Doujinshi event おでかけライブin沖縄91 / Odekake Live in Okinawa 91 has been cancelled over a threat of violence, we hear.
The event, a long running and popular regional doujinshi convention with no specific focus, was set to go ahead on the 28th of September, but now particpants are informed by an urgent update that it has regrettably had to have been cancelled, with only days notice.
The threat of violence received was not in fact directed at the event, or even at participants in general, but at a single participant, and was published on a personal blog, so it is certainly a strong response by the event organisers.
However, the matter has apparently been dealt with and the next event, due next month, can go ahead, so the blow is not catastrophic. The fact that the event is held regularly is likely a relief in such a case.
In the wake of the stabber, there were various doubts about how Comiket could deal with such problems, but it seems they quite robust, instituting bag searches without disrupting the event entire, and surely this would be the only reasonable way of dealing with such an important and infrequently held event, second only to the great Reitaisai.
At least it wasn’t cancelled by an old lady…
I used to work at an anime convention held in Chicago, and we got all sorts of security concerns involving individual people. We never had a credible threat against the entire event but we did get at least one serious death threat against a particular attendee. We always just make sure that they are handled by the proper law enforcement authorities. Banning th whole event just because of this is overkill.
That’s stupid