What are your experiences with anime conventions?

I'm a casual anime fan so I'm generally not looking for conventions to go to, but I've been to a few with a friend who really wanted to go. They weren't major national conventions, but fairly big regionally. Honestly they were like any other convention I've ever been to except with costumes. Maybe a little more social generally with people taking pictures and complementing the cosplay stuff, but outside of that you could have switched the anime out with just about anything else and I'd never have known the difference. It was always a good time. Don't know that I'd go out of my way, but if someone wanted to go asked me to come along I'd go happily.