Anime Arizona is returning to action next month after its hiatus in 2024. New for the convention this year is its move from the Mesa Convention Center to the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel & Spa. For veterans of Arizona conventions, this probably won’t be the first time you’ve attended a con at the Renaissance but you haven’t, hopefully this will get you some sort of idea of what to expect for the venue and the surrounding area.

The Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel & Spa is located at the Westgate Entertainment District in Glendale off the Loop 101 on Glendale Avenue. The Renaissance in the past was home to Saboten Con before it moved to Downtown Phoenix as well as other events such as Salute to Supernatural, a convention celebrating all things from tv series Supernatural. It is also currently the home to the Mad Monster Party, one of the longer running horror conventions in Arizona. The hotel has plenty of spaces for panels with a total of 28 meeting rooms with the largest of them, the Solana Ballroom, probably playing host to the vendor hall (important to note however is that at the time of publishing, no details have officially been announced by Anime Arizona on what rooms are being utilized). Below are a couple of photos of the different spaces that Mad Monster uses at the Renaissance to give you an idea.

What about staying at the hotel for the con? Well, oddly enough, the Anime Arizona website has zero mention of a room block or any info about staying at the Renaissance. The hotel website paints a clearer picture: its sold out.

Chances are it is sold out due to the spring training crowd where the weekend of Anime Arizona is also the last weekend of the MLB Spring Training calendar (it officially ends on March 25). There are a few other hotels in the area but you may find either they too are sold out or they have abnormally high prices (again, due to the spring training crowd).  It can be a little bit of a pain to get to venue from the East Valley so not being able to stay at the host hotel is a bit of a bummer but just think of the autographs or merch you can purchase with the money you saved! It is a pretty nice hotel at the very least and if you are going to the convention in cosplay, you should have a couple of good spots (and I don’t remember if the old water feature is still there or if it was removed).

There are a few cafe/dining options in the hotel but your best bet is a brisk walk over to the Westgate area where you will have a lot of different food options including Johnny Rockets, Shane’s Rib Rack, Cupbop, Blendz Boba Tea Lounge and more.

I’ll have a little bit more comprehensive Anime Arizona article as we get closer to the date with panel schedules, parking, and so on but in the meantime, you can check out a couple of my earlier Anime Arizona articles such as this one or even this one.