UK anime conventions.

OK, I promised (threatened?) to include a few posts about anime, so here goes.
I have just came back from one of the UK's largest anime conventions (appx 1200 people, small by comparison to many US conventions), so I thought I would get down some of my thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind.
I am not going to go into the organisation of the con, suffice to say that there were a few organisational decisions that I found odd. Like having the dealers in the largest room in the con, and squashing the masquerade into three much smaller rooms. Also the lack of seating during the masquerade. I guess there were operational reasons that I was not aware of for these decisions, but the lack of seating made watching the masquerade untenable for me.
Of greater concern to me is the recent trend at UK anime conventions only to show videos that have been licensed for release in the UK. I was in several video rooms during the weekend (there were six at this con), and I never counted more than ten people in any of them (I have since been told that several of the rooms were well attended, but I must have missed those). Over the last few years there has been a downward trend in the number of people attending the video rooms at anime cons due to the easy availability of broadband and the use if Bittorrent. The policy of essentially using video rooms as a weekend of free advertising for the distributors seems to me to be certain to hammer the final nail in the coffin of the video rooms at UK anime cons. I can't see why anyone would bother with the video programme when they have already earmarked the series they would like to buy on DVD after having downloaded part or all of it on Bittorrent.
Overall, I enjoyed the con and would like to say well done to those who organised and ran it, it must be very difficult running a con of this size, so a big thanks to the committee and the gophers.