Anime Dallas AMV Contest 2026 - 4/17-4/19 - Status: Now Accepting Submissions - Deadline 2/19/26

[Harmadillo]

2026 Anime Dallas AMV Contest! 4/17-4/19 20206 - Status - Submissions Open - deadline 2/19/26
Post by Harmadillo » Wed Nov 05, 2025 8:02 am

When / Where
Event Timing: Convention will be 4/17/20206 - 4/19/2026
Submission Deadline is 11:00PM CST (midnight EST) 2/19/2026
Contest will Likely be on Friday 4/17 and awards on Sunday 4/19
Event Address: Embassy Suites by Hilton - 2600 John Q Hammons Dr., Frisco, TX 75034


Contact us at AnimeDallasAMVs@Gmail.com or message Harmadillo here or (ID: derbadger) on discord (Discord is likely fastest response)

Entry form: We will ask for some AMV details and your personal information
You must upload the file to the contest drive via this form. Unfortunately the coordinator lives in a rural area with very poor upload speeds (thanks satellite!) so this is necessary. You will have to fill out this form for every video you submit - sorry!

Entry Form LINK: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... 5725002727

Submission Limits:
5 videos in total for Drama, Action, Romance/sentimental, and Dance/Upbeat. (No more than 2 per category - you may submit 2 to a single category. If you sent more extras will be deleted at random)
You may submit up to 5 videos each into Comedy/Parody, Trailer and Shorts (so 15 total if you send 5 each into those 3 categories).

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Rules:

For 2026 The Anime Dallas AMV Contest will adhere primarily to A-M-V.org CONGRSS Rules

Basic Rules & Guidelines

Keep it decent! Anime Dallas strives to keep a fun, “Family Friendly” atmosphere, and entries will be disqualified if they do not maintain a certain level of decency (Easy Translation: No Hentai AMVs or songs with a lot of profanity). Videos should not contain excessive violence, language, or content that would either place it above a PG13 rating or is unsuitable for a general audience. This rule will be enforced on a case-by-case and contest-by-contest basis.
Videos should also refrain from having content that is derogatory, demeaning, or designed to insult others on the basis of race, gender, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
We reserve the right to disqualify any entry if we feel it is deemed inappropriate. If this happens to you and you feel it was unjust, you may appeal to the Contest Coordinator after the event.
Videos longer than 4 minutes 30 seconds are heavily discouraged. Preferred length is 3 minutes 30 seconds or less. We will LIKELY have roughly 2.5 hours for the competition show and 1.5 hours for the awards show. If videos are longer than the awards show or finals will allow, only a portion may be shown during the AMV Contest Event if at all.

There will be 6 pre-defined Categories with 5 to 6 finalists per category depending on allotted time and submission lengths:
Action
Dance / Upbeat
Drama
Romance / Sentimental
Comedy / Parody
Trailer
Shorts ***

*** We will have Shorts as an optional 7th category if time allows. If we cannot show shorts at the convention we will host an online contest for them after the convention. To be clear - there is no guarantee these will be shown so please do not be angry if you submit and we cannot show it at the con. (But we are going to try to make it work!)

Video & Audio Quality.
Entries should be of reasonable video and audio quality. Videos that have a resolution and frame rate of less than 480p and 23.976fps may be disqualified. All submissions MUST be made in MP4 AVC format. From Wikipedia: Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is … by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content …

Videos should not contain watermarks, TV logos, studio bumpers, credits, or references to other events/ competitions that are either not directly related to the video content, or unnecessary for the video concept. Videos should also not contain subtitles that were not created by the editor.
Videos should consist of clips edited solely by the entrant(s) or group listed on the entry form. Entries found to have been plagiarized from other Fandom Music Videos may result in disqualification and/or banishment from future events.
In the case of collabs, MEPs, or videos edited by multiple people, each participant or group name must be listed on the submission form. If the submission form doesn’t allow multiple editors to be listed, or if you forgot to include someone, please contact the contest coordinator to have the information added.

Entry Submission:
Registration for the contest will be handled via THIS very google form. Entrants will submit their videos in .mp4 format on digital media along with the above form containing the entrant’s name and e-mail, running time, the artist/name of the song(s) used, and the name of the anime(s) used, etc. YouTube or ”streaming only” links will not be accepted.
All entries must be received by the published submission deadline to allow time for the pre-judging and compilation of the finalists.
Entrants can submit multiple videos, but no more than two videos per category, and no more than 5 videos in total for Drama, Action, Romance/sentimental, and Dance/Upbeat. (no more than 2 per category) You may submit up to 5 videos each into Comedy/Parody, Trailer and Shorts.
With the exception of Trailers, Parodies, and shorts your audio should be primarily music, and not contain excessive narration or dialog.

Freshness:
Freshness: Any video that was submitted to another contest and won an award before March 1 2025 is NOT eligible for the competition. If you won an award on March 2 2025 or more recently than that, you ARE eligible. If your video has never won an award you are eligible.

Rules regarding AI components in submissions:

This is intended to be a competition between human editors using human created source material. We merely wish to ensure that the AMVs shown meet that criteria. Please keep that in mind when submitting.

Specifics:
Songs or video sources created entirely or mostly by AI are NOT allowed.
AI scene selection, transition creation and auto titling are NOT allowed.
AI for new scene creation is not allowed.
AI use for background EXTENSION and background modification is allowable but try not to do too much of it.
Use of AMV Templates is heavily discouraged.
Use of AI integrated tools for functions like upscaling, interpolation, clip detection, text deletion, scene extension, rotoscoping, etc is allowed, but please be careful they are not changing the nature of the source material. They should only be used to reduce time performing tedious tasks or enhance the quality of the source material, not creating entirely new material. If using AI tools, please do frame by frame checks to ensure that un-intended artifacts are not present.

The Spirit of these rules is that the competition should be humans competing against humans, using content created by humans. Please use your best judgment in selecting techniques and sources to ensure that this is the case. If you have questions please contact the contest coordinator.


Competition:
Finalists will consist of 5 or 6 videos per category and will be selected during pre-judging. Finalists will be shown in a random order by category & voted on during the competition showing by the Anime Dallas attendees and staff in attendance. A list of finalists will be posted on Animemusicvideos.org before the convention and as soon as the judges reach consensus.
Fan favorite winner and Runner up will also be selected by live audience vote during the contest. ALl other wards will be judge selected.
Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Sunday.
At their discretion, the judges may elect to bestow their own awards, such as judges choice, best in show, best storytelling etc. These categories are not pre-defined and are a way for the judges to recognize excellence and effort, and possibly recognize videos they may love that do not make the finals.
We will have 3 special awards :
1 - The Howdy Neighbor award for the best entry from a Texan editor
2 - another for the Anime Dallas VA AMV award for the best AMV featuring voice acting or dubbing. These awards are open to submissions in any category
3 - We may also add additional hybrid category awards if suitable candidates present themselves. Ex: we will have an award for best Draction (Dramatic action / Actiony Drama) hybrid if we receive an AMV meeting those criteria that does not make finalist in Drama or Action. Additional hybrid category awards will also be considered if they present themselves. If you send us something that does not fit into a category well but is awesome - feel free to provide a cool category name for us in the notes)

Prizes:
We do not promise any tangible prizes outside of certificates for some winners.
You are not required to be present for the AMV contest to enter or win.
It is highly recommended that the winners be present, but any winners who are not present will be contacted after the convention via the e-mail address given when they submitted their video.
Arrangements will be made for the winners to receive the associated prize(s) and/or awards. (In most cases the award is simply a certificate and recognition in the community). Awards certificates will be created for Winners, Runners Up, and any judges awards.

Source Material clarification:
This is intended as an "Anime" music video contest not a visual art contest so no live action please. Live action footage from the live action adaptation of an Anime (city hunter, One Piece, etc) would be allowed. Scoring of it would be a judges choice thing. Typically this crew of judges has not rated live action stuff that was non Anime derived highly in the past.

We will accept Animation of any sort as long as it was not AI produced. So Anime (of course) also Gaming footage and Manga based footage are totally fine. Western Animation is also allowed.

[Harmadillo]

Reserved for FInalists

[Harmadillo]

Reserved for Winners

[Harmadillo]

Reserved for Playlists and AMVAwards Link

[Harmadillo]

WHoops - fixed the entry link! Sorry about that!