It was announced at the Closing Ceremonies on the last day this year (yesterday), that Otafest, Calgary's anime festival since 1999, will *finally* be moving out of the U of C in 2016, to the Telus Convention Centre downtown. The time will also go back to later in the year; on the Canada Day weekend, from July 1-3. The reason given was that it was outgrowing it; however, this pertains not just to lack of space, but the difficulty in securing it and on a consistent basis, and also particularly in dealing with the U of C. It's the end of an era.
This decision was just recently made by the Otafest Board, Executive and Staff very recently; and while the announcement to move was obviously embargoed, this is not a new development, as it was mentioned and discussed before, along with a presentation at Otafest a couple of years ago.This change of venue is overdue. It has now been belatedly recognized that it had become not optimal.