Things to Do

Art & Video Contests

Put your skills to the test. Enter the Anime Music Video contest or our art contests for a chance to be featured on SacAnime badges, shirts, and the program book — and to win prizes, tables, and badges.

AMV Contest

The Anime Music Video contest showcases submissions from attendee editors, combining music and clips from anime, video games, and original art. Entries play Friday and Saturday nights on the Main Events screen — come laugh, cry, or “awwww” at the great entries, then fill out your ballot to vote. Winners are announced at Closing Ceremonies on Sunday.

Submission types

Competition — videos submitted for consideration of an award.
Exhibition — videos submitted only to be played for the audience.

Rules

Submit in MPG, MP4, or AVI format, in HD — files display on a very large projector, so high resolution looks best. Include your name and the video title in the filename (e.g. “John Smith Naruto Battle.avi”).
You may submit up to five (5) videos, in the same or multiple categories.
Videos must be between 30 seconds and 4 minutes 30 seconds in length.
No more than 15% of your video may be live-action; the rest must be animation and/or gaming footage.
Editors may not use clips from other people’s AMVs.
Videos using AI will not be accepted for competition.
Fan art or animation may be used with proof of permission from the original artist, emailed to the AMV team before the video is considered.
No vulgar language, extreme violence, or sexual themes. When in doubt, leave it out — staff reserve the right to disqualify videos in poor taste.
Don’t add title bumpers (we add uniform ones), subtitles unless essential, or any watermarks/logos not associated with the video.
No video shown at a previous SacAnime AMV contest may be re-entered; videos that didn’t make it in previously may be resubmitted.
Up to two voluntary resubmissions are allowed after your confirmation email.

AMV Submission Form: https://forms.gle/4igBVko1NZQ7RPR78

Submissions for SacAnime Summer 2026 open Friday, May 29 and close Friday, August 14 at 11:59 PM PST. You’ll receive a confirmation email within 24 hours of submitting. Questions? Email amvsacanime@gmail.com.

Want editing tips? Check out the AMV Contest Guide. You can also browse previous SacAnime AMV Contest submissions on YouTube.

Art Contests

SacAnime has always had a great artist community, and we help promote that growth through our contests. Artists can submit entries to be featured on SacAnime badges, T-shirts, or even the cover of the program book.

Badge / Cover Art Contest

Winners 18 and over receive a free Artist Alley table and an additional Helper Badge for SacAnime Winter 2027. Winners under 18 receive two Weekend badges with VIP Passes for SacAnime Summer 2026.

Image size should be 8.75″ × 11.25″, 300 dpi or higher.
JPEG format — e.g. “firstname_lastinitial_cover.jpg” or “artistname_cover.jpg”.
Artwork only — no text.
May be mascot art, or our mascot cosplaying as a character related to our guests.
Traced or plagiarized work will be disqualified. AI art is not allowed.
Entries must be relevant to our event to be considered.

Shirt Design Contest

Same prizes: winners 18+ receive a free Artist Alley table and Helper Badge for SacAnime Winter 2027; winners under 18 receive two Weekend badges with VIP Passes for SacAnime Summer 2026.

Image size should be 8.5″ × 11″, 300 dpi or higher.
Black and white with one spot color (the shirt is black, so design for a black background).
JPEG format — e.g. “firstname_lastinitial_tshirt.jpg” or “artistname_tshirt.jpg”.
Artwork only — no text.
Feature the SacAnime mascots, Hoshi and/or Sparkle-chan. No licensed characters or fan art, unless it’s our mascot cosplaying as a character related to our current guests.
Traced or plagiarized work will be disqualified. AI art is not allowed.

Shirt-design tip: we won’t disqualify t-shirt images that use more than 2 colors. What’s really important is that the image lines are clean and easy to print.

How to enter both

Email entries to sacanime@gmail.com and cc sacanime.artistsalley@gmail.com, with the subject line “ART CONTEST SUMMER 2026”. Entry deadline: July 15, 2026.

Helpful hints: include stars (“Hoshi” means star); you can enter more than once, within reason, but don’t submit derivatives of the same image; badges and cover art display in portrait, so tall is better than wide; and SacAnime is a family-friendly event, so adult-themed submissions won’t be considered.

Recent winners

Congratulations to our Spring 2026 Digital Art Contest winners. The full winning galleries are featured on the SacAnime site.

Badge / Cover Art Contest Winners — Spring 2026

Paiislley
Fusano
Fannytastical
Meltura
Fishies207
JoeyBlueJ

T-Shirt Contest Winners — Spring 2026

Ivory Ice
Hynori
Cleiris

AMV Contest Information

FAQ and editing tips straight from the AMV staff.

Here you'll find FAQ, General AMV tips, and what the AMV staff is working on to improve the contest. We decided to create this doc so the AMV staff had an easier way to update any who is interested more easily. Below is a basic description of what each tab is and hopefully we'll have more info and tabs as we figure out what you guys want to know!

FAQ

Questions frequently asked. If you think a question should be added to the FAQ please feel free to email amvsacanime@gmail.com your suggestion!

General Tips

Tips for editing and getting your amv entered into the contest

FAQ

It's located here

General tips

Audio Quality

Having good audio quality can really help a video. Poor audio quality can be distracting to the audience and take focus away from your video. Is your audio pitched, distorted, crackly, or peaking? You may want to improve your audio or download another version of the song. If you're using quotes from a show/game/etc, are the quotes able to be heard over the song enough that a new person watching your video can understand what they're saying?

Video Quality

Poor video quality is also something that can be very distracting to the audience. Is your video quality blurry or less than 720p? You may want to find better footage for your video. It's okay if you have poor quality because a show is older but if you have a newer show with some hd clips and some poor quality clips that changes between the two in the same video that can become distracting.

Aspect Ratio

Having the same aspect ratio, even if it doesn't fit the full screen, hasn't affected scoring in our experience but changing the aspect ratio randomly throughout the video can end up being distracting. If you are changing your aspect ratio during a video as part of your editing style, that doesn't seem to affect score so far in our experience.

Timing

Timing of clips can really help improve a video. With having clips timed to the music it can really help make your video more entertaining compared to having clips randomly played.

Other Editor Tips

Tips submited by editors who also enter the contest. Feel free to email amvsacanime.com if you would like to submit a tip.

If you use footage containing a character talking/singing, etc. make sure it at least partially hits the beats of the song. If it doesn't lip sync well, you can try to edit the clip to match, but if it really isn't gonna work try to find a clip with less or no lip movement in it.

Personal tips from the AMV Director

These are tips that I personally go by. These are NOT an end all be all of how to edit. These are just things that have worked for me and how I placed in SacAnime in the past and things I've notice as the AMV Director. Though the audience surprises me once in awhile and plenty of people who edit differently than me have placed as well. But if you're looking for some new tips or ideas to improve your editing here's what I suggest.

Song is half the battle

For contests picking the right song can be very helpful and it can depend on what category you are entering in as well. For example if you are entering into comedy and choose a song that is already funny on it's own it can make it easier to make a comedy. If you're entering into Fun and choose a song that many people enjoy and can clap along to, it may improve your score. What song you pick can also be affected by what anime/game/cartoon you choose to use or if you plan to use one show or multiple.

Short and Sweet

Never feel like you have to edit to the entire song if you don't want to. It's better to edit part of a song that you really want to edit and cut it shorter rather than edit the whole song and then have the video drag on. You can always cut out verses in a song or edit the audio to use the lines you want to edit.

Tell a Story or Show Something Everyone Knows

There are two ways I'll typically make an amv for a contest. The first is I will only use one show and focus on telling the story or part of the story of that show. This way even if no one has seen this show they can still understand the AMV because you have given them the required knowledge they need to understand the story you're trying to tell. The second way is to highlight multiple shows that the majority of people have seen or recognize. With this method I usually focus on the emotional parts of each show. This way you are using multiple shows and at least one or a few should be known by each audience member. This of course changes over time so it's good to know what anime are well known or popular at the time. Example of using first method (Telltale Walking Dead Spoilers): Safe and Sound Example of using second method-though a little outdated now (Check description for spoilers): Say Something

Keep Things Moving

I always try to keep a video moving with different clip duration. If I'm still trying to show the same scene I'll try to change to different angles of the same scene to keep the video moving. Unless I'm making a very slow sounding amv the majority of my clips are less than a second long.

Find Your Style

Everyone edits differently and has different strengths. Personally, I love telling a story and often use quotes from the show. Some people are better at certain effects and others are better at making fast paced videos. Once you find what you love to do keep at it because I feel like the more you love creating your video the better it'll be for audience as well.