The Ins and Outs of Conventions with Lance Heiskell of Anime Frontier

With Anime Frontier roughly a month away, we were granted a chance to chat with Anime Frontier's programming manager, Lance Heiskell. A former Funimation Entertainment executive, Lance brings unparalleled insight into the anime industry's intricate workings. He gave us a look at what goes into making a convention work, the explosion of anime convention culture over the last decade, and shared one of his recent holy grail anime purchases.

A-to-J: Hi! Thank you so much for chatting with me today! Could you introduce yourself?
Lance Heiskell: Hello! My name is Lance Heiskell. I do programming and industry relations for Anime Frontier and our sister show Anime NYC. I'm based in Texas, so I've got an affinity towards Anime Frontier.

A-to-J: Could you talk about what makes Anime Frontier stand out as a convention amongst the sea of conventions?
Lance Heiskell: Sure! First I'd like to go over my convention history. I was the first brand manager at Funimation way back in 2003, and I was the Funimation rep at conventions for many years. I would go to conventions all across the US: San Diego Comic Con, Wizard World, San Japan, Otakon, A-Cen, everywhere. One year I went to 16 conventions. I also go to conventions as a vacation, like I went to Dragoncon on vacation. It's kind of like I have the convention bug in me. I know what makes a convention work and what can be a little bit of a headache and what not. So whenever I was asked by the founder of Anime NYC, whom I had known from doing work at the convention, to join Anime Frontier, I thought 'oh yeah, I can do this'. He wanted to start Anime Frontier with the hope of bringing the industry into Texas and into the south and midwest of the US. All of the things you'd have to travel to a convention in LA or NYC for, he wanted to bring here. And he asked 'do you know someone who would be interested in this' over a cup of coffee and I raised my hand! I said 'I'm available, I like working with you, I like doing this kind of stuff, I get to see my friends again!' We chatted and he described his vision of Anime Frontier, and we're getting really close to our vision. You were talking about the 'sea of conventions' and what makes this convention different from the others. Part of it is we're the same crew that does Anime NYC; it's the same team doing Anime Frontier. We're building a big convention in Texas, while still having the fun party atmosphere of cosplay, meetups, and so on. We've doubled our fan programming this coming year based on feedback. We've also added an idol fest for this year, and some of the new things you see at other conventions. Idol fests have been around a bit, but they haven't been embraced by all conventions. I recently went to a convention and saw an idol fest, and people were pitching idol fests to us. I feel that once you see it you realize 'oh, this is awesome, we have to have this!' and so we are! That's what fun about Anime Frontier; it's a combo of industry and fan requests. We're having Bandai Namco Filmworks with a booth there. We'll have reps from Aniplex of America. And we also have, from Bandai Namco, the Gundam Base with all the gunpla in the world your heart desires. They were here last year and wanted to come back this year. We do have a really nice selection of voice actors and vtubers coming in. We have a Japanese voice actor, and some other Japanese guests we haven't announced yet. It's just a venn diagram of all the things you want to go see in a convention.

A-to-J: That's great insight, especially with why Anime Frontier is in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as opposed to a coastal state. The big industry events alway seem to target California or New York, despite that for a long time Funimation has been based out here.
Lance Heiskell: They still have their offices in the area! They're a bit more spread out, but it's still there. I remember being in Grapevine (one of the many small cities in the DFW metroplex) in a 50000 sqft warehouse where we did EVERYTHING for Funimation out of. (laughter)

A-to-J: I previously lived in Las Vegas and knew about the California conventions and Anime NYC and Otakon but now I live in DFW. I've traveled for big conventions before, which is fun, but there's always lamentations from anime fans in the south and in the midwest that they feel skipped by industry focused events. Sure, there's plenty of good conventions here with great programming, but they're not industry heavy like AX and Otakon are in comparison. Thus it was really exciting for me to see Anime Frontier come along with a lot more industry representation come here, because travel gets expensive and is a pain. Also, a December convention? What an excellent time to do things here. The weather's nice, there's not much else going on...
Lance Heiskell: Yeah, and our cold months are really more January and February. With December, there's some days where you can still have a short sleeved shirt and just bring a jacket. Nice weather.

A-to-J: I was joking with some friends about how we can actually wear 9 layers of cosplay and a wig and not feel like death.
Lance Heiskell: Correct! (laugher) We have a fan panel about how to cosplay in the south and not melt this year.

A-to-J: That sounds like a great panel to go to! So you've worked with anime conventions and the industry in the US for a long time. Was there anything in particular that made you want to get involved, or did you just think it looked cool?
Lance Heiskell: Way back when, I worked at an ad agency. We had clients like supermarkets, websites, plumbing, and so on. I wanted to work on something I could be more interactive with, like music companies or comic publishers. I remember seeing an article when Funimation was getting into anime beyond Dragonball and saw that they were based in North Richland Hills (another small city in the DFW metroplex). I thought 'you mean I drive past that office and don't even know about it? I wonder if they have openings?' When I applied, lo and behold, they had an opening. That's what I did, and poof, it's been 20 years.

A-to-J: It's definitely been something interesting to see over the years, how anime and the fan culture has expanded in the US. Given your long history with the industry, how do you feel that the fan culture has evolved and where do you think it'll go as more conventions get bigger throughout the US?
Lance Heiskell: Anime has gone not fully mainstream, but it's getting really close. For so long it was a fringe pop culture, and it was still huge. Back when video sales were a good gauge, you could see it. Millions of people were watching anime. You would see the convention crowds increase every year. But yet it would still not get mainstream press or attention. I think part of the explosion is kids into Pokemon and Toonami are now in their 30s and are big celebrities in their own right. They are editorial staff in magazines and online. They understand what is pop culture right now. It's really cool to see something like hip hop artists embracing anime. I was watching AEW and some wrestlers are dressed as Goku on national tv! You can go to Five Below and see merch for Demon Slayer, a Scooby Doo shirt next to a Naruto one. Instead of Captain America shirts everywhere, you'll see people wearing One Piece shirts. I think it's really fun, finally being recognized by the popular culture. What was once something secretive and very 'oh this is my thing, should I share this thing' now is The Thing. That's what I like about it. Our company, Leftfield, also runs Awesomecon, a pop culture convention in Washington DC, and Rose City Comic Con in Oregon. American anime VAs are guests there, there's a dedicated section to them at these conventions. That's really something that felt like a big shift in the last 5 years for anime in the popular culture.

A-to-J: I was chatting with a colleague about just how much anime and conventions have exploded in the last decade, and if it was because access to anime is greater than ever. I don't begrudge people being able to watch anime on Crunchyroll instead of doing something seedy to get the latest anime. It's so easy! It's cool to walk into Wal-Mart and Target, and buy manga and blu-rays and a shirt.
Lance Heiskell: ​If you want to know what generation you are, talk about buying anime at Borders or Suncoast or f.y.e., and if they say 'what?' just say 'oh, you have it so great now!' (laughter)

A-to-J: They'll never know the absolute dread of missing out on a DVD release!
Lance Heiskell: Yes! Best Buy plans to stop selling DVDs, and it's like 'what?!' If you happened to live near a Fry's Electronics, they never returned their unsold disks. You used to be able to find some anime that was printed a decade ago in stock, and you'd think 'they still have this? this is wild!'

A-to-J: It's wild to see how streaming has changed people's anime buying habits. On one hand, you can buy so many officially licensed shirts and mugs. On the other, sometimes it's hard to find the last DVD you need for your set.
Lance Heiskell: Oh, absolutely. Some of the DVDs from Funimation I've had for years, I think 'am I really going to watch this? I don't know, should I give it away?' but then 'oh, but I might want it back, or try to find it' or 'I should have kept that'.

A-to-J: It's exciting in a way. I think about how my younger cousins can enjoy and watch anime so much easier than I did in high school.
Lance Heiskell: Absolutely.

A-to-J: Earlier you mentioned some of the guests and programming at Anime Frontier this year. What goes into deciding who and what is going to be at the convention?
Lance Heiskell: Part of it is curation on our side. Some of that curation is what we want to see programming wise, and what guests. We have these VA guests, and they have agents, so we try to work with who we know and can schedule. We try to line things up with certain shows or anniversaries so they can promote them. We also have post convention feedback from attendees, and we ask them who they want to see. Like 'who is your top 3 guests you'd like to see at Anime Frontier?' We've actually used that info for guests this year. We also do get pitches from different companies wanting to attend, and we also pitch to companies saying 'we'd love to do X at Anime Frontier, how can we do that this year?' It's really like a tripod of our ideas, our partners and their ideas, and the attendees' ideas from the feedback surveys. That's how we curate all of our content.

A-to-J: On a personal note, I was really excited to see the Gundam Base come back this year. I was out of town last year and bummed I missed it. I build a lot of gunpla, so that'll be a must see for me.
(Lance laughs)

A-to-J: Any personal favorite anime or manga you'd like to share with us?
Lance Heiskell: During the busy convention season we don't have a lot of free time, but once it ends there's a bit of a slow and quiet time at work. I get about 2 weeks where I can unwind and catch up. So this is blu ray set got released a while back, and I decided 'I'm going to buy this now and watch it in the offseason'. It's Aura Battler Dunbine. This is Tomino's other mech show from the 80s; he did Gundam of course. This is one of the holy grails of physical releases for me, this one from Sentai, and that's what I'm going to watch. I haven't watched much of the new recent season of anime because I'm so focused on these year end conventions, but once those are over I plan to peek in. We have some premiers of shows and screeners that we do, and I think 'I want to watch this', so I usually have a checklist of shows I want to watch after convention season.

A-to-J: I bet there's all sorts of cool shows you've seen that we haven't seen yet that you're thinking 'can't wait for this to get out!'
Lance Heiskell: Yeah!

A-to-J: Are there any fun industry or convention stories you'd like to share?
Lance Heiskell: (Lance contemplates for a while) My convention experiences have been kind of tame compared to others (laughs). I think the one thing that stands out as the craziest time was when I was the brand manager for Fullmetal Alchemist. We were doing the premier for the film Conqueror of Shamballa at AX. It was in this huge screening room, and I came up to introduce the film and heard the screams of everyone for the movie. It was the first time we had done a premier like that, to that scale. That was super cool and super nerve wracking at the same time. Now it's like the shows are more out there and someone says 'let's do a world premier screening' and I say 'yeah, let's run it!' I'm still nervous about doing them, but I've worked on them a lot and it's more like a fun nervous instead of an 'aw crap' nervous. I mentioned that I went to Dragoncon on vacation, and that was actually after I had worked conventions for Funimation (laughter). Working for a company, doing panels and exhibits at conventions, going to them as an attendee, and now helping run one, I know the perspectives of what companies would expect and what fans would expect. What is the best experience you want for a convention? That's what I try to give.

A-to-J: I thank you for that. I've been to some conventions where I left disappointed before. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it happens.
Lance Heiskell: Yeah. It's a lot of work to put a convention on. And sometimes it's the result of realizing they don't have enough bandwidth for a year, and hoping to see improvement the next year.

A-to-J: Thank you so much again for chatting with me today Lance, I greatly appreciate it!
Lance Heiskell: Of course!

A-to-J: And I can't wait to be at Anime Frontier in, what, a month?
Lance Heiskell: ​Yup! That soon!

A-to-J: It's going to be a good time!
Lance Heiskell: It is!

Thank you to the Anime Frontier team and to Lance Heiskell for taking some time to sit down with us and chat!

Anime Frontier will take place December 8-10 at the Fort Worth Convention Center in Fort Worth, Texas. For passes, guest information, and more, please visit https://animefrontier.com/.

The above interview was conducted and transcribed by Janette G. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. All images courtesy of Anime Frontier.