Welcome

We recieved a letter from the British Heart Foundation regarding the money you all helped us raise, so we thought we should share it with you all.

• BHFLetter.pdf

Once again we thank everyone involved who made this possible.

Hi everyone,

I know many of you are interested in what money Aya Revolution 09 made for our chosen charity, The British Heart Foundation. We're just finally wrapping up the post-convention accounting work and so we've now got the final figures for you all to see.

Charity Auction: £1030
Charity Cosplay Bring and Buy: £63.60
Charity Collection: £813.00
Bring and Buy Comission: £593.40

So that means we've made a total of £2500, which will be sent to them shortly. So a great big thank you to everyone who helped raised this generous amount.

After months of preparation and build-up, it's all over! Aya Revolution finally shut the doors on its final events at midnight on Sunday, after a fantastic, fun-filled weekend at the Warwick Arts Centre. Around 1300 people turned up to take advantage of three days of events, screenings and parties - we hope you all had a fantastic time!

We'd like to extend special thanks to our guests: Momoi Halko, whose fantastic concert and lengthy panel and signing session enthralled her fans (and made many new ones!); Matt Mercer, who has rapidly become a firm favourite of Ayacon attendees thanks to some great panels and wonderful hosting of events; JoEllen Elam, whose cosplay-focused events were a huge hit with the sewing machine and hot glue contingent; and Akemi Solloway, whose hugely popular traditional Japanese culture focused events gave the weekend a whole extra dimension. We'd also like to thank the fantastic drummers from Kaikyo Taiko, who entertained audiences with several wonderful taiko performances over the weekend!

Aya Revolution simply wouldn't have been possible without the devotion and hard work of all of the event organisers and hard-working committee members who brought the whole event together, not to mention the gophers who did so much of the leg-work for the events. Thanks, guys - you helped to make this into a great weekend!

We don't have any plans to announce for the next Ayacon just yet, but if you had any particularly good (or bad) experiences over the weekend that you'd like us to hear about, pop along to the Feedback Forum and make your views heard. We'll be taking all feedback on board when it comes to planning future events!

Thanks again for coming - and we hope to see you all again sometime soon!

We leave you with a few choice pictures from our guests, to remember the weekend by....

Our bags are packed. The vans are loaded up. We're rehearsing our lines and double-checking the lists of equipment to bring. The guests are arriving at Heathrow Airport....

... Aya Revolution starts tomorrow!

We're incredibly exciting about welcoming you all back to Warwick Arts Centre for the first time in four years. Remember, you can register for your con badge from 11am tomorrow morning, and check into your on-site accommodation from midday.

If there are any problems, please come and see us on-site - we'll be in the National Grid Room, on the first floor of the Arts Centre, just above the entrance to the main hall (the Butterworth Hall).

We look forward to seeing you all, and hope you have a great weekend!

Hello congoers!

There's less than a week to go! I hope you've all got your suitcases ready, your train tickets booked and your ID sorted out. Remember - if you don't have valid, in-date ID, in accordance with our FAQ, you won't be able to get into the convention.

Registration for the convention will be open from 11am on Friday, and those who are picking up keys for accommodation on-site can get them from midday on Friday. (If you're arriving on any other day, the keys can be collected from 3pm.) If you're staying on-site and you're going to arrive after 11pm at night, please get in touch with us before the convention - the reception desk will be closed, but they'll be happy to make special arrangements for you.

For those travelling from the south-east, especially if you travel through Liverpool Street Station, it's worth noting that there is a train strike scheduled for National Express East Anglia services in this region which may affect your journey to Aya Revolution. Please check online or with your local station to find out if your timetable is affected.

Cosplayers! Sunday Night Live and the Cosplay Island Competition Entries are now closed. Entries for the Masquerade will be closing on Tuesday, so you still have a couple of days to fill out the forms. We will not be accepting entries for any of these events at the convention, so if you want to strut your stuff on our catwalk, you'll have to enter online. Also, please check the Cosplay page on the website for updated information about the Cosplay Photoshoot and the Charity Bring and Buy event.

We've had a couple more schedule changes, as the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed. Hopefully these will be the last ones! There is now a Beez Entertainment Q&A session on Saturday at 4pm in the Theatre, and the Anime Pictionary event has moved to Sunday - it'll be held in the Students Union (First Floor) at 4pm. (Don't worry, the people causing these schedule changes and ruining our lovely, glossy What & Where Guides will be brought out and shot after the con...)

Finally, on a more solemn note.... Each year, we choose a worthy charity to receive the proceeds of our various charity events. Often, the question of which charity to donate to can be quite tricky - but this year, the decision was very easy for us.

One person who has probably done more than anyone else to make AyaCon into the event it is today is, sadly, no longer with us. In memory of Ewan Chrystal, former treasurer of both AyaCon and MinamiCon, who passed away earlier this year, Aya Revolution's nominated charity will be the British Heart Foundation.

We're looking forward to seeing you all next weekend!

With just over a week to go to the convention, we're all busy here at Aya HQ, putting together the last bits and pieces for this year's convention. As usual, there's tons of work to be done in the last fortnight, but it's all coming together really well, and we're looking forward to welcoming you (and our great guests!) to the Warwick Arts Centre in eight days time!

We've made a couple of minor changes to the event schedule - nothing major, but you might want to download the updated version. The main change is that we've confirmed both J-Rock and Eurobeat parties for Saturday night, which will run alongside the J-Pop party in the main room - so you'll have quite a choice of music to dance the night away!

Also, we've had a number of questions about the babydoll versions of the Aya Revolution T-shirts - well, the T-shirts have arrived, so here's a quick picture of what the ladies' version of the shirt looks like!

Remember - registration closes tomorrow, Friday August 7th! After tomorrow, you won't be able to register for the convention or book on-site accommodation - so if you or your friends haven't registered yet, you should make sure you do it soon!

With less than two weeks to go until Aya Revolution opens its doors, we've just finalised the event schedule for the weekend! (Yes, I know that I promised I'd get it done yesterday... Who's keeping count?)

You'll get a copy of the full schedule (including the video programme) in your guidebook when you arrive at the convention, but in the meanwhile, here's the downloadable version for you to check out - so that you can start planning and preparing for the weekend!

Of course, there could be a few last minute changes that will need to be scribbled into the book - but we'll try and avoid that if possible. Fingers crossed, this should be the final schedule for events.

Ten days to go! And remember - registrations for both the convention and the accommodation close this Friday, so if you or some of your friends haven't registered yet, get a move on!

There's just over 2 weeks left till AyaCon, to give us time to prepare everyone's badges and get the final bits and pieces ready, we will need to close online registration on the 7th August, the onsite accommodation booking will stop at the same time. If you haven't registered yet, this week is your last chance to do so!

If you're staying in the on-site accommodation. We've negotiated with Warwick Accommodations so that you can check-in to your room at Midday on the Friday instead of 3pm

As the clock ticks down to AyaCon, the staff here are all working to finalize all the events for the weekend so here's some updates and reminders!

• Gophers!
  If you fancy helping the con and haven't signed up yet, go here and sign up!
• Bring and Buy
  The time for dropping off your items for the Bring and Buy is 1pm - 3:30pm and 5:30pm to 7:30pm on the Friday and 9am - 10am on the Saturday at the Mead Gallery
• Cosplay
  Registrations for the cosplay competition organised by Cosplay Island have now opened, please head over to the cosplay section of the site for full information and the registration forms.
  As a reminder, registrations for the Masquerade and Sunday Night Live will be closing before the convention, if you wish to take part make sure you sign up in advance!

We are very pleased to announce the addition of two new guests to the Aya Revolution line up.

The first is Matthew Mercer, the director and co-creator of internet Nintendo parody series There Will Be Brawl. Matt is also known for his voice work for recent titles such as Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Street Fighter IV.

Our second new guest is JoEllen Elam, a costume and makeup artist who has also worked on There Will Be Brawl and runs her own cosplay business.

These two great guests are in addition to Haruko Momoi and her band, making it possibly the finest guest lineup a UK convention has ever seen.

For full details check out our guests page:
http://www.ayacon.org.uk/guests