My FIRST Kawaii kon!
A snapshot of my table on set-up day! 3/28/2024
Intro..
Hey Desk diary readers! I haven’t uploaded a blog post in a long time! I hope everyone has been well and hydrated! I wanted to share my experience with you at my very FIRST Kawaii Kon convention. Kawaii Kon is an anime convention here in Hawaii. It is a 3-day event that hosts voice actor guests, artists local and from around the world, and vendors that sell official merch! There are also, panel rooms, cosplay contests, video game room, movie rooms, tabletop gaming and more! I’ve been attending this convention since I was in high school off and on. I went from just attending, to being a volunteer, to now being a vendor! I have to commend both the event coordinators and the convention staff on their hard work to make this event run smoothly. They provided us with all the info we needed for our first time and laid out everything on a map for us. I did still have questions but my vendor friends who have gone to this event before letting me know not to worry!
Best sellers…
Waterproof stickers
Sprout headphone accessory
Crochet bag charms
crochet plush
Pros of this event
Booth fees are great for 3 days
The number of attendees (there were 20,000 + people that attended)
Indoors (i didn’t have to worry about weather)
SO many great artists that you can network with, make friends
Pre event set up (so you don’t have to bring your display and product the day of event its ready to go the night before! )
Cons of this event
NO OUTSIDE FOOD ALLOWED (this really was the worst part, and the food was not cheap either, vendors were forced to either eat the food there, or if they had an extra person, they would have to leave for other food and eat it in the parking lot.)
PARKING LIMITED. I don’t know if it was because there was another event going on at the same time as the con, but even vendors were forced to park at Ala moana and haul their merchandise to the convention.
Lots of competition! The only bad thing about having a lot of artists, is the competition is FIERCE!!! So, make sure you are able to stand out and stay with the trends! I was very impressed and inspired by ALL the artists there! I even got to meet some role models! It really inspired me to do more for my shop tho!
Essentials for this event…
Many forms of payment! I had Venmo, Square card/chip reader, and Cash. I usually bring $200 for my one day fairs, but this one I brought $300 . Surprisingly ALOT of people paid with cash this event so I was happy I brought more than enough change!
A partner/friend etc. Having my husband there made me feel so at ease. I could take a break if I needed or go bathroom without shutting my booth down. I got to go shop and explore the event when i could!
Warm clothes! The room was AC and it got cold very fast and if you’re not moving around you can start to shiver easily. So bring a jacket, or wear a thick sweater!
Business cards, or QR codes with socials. I found that I ran out of business cards really fast at this event and I ordered more than I usually do this time!
Battery bank. If you don’t want to pay extra for a power source to be provided, I suggest you bring a battery/power bank for your electronics. The first day alone was 11-8 which was a 9-hour day not including the set-up time!
Overall experience was….
It was a HUGE Success! Way better than expected! I was so touched seeing my old friends and new friends! Hearing so many words of encouragement! I would definitely do this event again. Hopefully next year i’ll be able to go back again!
Next year I would do a couple things different! I would probably start prepping way earlier than I did. I would probably put more time aside to prepping as well. I was so busy at my day job that I kind of wrote off prepping on certain days because i was tired. I would probably do more anime related designs as that is the whole convention’s theme. I would also do more gamer items I would definitely eat a huge breakfast and plan for lunch better lol. I would give myself a budget because this year I went OFF on buying things. I would bring a gift for all my vendor friends too because i feel like we all needed the luck!
