Anime Express is an annual anime convention held in Daytona Beach, Florida

Daytona Beach, Florida

Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, USA. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city has a population of 64,211. Daytona Beach is a principal city of the Deltona – Daytona Beach – Ormond Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which the census bureau estimated had...

 and hosted by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is a private university in the US specializing in aviation and aerospace engineering. It teaches the science, practice, and business of aviation and aerospace. Called "The Harvard of the Sky" by Time Magazine in 1979, Embry-Riddle has a history dating back to...

's Anything Goes Anime Club.

History

The first Anime Express was held on April 25–27, 1997 and was solely a project of the Anything Goes Anime (AGA) club at Embry-Riddle. Since then, the AGA club has made many partnerships with other nearby anime-affiliated organizations to help run and provide content for the convention. These groups include Orange Anime, Anime Belle, and Wasabi Anime, most of which are based out of nearby Orlando, Florida

Orlando, Florida

Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...

. The convention is traditionally held the weekend before the Embry-Riddle's spring break

Spring break

Spring break – also known as March break, Study week or Reading week in the United Kingdom and some parts of Canada – is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United...

, so it usually falls on the third weekend in March. In 2007, Anime Express was canceled due to a tornado

Tornado

A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

 that struck Embry-Riddle on Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

.

Event history

Dates	Location	Atten.	Guests

Mascot

The previous mascot of Anime Express was drawn specifically for Anime Express by manga artist Steve Bennett

Steve Bennett

Steve Bennett may refer to:*Steve Bennett , the head of Starchaser, a company involved in space development and tourism*Steve Bennett , manga artist and head of ill-fated manga publisher Studio Ironcat...

, who has worked as an artist on several anime series, including Urusei Yatsura

Urusei Yatsura

is a comedic manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi that premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in 1978 and ran until its conclusion in 1987. Its 374 individual chapters were collected and published in 34 tankōbon volumes. The series tells the story of Ataru Moroboshi, and the alien...

.

External links

• Anime Express web site