Anime Banzai

Banzai's farewell event is offering this unique piece of merchandise for this last year. A zip-up collector bag, perfect for using as a pencil/art case or a great place to keep all the stickers, keychains, and pins you purchase from Artist Alley.

This bag comes FREE with all VIP and Pre-Reg tickets. They will also be available to purchase at our merch booth. BANZAI!

The Super Smash Bros Tournament will be Saturday, October 19th at 3PM.

You can sign up on site in the Video Game room at anytime before the tournament.

Want to run a fan panel at Banzai's last year? It's super easy! Lead a discussion on your favorite anime/game/genre/animated series. Want to talk magical girls? Rumiko Takahashi? The last season of Attack on Titan? You pick the topic and nerd out with your fellow fans.

Anyone running 4 panels/events of any kind will receive free weekend passes.

If you are interested in running a panel or event, or if you have already signed up for one and need confirmation of the date and time, (especially if you're not sure we received it or if you think the request has been lost) please contact me at [email protected] and I will hook you up!

Everything must go! Cheap prices on a HUGE variety of inventory! Check out our KSL Classifieds Listing for more info.

Saturday, October 12, 2024 from 10:00am to 2:00pm
4991 S. Commerce Drive, Murray, UT 84107

UAP Office/Event Space Inventory Clear-out Sale!! $5.00 UAP Office/Event Space Inventory Clear-out Sale!! for sale in Murray, UT on KSL Classifieds. View a wide selection of Garage, Estate, & Yard Sales and other great items on KSL Classifieds.

Sneak peak of Saturdays schedule for the banzai Farewell so far. Lots of fun things being planned and still in the works for the weekend. Sorry this file is a bit blurry. This is just a rough draft

Here is the link to ticketing for the Anime Banzai Farewell Weekend. The link will also be live soon from AnimeBanzai.org

https://www.eventbee.com/v/banzaifarewellweekend #/tickets

To help us be faster at answering questions we would like to ask you to join us in our public discussion server on discord.

https://discord.gg/xaygmXaV

Thanks,

Thank you all for your patience over these last few weeks. We know the wait on word from us has been incredibly stressful and frustrating for many of you, and for that we sincerely apologize. We have spent these last few weeks working to find the most satisfying solution possible for those who already bought tickets to support this event.

We want to reiterate our remorse for losing sight of why we started this convention in the first place. It was our actions - and in fact, our inaction - over the years that caused a great deal of lasting hurt to former staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees. Concerns were brought to us time and time again, and we should have listened to them and taken action. We didn’t, and for that, we are truly sorry. You deserved better from us.

Additionally, we want to apologize for the frustration, confusion, and heartache that followed our decision to cancel Anime Banzai 2024. We see now that this decision felt like a violation of the trust and loyalty our community has shown us for almost two decades. The financial state of the organization, lack of staffing, and the event’s dwindling reputation made it seem like cancellation was the only feasible way to move forward. We realize now that we may have been too hasty, and should have explored more options before enacting what we saw as the only solution.

This time, we are listening. We are acting. We want to do what we can to make things right for those of you that are mourning the abrupt loss of the convention, as well as those financially impacted by the choices we made.

As some of you may know, a few years ago Banzai was the victim of significant embezzlement. A former staff member drained the organization’s accounts of almost 99,000 dollars, resulting in a criminal case that is still ongoing. Despite this, the convention continued to spend as though the accounts were full, making payments, purchases, and reservations that were beyond the organization’s means. This is something we should have noticed sooner. We should have stepped in and put a stop to recurring payments we could no longer afford, and cut costs wherever possible. We were not paying attention, and now find ourselves in a dire financial situation.

We do not currently have the funds to refund everyone who has already paid to attend the event, and have been working these last few weeks to plan something that would still provide attendees with something of value. With this in mind, we have decided to use the venue - which we can no longer cancel - to host a 3-day Farewell to Banzai party.

This event will give vendors/artists a space to sell their wares, provide a platform for the guests who had planned to attend the con, and give our community a chance to say goodbye to a convention that has meant so much to them. We hope to use this final event as a way to celebrate the things people loved about Banzai, and are welcoming a return of the many attendee-run events that brought so many of us together so many years ago.

Ticket prices will be significantly reduced, as our goal is to cover the cost of hosting the event and paying off the venue. We hope this will encourage people to join us for our final celebration. Current Anime Banzai badge-holders will receive a free ticket to the farewell event, as well as local discounts, exclusive commemorative swag, and other perks to make up for the difference in cost.

We know there is nothing we can do to reverse the hurts we’ve caused, and there is no avoiding the consequences we must now face for our many mistakes. We are committed to doing all we can to make up for what has happened, and to end our run as the organization you deserved from the beginning.

At this time, we are still in the process of transferring account access, as well as working out what a restructure will look like. Once that is worked out, refunds will start to be issued on a first-come, first-served basis. As Anime Banzai continues the process of shutting down, funds will be freed up from some locations and will be moved into an account for refunds to be issued from. This will be in batches as available, and we may need to pause at times before starting to issue refunds again. We do not yet have an idea of how long this process may take overall but we are continuing to work on it. We appreciate your patience on this. Please send your refund request to [email protected] - while including as much information as possible (copy of receipt, screenshots, etc). If you have already sent an email to another Anime Banzai address, you will not need to resend.

Anime Banzai family

Utah Anime Promotions has been considering the fate of Anime Banzai 2024 after the convention meeting held on 4 Aug (including the harsh realities that shutting down an event like this entail), but events have outpaced that consideration. The problems are too deep to address long term, and while we had hoped to patch things up internally to still successfully run Anime Banzai 2024 as a farewell for attendees and staff, that is no longer possible.

I would like to deeply apologize directly to Artemis and Warky who were spoken of in this meeting, and clearly state that Utah Anime Promotions vehemently rejects all negative claims made against either. The Board has been in communication with you both since then to discuss the situation, and would like to thank that both of you have continued to express a hope that Anime Banzai 2024 could be provided for attendees, even under these circumstances. Hope can be a hard choice to make, and I regret that we won't be able to assist with that.

Anime Banzai has always operated on a shoe-string budget, with funds diverted back into running each next event and the expenses that lead up to it. Without a convention in Oct where most of the convention funds are generated, we're honestly not sure what it will look like to take care of outstanding expenses including pre-registration, vendors, etc. While we're not sure what this path will look like, we will do our best to make things right.

Utah Anime Promotions has let the community down by not being attentive enough to the signs that manifested over time. As years continued, patterns of complacency and detachment grew. Some members of staff pointed this out over time; I'm sorry we didn't pay better attention.

We have had many great people involved with Anime Banzai over time; inspiring experiences with energetic guests, panelists eager to share their passions with attendees, cosplayers sharing their delight for costuming and embodying characters they love, editors marrying audio and visual for anime music videos, and staff and volunteers who have worked long and hard hours to help things going. Thank you for the uplifting joy, and I hope people can hold on to more of those positive experiences than be burdened by the negative.

This convention was started by a local group of friends, who had the idea of "How hard would it be to start a convention ourselves?" while on a road trip back from a convention in a nearby state. Anime Banzai grew from that seed with the enthusiasm and joy from the community. As Anime Banzai shuts down, I hope that anime fans in Utah can continue that positive spirit. You have been the best part of Anime Banzai; always remember that, and you can continue to be better, shine brighter, day to day.

Utah Anime Promotions:
Steven Jones
Daniel Bentley

Anime Banzai would like to take this opportunity to make a formal apology to Artemis for any concerns or harm that was done to their reputation due to a policy that Banzai put in place a few years ago about Local judges. This policy was not put in place because of Artemis and they should not have suffered any ramification due to this policy. It is Cosplay’s honor to announce that Artemis has agreed to stay on as a Local Judge for our Cosplay contest this year. Thank you to all of you who wrote to let us know how you were feeling about Artemis and how this affected them.

Submit your Event and Panel ideas for this year's convention! https://forms.gle/LGVMXnvBMXkuRPwj6
Have questions about content email [email protected]

There is no "I" in Volunteer but there is a "U" so come help Anime Banzai out!
https://forms.gle/aeUGCmbphKXmrxQ79

Make sure to Pre-Register and get this goodie bag!