Why Project A-kon? Simply, it is America’s longest running anime conventions. It’s the closest one to me and it was my first anime convention in 1995
Figured I might as well try it out so I started with AnimeCons.com that listed the original hotel as Richardson Hilton. Google search came up as 701 E. Campbell and I gave them a call only to find out the hotel had recently changed to a Hilton a few years earlier. I assumed the original was torn down. It had been 35 years by now but thanks to Azure Props who fell down the rabbit hole and found some convention reviews from old fanzines and figured out it might be the hotel on 1981 N. Central Expway that was a Hilton, then Clarion then Radisson before reverting to Doubletree by Hilton today.
Dave Merrill was kind enough to send me some photos from A-kon’s program guide which included a map of the hotel meeting rooms used in the convention. I called up Doubletree and explain my project and they were kind enough to send a map of the conference rooms today. EXACT MATCH. Unfortunately the text is a bit difficult to read but I figured it out,
Photo from Project A-kon program book (1990)
Map from 2024