Guests
This year we shall have the best line-up of guests ever! The following guests are just the beginning, keep an eye out on the forums as we announce many more guests (at least five more) including live-bands, DJs and special guest-speakers! If you would like to suggest a guest, please do so here.
Caitlin Glass
A voice actress and ADR director, best known for the role of Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist, Caitlin has been working in the anime industry since 2004. Most recently she can be heard as Eila in Strike Witches, Kyoko in Initial D: 4th Stage (FUNimation), Mawari in My Bride is a Mermaid, and Maya Ibuki in Neon Genesis Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. Other well known roles include: Chachamaru & Chisame/Chiu in Negima, Deneve in Claymore, Dhianeila in Heroic Age, Kaori in Kanon, LaLa in D.Gray Man, Miria in Baccano, Miss Anderson in Shin-chan, Nerine in Shuffle!, Saya in Black Cat, Sumomo in Sergeant Frog, Triela in Gunslinger Girl, Vivi in One Piece (FUNimation), and Yakumo in School Rumble.In 2008, Caitlin directed the widely popular fan-favorite, Ouran High School Host Club, as well as playing Haruhi Fujioka. Other directing credits include Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Gunslinger Girl- Il Teatrino, Linebarrels of Iron, Murder Princess, Suzuka and FUNimation.s One Piece.
Along with directing, Caitlin enjoys adapting theme songs for FUNimation dubs, and can often be heard singing one of them! She has also voiced characters in such video games as Street Fighter IV & Super Street Fighter IV as Cammy, Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers as Amitadatelion, and Infinite Undiscovery as Aya.
Tia Ballard
Raised on generous helpings of Disney magic and video games, voice actor Tia Ballard is a bubbly blonde goofball. A Southern girl by heart, this will be the first overseas trip for this small-town Texas belle! She made her FUNimation Entertainment debut in February 2009 after working for The Walt Disney Company, where she won several awards for Best Guest Interaction and Most Pixie Dust in the Magic Kingdom.Tia is known for playing the adorable Shao May in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Onui in Oh! Edo Rocket, Rin Ogata in Rideback, Mizore Shirayuki in Rosario + Vampire, Rachel Calvin in Linebarrels of Iron, Nozomi in Shikabane Hime, Melody Honey in Sgt. Frog, and Ruon Kamiyama in Rin. She is also in One Piece, Strike Witches, Big Windup!, Blassreiter, D. Gray-man, Nabari no O, Casshern Sins, Eden of the East, Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Summer Wars and several other titles. She has done vocal work for several radio stations. Tia has recently begun to lend her voice to several video games, one being the role of the Villainous Giggly Manga Girls in the Xbox 360 game Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley.
Lately, Tia has hitched up her overalls and set to work on a comic series based on Nintendo.s Super Mario Bros. called Koopasta, which she directs, writes, and co-created. Tia is known for her kind disposition, good humor, and friendliness. She loves to cuddle! Ask her for a hug or a high-pitched squealy giggle and she will happily oblige.
Martin Billany (LittleKuriboh)
A secret last-minute guest announcement you enquire.. Who could we have lined up? ;)We're delighted to inform everyone that LittleKuriboh, of the hit youtube parodies Yu Gi Oh Abridged and DBZ Abridged will be attending this year's Alcon. In addition to his Q&A, expect him to help out with the Charity Gala, Auction and so forth.
Lucas (Twinfools)
Lucas (Twinfools) has been cosplaying since 2007, and is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Arts in English. Lucas has 2 years of experience on his high school Improv team; consequently his favourite part of cosplay performance is improvisation and acting. When it comes to cosplay construction he enjoys wig styling and painting/crafting. He is a member of the Canadian cosplay group, Fighting Dreamers Productions, which produces cosplay skits and CMVs for Youtube and cosplay photos for DeviantArt.Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/twinfools
Deviantart - http://twinfools.deviantart.com/
Twitter - http://twitter.com/twinfoolz
Naruto's Bad Idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBhofZHPiYY
Jenna (Nova)
Jenna (Nova) has been cosplaying since 2004, but it wasn't until she met the rest of Fighting Dreamers Productions that her passion for cosplaying started. While making her own costumes is fun, Jenna's (Nova's) favourite part of cosplaying is the acting portion. She has always had an interest in acting and film-work so cosplaying has been a fun way of exploring those interests. Her passion for acting has now expanded to behind-the-camera work with cosplay music videos and larger movie productions.Youtube - www.youtube.com/user/vandorwolf
Deviantart - http://vandorwolf.deviantart.com/
Twitter - http://twitter.com/novavandorwolf
Ugly Side CMV - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zaqU1TyE60
Jen (TealPirate)
Jen (TealPirate) started off on youtube hosting a show called Demyx Time on her own, but it wasn't long before she was joined by KellyJane as Axel, and the doubleact began.Soon after, the cast extended even more and Parle Productions was born. Now in their third year of youtube videos, Parle have began to expand out in to other fandoms, with their latest venture, Harry Potter, seeing their largest cast to date.
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/JenxtheJinx
Deviantart - http://tealpirate.deviantart.com/
Demyx Time 9 - http://www.youtube.com/user/JenxtheJinx#p/u/88/OSZTnbEuGfc
The Sora Show 4 - http://www.youtube.com/user/JenxtheJinx#p/u/29/IJLRHd0AVOY
KellyJane
KellyJane first started making costumes for herself and others in 2005 for university events, her first "from-scratch" costume being from the fanseries "Mighty Moshing Emo Rangers" for a superheroes night! From there, she discovered the UK cosplay scene via a Naruto screening held in London in 2007, and has been obsessed with costuming ever since. As well as cosplaying from anime and video games, she is also actively involved in sci-fi costuming, and is part of a UK costuming group that brings together screen-accurate costumers to raise money for charity. As well as UK conventions, she and Jenn also attend events overseas as guests, and are pleased to be returning guests at Alcon 2011. Having left university early, she works full-time and has done so for several years. Along with the expensive hobby of costuming, the rest of her paycheck seems to go solely on conventions, Nandos, and Diet Coke. She is the other half of TealPirate, older sister of Sora1992 (known as Saix of "Demyx Time") and is often the one who beats the rest of Parléroductions into line.Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/TouchMyKeyblade
Deviantart - http://kellyjane.deviantart.com/
EddsWorld
Eddsworld consists of Thomas Ridgewell, Edd Gould and Matt Hargreaves who are responsible for the Eddsworld's webcomics and cartoons. Some of their hit cartoons which are on youtube include Zombeh Nation and Movie Makers. You can check out their youtube content at http://www.youtube.com/user/eddsworldTomska is also responsible for a a lot of very funny hit youtube-animations including the Banned University of Lincoln Adverts, the asdfmovies (over 10 million views) and many more. You can check out his content at http://www.youtube.com/user/tomska
They will be doing a series of Q&A panels about what they do as well as a panel or two about animation techniques (we'll be confirming exactly what they're doing closer to the time).
Unshin
Unshin - Unshin is a six piece Japanese band, fronted by Megumi Miyoshi a singer/songwriter from Sendai, Japan. With an eclectic mix of nationalities making up the band their writing style is unique taking influences from around the world but with focus on Japanese Pop/Rock. Their album .Waltz for Broken Dolls. is a concept album telling the story of a young girl growing up under the strict pressures of Japanese society, managing to stay on her own path, she finds herself as an individual. Each track has been written specifically to fit the story rather than a genre of music. This has created a completely unique sounding album that has drawn upon and fused many different styles of music.Unshin has collaborated with a Japanese animator who has created short animations for each track, these are projected above the band during live performance. An interesting and exciting, Japanese, live music experience that should not be missed. With three singles leading up to their album release in July, the band will be touring the UK from June through to November. Details about gigs and releases will be posted on their networking and web sites - http://www.unshin.co.uk and http://www.myspace.com/unshinmusic
Masa-Kun
Following Masa-Kun's very popular performance at LAC, we're pleased to announce that he will be attending Alcon for a series of performances!Masa-kun is an electric violinist who performs various Japanese related songs. At London Anime Con, he will entertain you with film, anime and game music, such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mario, Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy.
To see his performance further, watch http://www.youtube.com/masamusic123 and notices of his coming performances in London are also there.
Chipzel
We're pleased to announce that Liverpool-based Chipzel shall be performing at Alcon. She uses retro-consoles to create her music in true chiptunist style.Check her out via her facebook page here
Akemi Solloway
Akemi Solloway is a lecturer and consultant of Japanese culture, the daughter of an old samurai family and learned in the traditional arts and culture of Japan. She will present two panels on Japanese Culture - On Tea Ceremony and Kimonos.The following is taken from her website: "Through a desire to help people understand the traditional culture behind many of the modern aspects of Japanese art and lifestyle, Akemi has worked closely with the Anime and Manga community, speaking at many conventions and founding AJAMCA, the Anglo-Japanese Anime and Manga Cultural Association. She also has a lot of time and appreciation for people involved in Cosplay. Indeed, she has described her own use of western clothing in her free time as a form of reverse Cosplay, as she spends most of her life dressed in kimonos."
Click here to visit her website, or here to watch some of her talks.
Tab Kimpton
Cosplay Guest Tab Kimpton is a full time Costume maker and Comic writer, responsible for Khaos Komix and Khaos Kostumes. He began making costumes in October 2007 for a small recon in his local town. Since then he has made dozens of costumes, for himself, friends and commissioners. He does a lot of skit and performance work in his costumes, and loves making complex costumes. His real love lies in entertaining people and making them laugh.Tab shall be putting on a range of cosplay-related panels and workshops for the attendees, covering subjects such as Crossplay, Props, Skit Guidance, Repairing cosplays and more besides as well as talking on the subjects of Steampunk and on how to make a webcomic.
Zonic (Ziggy Newman)
Ziggy Newman (Better known in the music world as Zonic) was born in 1989 in Cambridgeshire. She began her musical career at a very early age writing songs to the tunes of retro Sega Megadrive games. Since then she has gone on to study music at City University London as well as having vocal training from the Guildhall School Of Music and Drama. Her music specializes in that of ambient, electronica based pop and dance with influences such as Lady GaGa, Madonna, Diane Arkenstone, T.a.t.u and Depeche Mode.(MasakoX) Lawrence Simpson
Best known for his work on DBZ Abridged, MasakoX also created Naruto: The Abridged Series. He voices these characters on Dragonball Z Abridged: Goku, Gohan, Master Roshi, Dende and Dr. BirdenheimHe has also started a six part series on TGWTG.com about voice acting called MasaVox. He also plans on creating a second season of the show while lending his voice to the various Team Four Star projects.
You can check out his youtube and blog
Make sure to catch his MasaVox voice-acting panel, as well as a Q&A.
Hex Fairydance
We're pleased to announce that Hex Fairydance shall be performing at Alcon.Started music 6 years ago via internet release finally making it onto itunes. Hex Fairydance ( Also know as Prototrash) has trained hard. Using characteristics from classical music, Rock and metal all the way to electronic music blending these sounds into there own. Using music as an emotional outlet it whilst retaining its structure and prescience. Take a unique opportunity to see and visit the mind Of Hex, bound bye no laws of gender nor or emotion.
http://www.facebook.com/prototrash#!/pages/Prototrash/103789136356794 http://www.vampirefreaks.com/hex_fairydance
The River Versus
For a mesmerising blend of progressive and neoclassical rock look no further than Manchester three-piece The River Versus, which is preparing to release its first album and tie-in comic; Movement I . In Search of the MiSinG.' Comprised of Alec Davis (vocals/keys), Jim Trippier (bass/vocals) and Aaron Stanton (drums/vocals), their music takes you on an adventure through a post-apocalyptic world, seamlessly mixing complex prog structures with hooky, visceral tunes. With influences including Biffy Clyro, The Cat Empire, Rachmaninoff and Coheed and Cambria with a love of all things geek, from comics to computer games, The River Versus produces and insatiable combo of blistering hooks and thoughtful vocals.http://www.facebook.com/the.river.versus
http://www.twitter.com/theriverversus