Hello everyone!!!
We hope 2026 has been treating you well! After a good rest and recovery from Animé LA 21, our preparations for Animé LA 22 have begun! As we work on the various tasks to bring ALA together, we plan to provide more consistent newsletters with information to our mailing list subscribers! This is the first of 4 Quarterly updates to ensure you have all the details! We will also be sending this update as an email newsletter if you’re subscribed to our mailing list! Be sure to keep an eye out for these emails to get various updates about important dates, applications, hotels, & more! We hope this helps everyone prepare to join us in January, and we can’t wait to see you all again soon!
Animé LA 22 Theme
Animé Los Angeles presents itself through a unique theme every year. In case you missed it, the theme for Animé Los Angeles 22 will be: Slice of Life! A staple genre in the anime world, whether it’s stories about students navigating life through the school year or seeing the world through the eyes of a peculiar taxi driver, Slice of Life anime & manga show us amazing things in the world of day to day living. We’re looking forward to spending a few days together and seeing what each day of ALA 22 brings!!!
Promo Tour Stops
We have 2 promo tour stops coming up in May this year! The first is at Comic Con Revolution Ontario, May 16th & 17th! We’ll be running our promotional booth, handing out postcards and talking to attendees with the latest details for ALA 22!
During Memorial Day weekend, we’ll be heading up North to San Jose to attend FanimeCon, May 22nd – 25th! You’ll be able to find us in the Exhibit Hall promoting ALA 22 and bringing a sampling of ribbon activities for attendees and fans to enjoy, so please come visit us!
June 1st: Badges & Hotel Blocks
We’re kicking off June with some important items on our way to ALA 22! Starting June 1st, our Early Bird Rate price will be ending and Full Weekend badges will be going up from $75 to $85! If you haven’t bought your badge yet, you have until June to save the most money you can on a Full Weekend badge! Visit our Registration Page to get your badge today!
The other big calendar item for June 1st is the Official Animé LA 22 Hotel Block!!! Attendees will be able to start booking their hotel stays for ALA! You can visit our Official Hotels page on the website ahead of time to see what hotel will work best for you! We also are aware of how in-demand hotels can be, so expect dedicated emails and social media posts leading up to the release of our hotel block. We highly recommend attendees read up on our Hotel Block FAQ to make sure they’re fully prepared for booking day!
Artist Alley Updates
For this year’s ALA we will be changing our Artist Alley (AA) sign up process in the hopes of clearing up a number of concerns & issues that many artists have brought up and issues we’ve seen first hand in previous years. We also have some new changes to table options for those looking to secure specific locations within AA.
This year’s Artist Alley registration will now be a lottery system! The reason going forward with this is for two major aspects:
- To allow more artists the opportunity to apply during a set period of time and give more artists a fair chance to apply. We have seen the frustration that a First Come First Serve (FCFS) method can produce, and while we know that no system is truly perfect, we believe that the lottery system approach will give more artists equal opportunity to participate.
- We will be using the lottery system to also better screen those who are applying to artist alley to avoid drop shippers, AI generated material, and proxy sellers that can lessen the value of the Artist Alley experience. When filling out the application, artists will provide a link to their website and/or portfolio for our staff to review. For those selected, we will go through these pages to verify that they are not any of the above listed items to ensure spaces aren’t going to those who are taking advantage of artists in the convention community.
Once we complete the selection process, we will do a first round of contacting all the applicants chosen to see if they would still like to register their table. If anyone no longer wants a table at ALA during this period, we will draw new applicants to fill those spaces and repeat until all spots are accounted for. After this, we will contact all participants with a link to register for their booths!
Another major update happening with Artist Alley this year is allowing artists to purchase Corner Booth spaces! We have also seen the desire for being able to book these specific locations for their prime real estate and the extra space to arrange displays! For artists looking to book a corner space, these spaces will be available via FCFS to approved artist alley applicants while supplies last at an increased cost from the standard AA spaces.
And with that our first Quarterly wrap up is complete!!! Be sure to follow us on our various social media channels: Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, or X/Twitter so you can get announcements as they are posted or join our public Discord server via the widget below to interact with our lovely community! We’re so excited to see you all again in January and we can’t wait to share more of our plans both new & returning to ALA 22~
