Iberanime

Iberanime is an annual anime convention in Porto and Lisbon, Portugal. The convention is split between the two biggest cities in Portugal, gaining the name IberanimeLX (in Lisbon) and IberanimeOPO (in Porto), with one of the bi-annual events happening typically around March and the other around October each year since the convention's inception.
With the growth of the convention's popularity, its size and the number of sponsors also grew. Although it focuses mainly on anime and manga, it sees attendees from non-anime fandoms yearly.
It is, at the time of creation of the page (2023) the biggest anime convention in Portugal.
== Complaints and Controversies ==
==== Artists' treatment over the years ====
One of the biggest attractions of Iberanime is its Artist Alley and artist guests, but over the years the convention has treated its artists rather badly, with many fans boycotting the event. 
One of the complaints is regarding the high prices for tables in the Artist Alley (AA), together with lack of space and bad organization (sometimes with tickets already being sold at discount and many of the artists who wish to participate not yet having received their acceptance e-mailOne of the comments in this post is of a fan publicly complaining about artists not yet knowing if they were accepted https://www.instagram.com/p/CiiEMMBsdaX/ thus hindering fanart production for the con and damaging artists' profit). 
Artists have also felt slighted due to Iberanime's lack of transparency in choosing artists for the AA, since many artists cannot ever secure a table there, while known tracers, art thieves, AI "artists" and NFT creators seem to easily get a spot. Fans repeatedly asked for clear participation guidelines without ever getting an answer. Fans are also discouraged from shopping in the artist alley, firstly, due to lax control of rip-offs and counterfeit art present in different areas of the convention, at much cheaper prices, and secondly, because the AA space is often to the side, badly advertised, too small and without enough entrances, leading to large queues and lack of walking space, not allowing fans to approach their favourite artists. Artists and fans have seemingly had their voices ignored for many years until an artist's tweet gained popularity and got an official response from Iberanime's Twitter (X). The Artist's tweet thread follows.
This and other related issues have been covered by fan news in the countryArticle written by Érica Oliveira for the Portuguese Website "Nerd Box" https://caixanerd.pt/o-descontentamento-dos-artistas-iberanime-2023/.
==== AI art and 2023 LX poster ====
The 2023 official posterArchived webpage featuring the AI poster which has now been deleted from official Iberanime pages https://web.archive.org/web/20231221182807/https://cartazculturallisboa.pt/evento/iberanime-2023-fil-feira-internacional-de-lisboa/ for the Lisbon event was created using AI and fans also complained that art used to promote the event was also made using AI. These complaints reached Iberanime and the organization hired artist Edo Haruma to design the new posterNew 2023 LX Iberanime poster by Edo Haruma https://web.archive.org/web/20231221184018/https://m.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=644876500980779&set=a.510230241112073.
Many other posters by Iberanime have been accused of being created using AI or at the very least, using free assets.
It seems that after the callout, Iberanime has started a poster contest, asking fans to submit their art with the chance of being chosen to make the next poster for the event. Many fans have complained that this still abuses the artists, because they're submitting their art for free and won't see any kind of payment.
== References ==
Category:Anime Conventions
Category:Conventions
Category:Conventions in Portugal
Category:2010 Conventions
Category:2011 Conventions
Category:2012 Conventions
Category:2013 Conventions
Category:2014 Conventions
Category:2015 Conventions
Category:2016 Conventions
Category:2017 Conventions
Category:2018 Conventions
Category:2019 Conventions
Category:2022 Conventions
Category:2023 Conventions
Category:2010s Conventions
Category:2020s Conventions