Peter Tatara's Awesomeness

Peter Tatara is one of the good guys.

He was brought in when the Big Apple Anime Festival floundered and collapsed. From what I can tell, he's basically responsible for the creation of the New York Anime Festival, and he's the reason it runs so well.

Seriously, I was at NYAF this year, and I also attended Otakon and Anime Expo this year. At NYAF, all the scheduled events actually happened, and on-time (mostly). When there was a room switch, everyone in the old room was clearly and quickly moved to the new room. Moreover, the con had big guests; the fricken' creator of Gundam, and the popular girls' group AKB48.

Why is he so good at this? It helps that he started out as a Robotech and Vampire Hunter D fan, and worked at Central Park Media. When introducing Yoshiyuki Tomino at NYAF 2009, he spoke with obvious respect of the man. If you follow him on Twitter (@petertatara), you'll see how passionate he is about anime. So he knows what guests to get, and he knows what's important to fans so he can schedule events effectively.

But beyond that, he obviously knows how to run a con. So many of our cons are fan-run, which is great in a way, but often leads to late panels, last-minute room changes, etc. NYAF feels like a professional con.

Which is no surprise; Peter Tatara is a professional. I'm glad he's working for us.