World Fandom is a Texas Non-Profit Corporation and 501(c)(3) Charity. It is our mission to educate the public about animation, cinema, art, music, games, crafting, costume design, dance, and other forms of traditional and popular culture and art. A majority of our revenue comes from annual memberships and the primary purpose of those memberships is to attend our annual convention in Dallas, TX.
AnimeFest was found in 1992 by Robert Jenks, Dan Minut, and Leon Thompson to promote Japanese Animation. We held our first event in October of that year. AnimeFest was originally a sole proprietorship of Robert Jenks but reformed into a Non-Profit corporation in 2001. In addition to the large annual event, we also hold smaller events throughout the year at our office and attend many other similar events across the country.
AnimeFest, as the name suggests, is largely based around "anime" or Japanese animation. It has always been one of our primary motivations to educate the public about anime and the cultural aspects surrounding it. When we formed back in 1992 the term "anime" was largely unknown. Many of the "cartoons" on TV were adaptations of Japanese TV shows and a few of us began to realize this and seek out more. A small, but rapidly growing fandom was emerging out of the science fiction/fantasy fandom.
In 2018 we renamed the company to World Fandom to help realize our full mission. We then started GameFest, a convention for fans of tabletop and video games. Additionally, we hope to start other world pop-culture events as volunteers come forward with ideas and leadership. From British Sci-Fi to Bollywood, we hope to share the wide world of entertainment with fans.
