While at Fanime this Memorial Day weekend I realized that though I attend a number of anime conventions and I buy quite a bit of anime on DVD and Blu-ray (my DVD library software lists about 1900 SKUs, though a few of them aren’t anime…), I buy very little anime at conventions. For example, at Fanime the majority of the anime I purchased was at the swap meet; I think I only made a single retail purchase. But I don’t exactly avoid spending money at conventions…

The obvious reason for this is the internet – online shopping for anime just about as convenient as buying at-con (you might think walking away with discs in hand is more convenient, but I argue that only makes a difference if you plan to go home or back to your hotel room and try watching what you bought in the next day or two). Also, online anime tends to be cheaper – convention dealers like Anime Pavilion basically offer a flat 25% off MSRP for all anime, while online you can usually get discounts of 25%-40% on non-clearance titles – for example, Rightstuf offers 40% discounts on preordered titles. Except if they’re from NIS America, Aniplex, and (now) Pony Canyon USA – then the discount tops out at 20% – which means it’s worth buying those titles at a convention.

That leads me to wonder when it is worth buying anime at a convention rather than waiting to get it online. Here are the circumstances I’ve thought of so far:

1. You plan to watch the show almost immediately after purchasing it (if you won’t watch it for as little as 2 days you can probably wait for Amazon Prime to deliver it).
2. Distributor controls pricing so that maximum discount online is 20% (Aniplex of America, NIS America, Pony Canyon USA titles; a lot of Ghibli stuff rarely goes past a 10% discount).
3. You can’t really purchase things online, possibly because you don’t use a credit or debit card, or because there are problems getting shipments delivered where you live.
4. You get something extra for purchasing at the convention (for example, NISA and Aniplex have offered autograph tickets with select purchases at Anime Expo in years past, and the Sailor Moon set I bought from Anime Pavilion at Fanime got me a choice of “free” posters).
5. The purchase is pretty much a convention exclusive (this is how my swap meet purchases work – I basically only buy things at the swap meet that I don’t think I can find at competitive prices otherwise).
6. When somebody involved in creating or releasing the show is present and you can buy directly from them as a visible show of support (I’ve done this with Discotek’s booth at Anime Expo)

Any other ideas about when it’s worth buying anime at cons?