene this year. The preliminary rounds were held in five cities around Australia throughout 2009, and recently Melbourne hosted the Grand Final.