We need to talk about LVLUP Expo 2026

[00:01] I haven't sat down and talked to you guys about a con in quite a while.

[00:13] we're going to be discussing Level Up Expo 2026. This was my very first time attending this convention and only my second time going to a convention in Las Vegas. And I wanted to kind of talk to you all about my experience about the

[00:29] con itself. And I just want to start this video by saying [music] I would call this con after going probably like a medium-sized con [music] that is doing large con numbers. And what I mean by that is the size of the con itself was

[00:45] actually not as big as I was expecting. Like it was big. It was not small by any means. There's plenty to do, but it felt a little bit overpopulated at time, which is a pretty common con issue. So, we're going to talk about my experience,

[00:59] this video, subscribe to the channel, and leave a comment your thoughts. And financial way, you do get some exclusive perks if you join the memberships, including fun emojis, priority replying

[01:11] comments, early release of videos, as well as helping me decide the videos that I make every single week. So, if you can support me in that way, I would greatly appreciate it. You just hit the join button below. So, this was one of

[01:23] my first experiences at a con as a creator. So, I had an official creator badge, and they had an entire program for it. For the record, in case you for it. For the record, in case you don't know how cons go, most cons offer

[01:36] a press badge or a creator badge or kind of like a mix of the two to content creators. You do have to have like a decent amount of interaction. You have that sort of thing in order for them to give you that badge. But, I've been

[01:49] doing that for a little while now. I think I started doing that last year, "Maybe I have enough followers to get those press badges. Most conventions, the press badge just means you get a free badge. Most of them don't even

[02:03] of tell you, yeah, make some content [music] about the con, obviously, but they don't like specifically line out what you need to do. Occasionally, you'll find a con that's like super specific. I did press for a convention

[02:15] last year where they literally had us on shifts and had assignments for us and I had to show the content, edit the content, send the created content over all within like the same day. It was very busy. It was very stressful, but it

[02:30] and what they're expecting. This was my first experience where it was actually a creator program where they had additional perks related to it. I am going to talk about that at the end of this video though, just because I feel

[02:43] like the general masses will probably just have more interested in how the con interested in learning about the creator program of this convention, just hang on until the end. Now, for the record, whenever I do an out of state con, I

[02:56] always try and do it in a way where I can take as little time off as possible. And what that means is what I've done for this con now and what I also usually do for Anime Expo is I will drive to that convention on the day it starts. I

[03:11] freaking early and try and get there around the time it opens. In this case, Level Up Expo on day one opened at 12:00 p.m. So, my friend and I actually left the house at like 5:00 a.m. We ended up parking at

[03:27] like 11:30, but we had to get ready in the car because our hotel didn't allow early check-in. We ended up not getting into line until about 12:30. More on regular process for out of state cons literally since I started doing out of

[03:43] state cons. I also leave on [music] the final day, so I usually only stay the final day for about half of it before I drive home. And both Anime Expo, which is in Los Angeles, and Level Up Expo, which is in Las Vegas, are roughly 6 to

[03:59] 7 hours from where I live. Because I do out-of-state conventions in this way, the way I experience it ends up being a little bit different because I'm usually stuff at the very beginning of a con and the big stuff at the very end of a con.

[04:14] But, I still try and leave home early enough to get there so that I get the majority of the first day and wait as long as I can the last day so that I get like I'm getting my money's worth. Now, in this case, because I was in the

[04:27] free. That's part of the program. That's kind of what the perk is for most of the conventions that offer creator or press badges is you get in for free, but I still like to make sure I get a lot of time in with the con. So, like I said,

[04:42] day one, we parked at about 11:30. Really, really terrifying moment because we were allowed into one of the parking lots. We paid, and then we couldn't find a parking spot. We ended up sandwiching ourselves in between this U-Haul and big

[04:58] like camper van that I only felt comfortable parking in because my car backing into spots is easier than pulling into it. But, if I was not in found a parking spot because I have a lot of parking lot anxiety from past

[05:14] issues in parking lots. That's not a bridge we're crossing today, but it was very interesting to try and figure out where to park when they allowed us into the parking lot, but it seemed like there wasn't any place to park. But, we

[05:27] parking spot, which ended up being a blessing in disguise because it was ready, which like I said, took us about an hour. When we arrived to park, we noticed there was a big long line to get into the convention on the one side of

[05:42] the building. I believe we were on It was either the east or west side, and then the entrances were on the north and south side. And we saw that there was a which like I said was either the east or west side. Because we got there at 11:30

[05:57] though, we knew that the con hadn't actually opened yet, so they were just slowly letting people in since things weren't open. But in our experience with other cons, usually if you get to the entrance an hour or so late, you usually

[06:10] kind of walk in. This is the case with Anime Expo. I've gone 3 years in a row and each time I've gotten there on day one around 1:00-2:00 p.m., which is a few hours after they open, and I have essentially walked right in every single

[06:24] time. But that was not the case this time. So, this is probably my biggest critique of this convention from my experience as a first-time goer. I want critique. The problem is this critique is kind of a big deal that can ruin a

[06:40] lot of people's experience. So, I feel like I have to say it because this is convention if they end up watching this video, and I think that there's definitely ways that they can make it a little bit better. But we got in our

[06:54] little bit better. But we got in our line and we noticed that the line, first of all, was hard to find because it was on the opposite side of the building, and we didn't know there was no signage of which entrance. We knew based off of

[07:07] what the app said is that the red entrance was the only entrance you could go to if you didn't have your badge yet, which is the case for everyone. They don't offer badges being mailed out, which I think is one thing that can help

[07:19] trying to get into this con. But I do think there should be signage since the parking lot was on the east or west side, the entrances were on the north and south side. When we arrived, there was really no way to know which side was

[07:32] which side, so we just kind of guessed based off of the other people that we saw heading to an entrance. We noticed people with a badge were going on one going to the other. We guessed right, we went to the correct side, but that's

[07:45] went to the correct side, but that's where we started to experience a 3-hour long line to get inside the convention. Yes, you heard me right. It took 3 hours for us to get from the beginning of the line where we started to with our badges

[08:01] going inside the con. And for the record, the line that we had seen when actually got out of the car was for the other entrance and that line was cleared pick up badges because it took a little bit longer. You had to wait in line

[08:16] security itself is pretty quick because they allowed outside food and drink. So, you set off the metal detector. So, security was pretty fast, but then you to go and pick up your badge and they

[08:31] had multiple little booths for it and it moved pretty quick, but it was just so many people that it took forever to just get through this line. For the record, my friend and I, we got to the the red entrance from the side of the

[08:44] building that we were on. We got our props checked, which I'm really glad we they were saying if you got all the way to security and you didn't have your props checked, they would make you go and do it and then get back in line at

[08:57] the very start. I think I would have left if that happened to me and I had "Nope, you got to get back in line at the very beginning." I would have said, "All right, Friday's a wash." Which if I were paying for my badge, I would have

[09:10] been a little bit more upset. I had a free badge, so I was like, "Okay, well, you know, it's kind of like I'm not losing money. I'm just like a little frustrated that I'm not in the con yet." Now, I've been going to cons very

[09:22] consistently for the past 4 years. I like to think I have a lot of experience with it and have a lot of good knowledge about what to expect at a con. I have never waited this long to just get inside and pick up my badge. We needed

[09:35] to go to the bathroom, we were thirsty, we were hungry, but there was just no option other than to stand there and wait. There were no outhouses, which I I don't know that anyone would be interested in that. It was a concrete

[09:49] jungle. There was no no place you could go to go to the bathroom, get water. bottles. Luckily, we were in the shade and Las Vegas was actually cooler for that time of year at the time, but it was definitely a frustrating ex perience

[10:05] trying trying to get in. I know a lot of people were very frustrated with that because I can only imagine if Friday was the only day you were intending to go. For the record, because we got in line at 12:30, we weren't entering the con

[10:18] until 3:30. The con closed at 7:00 p.m. that night. It wasn't even like there was a really late con. It's not a con that goes super late. All of the normal stuff is over by 7:00 and then if you're interested in doing after-parties, those

[10:33] after-party type person. I'm not a raver, so I never do that stuff. So, if I had been there just for Friday or if I had paid for a full event badge, I still was only experiencing about 3 and 1/2 hours of a con at the end of the day

[10:49] Now, I do think there's a couple ways that this con can remedy the situation was the first time they've had that issue according to people who have gone multiple years in a row. They hadn't experienced that before, so I don't know

[11:03] got a lot bigger this year and they just weren't ready for the numbers that it did, but I think first things first, offer an option to mail the badge to arrive with their badge. That'll alleviate the fact that there was only

[11:19] one entrance you could go through to get your badge because then a lot of people will just be able to go to either entrance, which brings me to my next suggestion and that is have badge pick up at both sides. Again, this will just

[11:33] help split it halfway so that both lines will just move a little bit faster. My third suggestion, I don't know if they really have this option, but there needs to be more than two entrances. For the record, I think Anime Expo used to have

[11:48] record, I think Anime Expo used to have a really long line to get in probably up Like I said, I've never experienced a 3-hour wait. I think the longest wait I 3-hour wait. I think the longest wait I experienced at Anime Expo was like 35

[12:01] minutes. I'm not trying to compare Level Up to Anime Expo because at the end of the day, Anime Expo is probably twice as big and has way more resources available to them, but I do think Level Up can take some of the things that Anime Expo

[12:16] crowds and remedy their issues with crowds. There needs to be more than two entrances. I don't care how they make it happen. If they can somehow make the con both

[12:29] indoor and outdoor like Anime Expo is so that some entrances are literally just security is set up in a area where you can just walk into the general vicinity. some of the roads. They already had police there like directing traffic. So,

[12:45] I think that there are definitely opportunities for them to add more entrances that are not just the two entrances into the convention building. that's something that they physically can do. They just might not have that

[12:59] center. I don't know if they need to move to the building that was on the literally a road that went through and there was like the north building and the south building or whatever it was called, but I do hope that next year

[13:12] there are more entrances, people have badge mail options, and they can pick up their badge at more than just one entrance. If that happens, I do think that this line issue will be for the most part alleviated. And like I said,

[13:26] that's really my only critique because outside of that it was super fun. Friday ended up being a pretty quick day because my friend and I were tired. We'd been up since 4:00 a.m. and we stood in line for 3 hours just standing there and

[13:40] drove for 6 hours. It was just a long day. We ended up staying at the con for about 2 hours. We said hello to some friends. We took some pictures and then we decided to get Olive Garden. So that day was kind of just exploring the

[13:53] vendor hall and seeing what was available there. We didn't really do any shopping cuz both of us tend to wait until the final day to shop for multiple reasons unless we're trying to get some kind of limited edition item that is

[14:06] something that one of the main vendors is doing. We scoped out the voice actor side because I was going to be meeting a voice actor the next day and we took some pictures with some friends and then we left. We went to Olive Garden and

[14:19] then it was day two. So day two. This was the main reason Level Up Expo even grabbed my attention. I got to meet Kazuhiko Inoue who is the voice actor

[14:31] for Kakashi from Naruto and Yoriichi from Demon Slayer, the Japanese voice actor. If you've been watching me for a while, you probably know my preference is to watch anime subbed. I don't watch it in dubbed. Most local conventions

[14:44] have plenty of dub voice actors and there's always big long lines. There's always an audience for that. People love it. I don't spend my money or time meeting actors since I don't watch the anime dubbed, but if a convention brings

[14:59] Japanese voice actors, they've piqued my interest. In this case, they brought Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura's Japanese voice actors. They're pretty expensive to meet, but I was able to splurge a little bit to meet Kakashi's. It made

[15:12] sense to me his because he's Kakashi. Kakashi's my favorite character in Naruto and he's also Yoriichi in Demon Slayer. Very, very excited to hear him next movies. But, this was definitely a highlight. This is something that puts

[15:28] Level Up Expo up there with Anime Expo and some of the other cons that bring Japanese voice actors. We need to bring Japanese voice actors more. There is an audience for it. There are people that are excited for it. I think that they

[15:41] might have been one of the reasons why it was so busy. But, this was a really really amazing experience. He was so kind. I walked up to him. I said, completely blank even though I wanted to speak Japanese to him. I just kept on

[15:57] Kinchoshitemasu." And he was like, "Oh, so kind." >> Which means I'm nervous. And we took a picture. He was really sweet. He shook my hand. He said, "Arigato gozaimasu." And then I That was it. That was all I

[16:10] did. For the record, when you meet Japanese voice actors, it moves pretty quickly unless you actively choose to say something to them. Otherwise, you because there is a language barrier. They obviously have translators there to

[16:24] help out. But, for the most part, it moves very very quickly. I'm trying to quickly next time because I want to actually get to speak to these voice actors. I have now met two, Yuki Kaji and Kazuhiko Inoue. And both times I got

[16:40] nervous and just didn't say anything. And I'm sad. But, this was an incredible experience and truly shout out to Level Up Expo for bringing these voice actors. If they keep doing that, I will continue to attend. Saturday, the it took us

[16:53] about an hour to get in on Saturday through the other entrance where people did not have to pick up badges. So, it took a minute still. But, I feel like an hour is much more normal for conventions. I've definitely waited up

[17:06] my life. So, that was like not really a big deal. And then we walked right in. We waited in line for probably about 30 minutes, got a picture, and then we explored a little bit more and there was

[17:20] actually an upstairs portion where like all the panel rooms were. We walked around up there for a while and then there was a Naruto cosplay meet up. We did that and then here was the next thing that I will say I think that Level

[17:33] Up can tweak the way they worded this just a tiny bit but this was mostly my fault. We wanted to go to the Naruto panel which had those three Japanese voice actors and the English dub of Naruto. And it was in a room called mini

[17:47] Naruto. And it was in a room called mini events. Now in my haste I read it as main events because there's a main event and there's a mini events. Those words are far too close together for someone who was a little bit over stimulated at

[17:59] a con and we waited in line for main events so that we could get really good seats. We were on the third row. We were super excited and then they started the panel and it was for like Hazbin Hotel which neither one of us have any

[18:12] interest in whatsoever. And we were like, "Oh god, we're in the wrong spot." Mini events was literally on the other side of the building which luckily that panel started late so we didn't miss anything but we didn't have good seats

[18:25] which was a little bit disappointing after we sat and waited for a panel one partially on me because I just misread it but I also think that main events and mini events way too similar in name. We need to have different names

[18:38] that make it obvious these are different rooms. I would not be surprised if someone else had the same issue as us. But the panel was amazing. It was super sweet. All of the voice actors were so cool. I especially loved how I believe

[18:50] it's pronounced Maile, the English dub voice actor for Naruto. The whole time she kept on mentioning how starstruck she was because I think we forget for these English dub voice actors, they're listening to the Japanese sub this

[19:04] entire process. So she's like, "I've had these guys in my ear for 25-30 years it was her first time meeting them. I believe it was her first time meeting Sakura and Kakashi's voice actors. So, it was just really sweet. It was a fun

[19:19] back and forth and it was a fun panel overall. It was very fast. They started late and ended early, but sometimes that happens. It's not a big deal. I will take what I can get. That was mostly Saturday. We had a lot of fun at the

[19:32] cosplay meet up just enjoying hanging out with other Naruto fans. We walked our other friends again, got some more pictures before it was time to go back to the hotel and go to bed for the night. I'm an early to bed person, so

[19:48] I'm not someone who's like, "I stay up at cons until 12:00 1:00 a.m." Sometimes I will if there's a reason, but for the most part because I'm not an after party person, these cons are closing at like 7:00 p.m. So, I usually just go eat and

[20:00] go back to the hotel. There's not much else to do. Sunday we woke up, we got ready, we packed up. The con was opening at 11:00 a.m. each day by the way as well, which is really late in my opinion for like a big con. Anime Expo, again, I

[20:13] because they are very different, but it opens at like 8:00 a.m. sitting around doing nothing cuz I wake up naturally at like 5:00 a.m." but we got ready and we checked out the hotel, we headed over. Sunday was shopping day,

[20:28] so we got a bunch of shopping done. I will show you what I got. So, in case y'all didn't know, I have been locked in on Witch Hat Atelier. So, this is Key Free and he's amazing. I like him way better than Gojo already. And then that

[20:43] was all I was going to get because I already spent a lot of money on my autograph, but I did want to get a little bit more. So, I found this really cool artist that had these characters, but it was like this fun coloring. It's

[20:55] like blues and pinks and that sort of thing. So, I got Tengen. He was almost out, so there were a few that I wanted, but he only had the ones that I ended up with. So, we got the Kamaboko squad minus Genya and Kanao, which is fine. A

[21:10] it. And then I got Kakashi, because this con meeting his voice actor and everything. So, I just got those prints.

[21:22] that I haven't hung up. I've been slowly adding, I don't know if y'all noticed there's more over there, but I need to work on getting them hung up. A lot of the camera cuz they're going to be all over the room, but like I said, we ended

[21:35] up leaving pretty early since we have to drive all the way home on the final day. I think we left at about 2:00 p.m. I did get to check out the creator lounge on this day, which was pretty cool. But overall, like that day was just a lot of

[21:49] shopping. So, it was a really fun con. It honestly was actually kind of chill. I was expecting it to be somewhere in between the cons that are really small

[22:01] of hours unless you're hanging out with friends. And like Anime Expo, there's you have to pick and choose. I was expecting it to kind of be in the middle

[22:13] and it was in the middle, which I like. I like having things to do and I like stressed out cuz I'm going to miss some of it. It's nice to have plenty of time time to go to panels, do cosplay meetups, and hang out. And it's nice to

[22:31] have all that to do but not feel so overwhelmed that we can have that first day where it took us 3 hours to get in, but I don't feel like I missed out on anything. So, overall, the con was a really wonderful experience. Again, it

[22:44] was my first time. I didn't really know what to expect heading into it. They had Crunchyroll was there and that sort of thing. It was very fun and I think I'm going to go back next year. So, I wanted to briefly touch on the creator program

[22:57] because from what I'm being told, this was was their first time doing it. So, I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about my experience going as a featured things first, the main thing that you get is a free badge out of it. That's

[23:12] something that is a universal convention thing. If you're going to be accepted as a content creator or press, you're going to get a free badge. But, they had more. So, they actually had a Discord server for us to kind of talk to each other

[23:25] and that sort of thing, which I thought was really cool. The person moderating this Discord server was really professional and really kind, and very organized even though she didn't always know what was going on. She was very

[23:38] honest, and she made sure to get those questions answered even if she didn't have the answer. There were three tiers. There was creator access, creator plus, and creator pro. I was right in the middle, creator plus. So, there was like

[23:51] a little bit of additional perks compared to access, but not as many as pro. And, I think there were only a few that got pro because it that was like, here. I think there should be a few more extra perks for those of us in plus over

[24:05] access because access is like pretty much they accept, from what I could tell, anyone who's making consistent content. It doesn't really matter how followers they have, at least that's what I've gathered. So, I think those of

[24:19] been building a following for quite a while, I think that maybe like additional things would have been nice, but I don't really care. I didn't get to see the creator lounge a ton. I only got to do it once because they don't allow

[24:34] It can only be the creator themselves, and I wasn't going to leave my friend all by herself, so I only went once when she was with someone else so I could go check it out. It's a really cool area. I don't know if people know this. If

[24:47] you've never been to a con, your feet get very tired very quickly, especially if you are cos playing and wearing any type of special shoe. And, it can be very, very hard to find somewhere to sit. This con didn't have very much

[25:01] seating at all. So, having a creator lounge where not many people had access could eat some candy, you could make some friends is a really great idea. I wish I could have gone to it a little bit more, but that was more like I don't

[25:16] think they have to let people's plus ones in. I think it makes sense to only let creators in, but maybe next year I'll be able to experience it a little bit more. Overall, with this being its first time being a full creator program,

[25:30] I thought it was really well done. It was my first time having actual perks outside of just a free badge. So, I really enjoyed the opportunities and I got to meet like a gaming company and talk to them about affiliate programs

[25:44] and that sort of thing. So, it was really awesome. I didn't get to meet any really awesome. I didn't get to meet any of the creators because I was just very It's hard to explain when I go to a con, it's hard for me to make content there

[25:56] because I'm just so in the moment when I'm at a con. I do get like overstimulated pretty easily, but I do just enjoy being at cons. I love just looking around, doing all the cool things, meeting the voice actors, the

[26:10] Japanese voice actors, going to the panels. Like I really enjoy the full con experience that I literally forget to make content. So, I've inserted a couple of videos throughout this video of a B-roll, but I didn't get a ton of

[26:24] content actually there because I I was just so in the moment. I just enjoy conventions. What can I say? But the creator program was, I think, really there's obviously some fine-tuning that needs to happen, but they did a great

[26:37] job with it, and I really think it's a great opportunity for creators of all sizes since they did have the lower tier for, like I said, creators who don't yet, just have been posting pretty consistently, and kind of follow what

[26:52] type of creator they're looking for for a convention, like make anime content, that sort of thing. And I think it's a really great opportunity for people to opportunity to connect with too many, but I'm hoping maybe next year I might

[27:05] be able to. But overall, I give the convention experience a 7.5 out of 10. I would give it literally a 9 out of 10 if it weren't for the 3-hour wait. Like I critique, but unfortunately, it really did make that first day pretty sour in

[27:21] our mouths. So, if they can alleviate that issue, I hope that next year will go a lot smoother and that I can continue to attend as a creator and have lots of fun every single time and hopefully make some actual friends next

[27:34] today's video. If you liked this video, don't forget to like it leave a comment your thoughts. And if you want to go to Level Up Expo or you want to hear my experience from other conventions, I am going to Anime Expo in

[27:47] interested in hearing about my experience, let me know. Otherwise, thank you so much for watching and I will see you all next time. Matane.