San Japan XI post-con report!
San Japan 11 was August 31st through September 2nd this year. Jam and I were prepping for quite a while. We had introduced a few new items like a new Magikarp and Mew acrylic charm as well as purrmaid-themed bookmarks and coinpurses. We also had Avi along with us and she focused on producing BTS and BT21 related fan-merchandise.
Friday was fairly busy. Even from the start! I was quite surprised as sometimes Friday mornings aren’t always super busy. People seemed to be eager to look at artist alley before heading to dealers room. Many people tend to browse first and then purchase on Saturday.
Saturday was also quite busy. As usual this was the day where we found most one day badges. We were able to take on a few commissions during the weekend, but I think it’s probably best if a person is looking to ask for commissions to get to their artist as early as possible, such as Friday. This will help the artist have more time to finish the art. There were times when even though there were three of us, all of us were occupied helping people and there was no way to work on commissions. Fortunately all work got done in time!
Sunday started off rather slow, but there was still plenty of people looking to spend in artist alley. We were fortunate enough to have a spot near the entrance and exit. The aisle we had was also rather wide, so it seemed people were able to travel by more freely. The other aisles in the alley were close together. Some artist friends confided that they felt people were pushed through and didn’t have ample time to look at the art. I did go through AA several times, and it was a bit cramped. There’s plenty of room in the hall so it’s merely a problem of table spacing and planning.
Overall, it was a great convention! We’d love to come back, if lottery is in our favor! It’s our home con and we’ve seen it grow and grow. It’s fun to see international artists come to San Antonio and it helps us to feel like we can do well too, when we try. We sold out of a few items and it was quite encouraging! We hope to re-open our Etsy and Tictail and put more items in. (Though we initially planned to move a store to this domain, we are pending on that while we find a nicer store script.)