18+ Anime Convention Hentai Con Cancels 2019 Event Over ‘Technical Adversities’

The 18+ anime convention Hentai Con was originally scheduled to hold their 2019 event the first weekend of November in Los Angeles, but it appears organizers have had to pull out last minute. In an announcement on their website (also released as a PDF) Hentai Con staff explained why they were unable to bring the convention to completion:

Due to extreme technical adversities and circumstances beyond our ability to tame, we have painfully concluded to cancel Hentai-Con at the Burbank Marriott (Nov 1- 3, 2019). The causes for this conclusion rests chiefly with one of our third party data service provider and compatibility issues with our venue. […] The team is more frustrated than sad by the situation. As each officer has 10-20 years of convention experience, our collective experience quickly yielded the wisdom against rebooting all the panel, vendor applications with only a month until the event date. As a matter of internal policy, we regularly backup our own data once a month so all data before September 2019 has not been corrupted. Hentai-Con also had several offers of alternative locations with consideration of postponing the event until late November or December. After some research, this was not deemed reasonable for the public patience and the unique content intended for Hentai-Con.

This is not a particularly clear explanation, but the convention went on to say more explicitly that “our data service provider corrupting our data and our hentai content having compatibility issues with the venue.” The naked truth seems to be the Marriott having issues with the adult content of the event combined with other obstacles.

While the canceling of Hentai Con’s second event is sure to leave many frustrated, the con is promising to refund attendee, artist and vendor registrations (which may bring some satisfaction). While we have no reason not to trust them, we’ve seen many cancelled events promise refunds before that don’t go all the way. Whether this is just a tease or not remains to be seen.

We will continue to follow this story to see what comes.