HyperJapan Manchester Write Up
Last weekend was my first time selling at a con! I decided to do it as a way of kickstarting my webstore (certainly helped by having a hard deadline to get stock ready and such!) HyperJapan felt like a good choice since I'd been to the London one before, once as an attendee and once working a corporate stand for a Japanese sharehouse company (the one I rented from when I lived in Tokyo!) When I heard it was coming to Manchester I thought, heck might as well.
It’s a fun event is HyperJapan, a sort of cross between anime con, corporate and cultural fair. Lots of Japanese companies trying to get into the UK or promoting tourism in Japan, or UK-Japan cultural organisations such as the UK bonsai society. The Manchester one didn’t have quite as many corporate stands (the London one has almost all big Japanese alcohol companies in attendance!), I’d say the largest part was the artist stands this time.
Something I love is that the type of people who attend HyperJapan are so interesting. Of course you have your anime fans there to cosplay and buy anime swords. But you also have two other key groups, older British people who have an interest in Japan, maybe they went there in the 80’s. You also have Japanese people living in the UK for one reason or another. These other two groups of people took a huge interest in my works and loved talking to me about it. Also there were a lot of disabled people, which is awesome to see!
I will say, as a problem with many large scale, non-fandom run events in the UK, the costs are pretty silly. As an attendee you’re sort of paying for the privilege of buying more stuff, which is annoying. If you can put that out of your mind somehow, it’s honestly a really fun event. But yeah, both for us with tables and for attendees, it’s not a cheap experience. £216 for the artist table is extremely overpriced and £35 for a day to attend is also a lot, nevermind all the other costs. I miss the days MCM was a tenner to get in, haha. I do understand that that is the current state of large events in the UK, but it is important to mention it. Another complaint I heard from other vendors, the hours were well too long. It didn’t need to end at 8pm, nor did it need to be a three day event. Just a bit much for everyone really.
Got some great ideas for my store though going forward. Animal postcards did the best, so will be sure to get more of those made. Definitely need a greater variety of postcards, not many people bought the full set of six, rather they picked which ones they wanted. At least animal pics have a great ✨synergy✨with being a furry. Might consider stickers in the future, if I can get some of my photos cropped in an interesting way. My priority at the moment will be getting more calendars sold before the end of the year. These did really well too. The only thing that didn’t do well were the framed photos. I wonder if people just didn’t like the idea of carrying around frames with glass at a convention all day? Like people enjoyed looking at them, but didn’t ask about buying them. Probably drop the prices for the frames and hopefully they do well on the webstore. But the core item does seem to be the postcards, so expect to see more of them available soon. Will aim to have about 24 different designs to choose from and allow people to make their own bundles for a discount.
Do wish I’d have managed to get at least one travel guide finished in time since quite a few people were interested in those! Going to aim to get one done by the end of the year, these will be available for digital download on my webstore. Might even consider printing them, who knows. Not sure which one to start with, “Lesser known stuff to do in Tokyo” maybe?
Will I attend HyperJapan in the future? Not sure. If the table price was lower, I definitely would and just try and take it easy. I might do the London one next year, we’ll see. In the meantime I will be looking for smaller scale events with cheaper tables, local Yorkshire affairs. Oh yeah, I was pleased to see Little Bao Boy as one of the food vendors, they do the food for a bar in Leeds, used to do a bacon butty bao bun, which was incredible. Wish they’d bring it back.
Big thanks for anyone who dropped by to say hello! It's massively appreciated 💜
I'll be adding more things to my webstore soon!
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