'Eyo, I'm euge :]

February 17 - 19, 2017 - Victoria, B.C.

Tsukino Con is held at the University of Victoria, spanning in to 4 different buildings (artist alley and vendors being in one), it can be considered a medium sized convention.

This is my third year exhibiting at Tsukino Con’s Artist Alley, and I’m happy to say that every year, the con itself gets better and better :]

Registration Tsukino Con is half jury and half lottery for last year and this year. This was an improvement to their system three years ago which was first-come-first-serve. I can’t say for certain if the system will change again, but I’m enjoying how it is now.

I highly recommend you following their Twitter and Artist Alley Facebook to find out when registration is, and you can take a skim of their Artist Alley Site Section for more info :]

Organization As far as I can tell, the organization of the artist alley is top notch. Emails and Facebook posts are sent out/made a few weeks before the event to notify artists and vendors on how to get to the convention (Ferry and such), parking spaces around the university, event times, and any other important information.

Emails are answered in a timely manner, as well as Facebook comments.

Registration is simple once you’re there, and since you’re given a map of where you’re placed beforehand, you’ll generally know where to go, but there are staff and volunteers on hand to help, as well as the tables being titled under your map name.

Overall, nothing to complain about!

Layout The Artist Alley and Vendors are in the Elliot Building, which has two floors and a handful of large rooms. The main area of the Artist Alley is in the large space of the building’s main floor. Vendors are usually put in to the rooms along a hallway (usually 2-3 vendors per room), and the bottom floor is a smaller area for a few more artists and more rooms for vendors.

I only have experience with being on the top floor of the convention, which I personally enjoy much more solely on the open space, because the bottom floor can feel a bit claustrophobic with the low ceiling and smaller hallway.

Despite being two floors, as far as I can tell from my other artist friends, sales are still solid top and bottom.

Top Floor:

Bottom Floor:

Event Aid You’ll occasionally see Tsukino staff running around and security patrolling. Con-goers, staff, volunteers, and whatnot, will all have name tags, so you can tell who is who.

While I never had any event aid come to ask how I was doing, everyone at Tsukino Con is extremely nice, con-goers especially, who aren’t shy of helping if you ask.

While not directly linked to aid as in volunteers, Tsukino Con this year adopted a new aid for the artist alley in terms of a Door Prize draw. Essentially, if you want to participate, you’ll be given a handful of cards and a highlighter. Each card has 20 squares, and for every $5 an attendee spends, they’ll be given a mark on the square via highlighter. For every 5 squares filled, they’ll get to submit the card in to a Door Prize draw.

I personally love this system, and while I don’t have data on how well it impacts sales, I feel like it does in some small way, it gives attendees to have another level of interaction with the event, and it just seems fun \o/

Demographic The make up of Tsukino Con attendees (by what I can gauge) are high school students, with the occasional appearances of adults, young and old, probably due to being parents or being UVIC campus people.

By far, I would say that Tsukino Con is one of the highest energy conventions I’ve ever been to, not necessarily made by the event coordinators themselves, but its attendees. You’ll occasionally hear the loud squeal, some yelling, and just excited chatter. It’s not a bad thing to have around, and definitely gives a lot of life to the event, but if you’re the type of person that can get drained quite easily by too much people-energy, it’ll really help to have a con partner so you can decompress with some chat, step out for some fresh air, or just make sure you have enough coffee to keep your energy levels up.

In short, people are young, and I sometimes question if I’m just getting old hahahaha.

Crowd Tsukino Con brings in a decent crowd, granted that, if you’ve been there for a couple of years, you’ll start recognizing some familiar faces. I would believe that, since Tsukino Con is the only anime con in Victoria, it’s a good concentration of people who are interested.

The one and only evident issue with the crowd that I don’t think I’ve experienced as strongly in any other convention is that, when there are panels, guest star meeting, or any other fun event happening, the crowds can drop significantly in the artist alley and vendor areas. Like...you can probably count the amount of attendees present during that time.

Aside from the lulls from time to time, the crowd level is as expected for a medium sized convention.

Ending Feels Tsukino Con is one of my personal favourites. It’s really sweet to see familiar faces who have watched me grow Puglie as a brand, and to have them revisit me and cheer me on is a really endearing experience. I also get to see and meet some amazing artists that live in Victoria and can’t make the trip out to Vancouver for our larger cons, and trust me, there are some amazing artists there.

One of the things I have to note for any artist who wants to attend this con consecutively, more evident than other cons, is that you should try to have a good handful of new things. Because the con is such a staple in Victoria, and also being the ONLY anime con, while there are the occasional new attendees, there are also a lot of people who have “gotten that from last year.” If Tsukino Con stays as half jury, half lottery, it might even be worth taking a year off to boost up new items, but that’s just my opinion!

The lulls during the panels and whatnot can be really tough to stand through, but then you can take this moment to sneak off and check out and buy stuff from other artists haha.

February 10 (5:30pm - 9:30pm)

The Magee Market fair is an annual, one day event at Magee Secondary School. What surprised me was, for a high school event, it was pretty well run with a decent turn out. The event features food and drinks (bubble waffle, bubble tea, popcorn, Chinese food, Fresh Slice... it’s really dependent on what food vendors participated), vendors hall, silent auction, and entertainment (which showcases student talent and acts).

Registration I’m not entirely sure what the usual sign up process is like, as I was approached by someone who liked my Puglie Pug work from another convention. He reached out to ask if I was interested in his school fair, and I thought, “Why not.” I was given a PDF form that looks quite like a traditional school field trip slip that required you to write a cheque and mail it back to the school. As far as I can tell, it’s all first come first serve.

(By all means, if you’re interested, give me a message and I’ll ask them to add you to a consideration list when the event comes around again...??? I can try!)

Organization The event is run by students and staff, and everything felt very organized! They send you an email a week before the event to confirm your participation, make sure you’re receiving their communication, and to also notify you of your move in time and available parking areas. There was apparently supposed to be a student representative who was going to call me on the day of for more info, but I never got the call. To be honest, I forgot that was a thing and it didn’t prove any issue haha.

Once there, I entered through one of the side hall doors in to the high school and was pretty much confused as to where I was, but all the students are pretty helpful in pointing out where you should generally go. Once I got to the main foyer area and saw staff and teachers sitting at tables and walking around, it was easy to ask for help and be directed to where I was supposed to go, even if the staff I initially talked to weren’t sure (because they were in charge of other parts).

Overall, everything was really smooth. I signed in at the front of the gym doors, was shown on a map where my table was, the tables were numbered, and then I just began set up. I was confused with where I was supposed to park and unload stuff, but even then, a staff member immediately guided me to the right direction and there were students on hand to help with opening doors and making sure I was going the right way haha.

Layout The food and band entertainment is in the main foyer, with doors leading to the gymnasium where the vendors and student shows are. Vendors take up the majority of the gym, with exceptions to the end of the gym being set up for student shows, and one wall area of the gym completely taken up by ...some kind of draw prizes section? (I didn’t really pay attention to what that wasLOL) and a book sale area, where you can get a shit ton of awesome books for like mad cheap. Animorphs and Magic Tree House yo! But like... also Dan Brown and more serious reading. Also raunchy Save-On-Foods romance novels, holla~

In short, the layout was pretty great to move traffic back and forth, and very spacious for people to walk around. There’s a slight issue sometimes with the student shows (singing, dancing, etc) being a bit loud at first, but it wasn’t a huge issue, only the rare occasion of needing to shout or listen closely to who you’re talking to.

Event Aid There are specific volunteers for the vendors area, but they are also walking around helping with other things too for the event overall. I had the student that initially reached out to me for the event come by and ask me how everything was.

Later on in the evening, a volunteer came around with a bottles of water offering vendors if they wanted one. Like to me, that is MIND BLOWING, since it’s such a courteous thing that isn’t done often at conventions. Was really sweet, and during a time that I was really thirsty from talking too much hahahaha.

You’ll see a couple of students with name tags and what part of the event they’re helping with. I’m sure you’re more than welcome to ask them for some help, or to bring you the respective volunteer student for help, I just never needed it so I never tried, but everyone there is really nice.

Demographic Mainly teenagers (duh-lol), some parents, and some children with said parents. While you may think the demographic would be perfect since most conventions are full of teenagers, you have to keep in mind that some of these teenagers that may not be part of any fandom, not know or be in to any games or cartoons, may not every have been interested in anime or comic conventions, and in general are just there to what’s around at school. Some don’t even expect to buy anything, but like to walk around and just be part of the school festivities.

Unlike convention go-ers, students attending may not be prepared with money, or not as much (there are outliers haha, but in general I found). Like, thinking that some convention go-ers are ready to drop $60 on a legit figurine, but here, most student budgets don’t go over $20 unless they really like something, and that’s fair... I can’t imagine having much money in high school myself either haha. So assess your merchandise, not saying to not bring your expensive products, but be sure to have a good handful of cheaper products too for selection (like stickers, buttons, etc).

Crowd Far smaller than any one day convention you can imagine, because it is just a school event, but quite honestly, still an alright crowd on occasion. But I do stress, it is not a heavily advertised event, it is a school event, so keep your expectations realistic. Not saying there’s no chance in it growing, but it’d take a larger budget and marketing on their end for all this!

Ending Feels It felt fun! I wasn’t expecting anything big, but in my experience with high school, I’ve never seen an event that has vendors so well run and and to such a scale, so I was quite pleasantly surprised. Everyone there was super kind and energetic, it was really sweet seeing students cheer on their fellow peers for their acts, it was just a feel good experience.

I definitely would participate next year, in hopes that I have the capacity to! I mean, when you con prep for any con, one day or four days, it’s still a lot of prep work, so you can weigh your options/priorities for this as it is just a school event that is 4 hours, but I mean if you’re just like, “Aw heck, why not,” then I’d say give it a shot.

T R O U B L E M A K E R

Bob Ross + Digital Painting

The.Tsukinousagi