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Local artist Joyce Rainbow first attended LVL UP Expo as a fan in 2013, back when the homegrown video game convention drew an inaugural crowd of around 1,000 to the Henderson Convention Center.
The event has since ballooned into a massive three-day celebration of all things gaming, anime and cosplay that drew well over 100,000 attendees to the Las Vegas Convention Center last year. Rainbow, a former slot machine illustrator who quit in 2019 to pursue art full-time, made her fifth appearance as a featured vendor at this year’s iteration, which ran from April 25-27.
“There are so many differences from when it first started, it's insane,” Rainbow told the Weekly. “Back then, it was very casual. We didn’t have these big, interactive installations from major platforms like Netflix and Crunchy Roll or tutorials to help educate new artists. The setups are a lot more professional and it’s a lot more competitive. They just continue to ramp it up.”
Rainbow—and yes, that is her real name—was one of more than 250 vendors who set up shop on LVL UP’s main floor this year. Elsewhere in the sprawling venue, scores of spectacularly costumed fans flocked to watch lucrative professional gaming tournaments, attend signings by 50 prominent voice actors and creators, listen in on dozens of educational industry panels and participate in a swath of contests, giveaways and demos.
The stacked guest list included Comic-Con mainstays like Giancarlo Esposito, best known for his role as Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad, and Sean Schemmel, whose lengthy resume includes voicing Goku in the Dragon Ball franchise. They were joined by a bevy of stars from titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, Bleach, Final Fantasy, Halo, Sailor Moon, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Teen Titans.
Cameron Tucamcos, a Los Angeles resident who came dressed as a Tusken Raider from Star Wars on the first day, said one of his favorite moments was meeting Battlestar Galactica and Smallville star Sam Witwer. On day two, he organized an informal Fallout cosplay meetup—one of several dozen similar gatherings throughout the weekend.
This year’s festivities also marked another big step forward for LVL UP’s competitive gaming programming. The most notable addition was the Samsung Galaxy Gear Up Cup, a high caliber Call of Duty: Mobile competition that carried a prize pool of $100,000. But the most popular event, by far, remained the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament, where more than 600 contestants duked it out for $10,000 in winnings.
In between the headliners, fans perused interactive exhibits like the Pokemon Play Lab, which offered a chance for guests of all ages and skill levels to try the franchise’s longstanding trading card game, and an immersive obstacle course based on the Netflix series Love Death + Robots.
Clyde Thomas, a 36-year-old Las Vegas resident and third-time attendee who loves “anything Capcom,” told the Weekly he was “blown away” by the sheer scale of it all.
“For me, the atmosphere here is more pumped than I’ve ever seen it. There’s a lot more people to enjoy the ceremony with and more variety with the cosplays as well,” he said. “I love seeing all the artists and guests, but what really gets me excited is all the book vendors. I draw, so that’s like bread and butter for me.”
Much like the gaming medium itself, the convention was diverse enough to satisfy all tastes and interests.
“It’s great that I don’t have to choose between games and anime here, because I love both,” Thomas said. “I hope LVL UP keeps doing their thing and getting bigger and bigger, because there’s really nothing else quite like it in Vegas.”
English (US) ·