i just wanted to say i really love watching your videos! my algorithm doesn't show me many convention vlogs outside of USA, so it's really interesting to see the differences in set-up, organization, and merch diversity in your vlogs. i also find your voice really pleasant to listen to and your art is wonderful
Thank you! I don't get many viewers outside of Singapore and to a certain extent Southeast Asia region too so I am surprised to read this 😊 I love watching other artist alley vlogs but I don't see many SG-related ones which spurred me to create my own instead. Glad you like them!
I think your rant/complains are actually valid & have a lot of point. I never been Doujima or any oversea event but I do boothing in local events few times for years now (I'm from Malaysia). what you're ranting is actually what organizer should and must provide to the boothers. I was actually shocked to see the boothers have to set up the table even have to figuring out where the booth number before setting up the display because I never seen boother have to do that since the organizer usually setting the table and we just have to setting up the display. The number booth setting is actually doesn't make sense as well. I agree that Boothers should put their table label so the visitor can easi;ly track which boother they want to go. Really nice video btw!
It is quite sad to see this happened, because there were quite a few international creators, including from Malaysia who came to Singapore to table for the first time at Doujima'24, and this was the experience they received. Otherwise other local events in SG typically isn't like this. =( Thank you for watching though~!
YAY NEW VIDEO!!!! I really hope that this encourages more and more people to speak up about their qualms with conventions these days ;;; The lack of signages really hurt a lot of people and Sunday is already the dead day for every convention, so it falling on Mother's day this year just makes it worse. Last year, doujima kind of cemented itself in the SEA creators' space so it really enticed a lot of SEA artists to want to sign up for this year's and from what I can see online, a lot of them were just very disappointed in the outcome and have been very vocal about not wanting to return. 500+ booths is way too many booths to not do signage or even grouping by fandoms. You mentioned becoming your own competitor with your table partner so I'm unsure if fandom grouping is as good of an idea as I was thinking but I do feel that it allows visitors to more easily zone in on what they want rather than they have to walk through all the tables just to maybe find something. And they might get tired and not find it anyway only to realize what they missed after the event. There is such a huge convention burnout, gst is getting higher and no one wants to spend as much money anymore. All this just combines together to create disappointing sales for most tables. I do think your advice on getting your own table if you can afford it is very helpful and something that I don't see a lot of people say. I agree, it's kind of like reverse 1999 (haha) where some dps characters do better solo because they just get all their cards HAHAHAHAHA. But that also brings up the issue of the huge hurdle in joining these events since a small artist who just started will definitely not be able to cover the cost themselves unless they have a full-time job and are willing to drop that kind of money. So it's either they drop a lot of money, or they risk getting cannibalized, or they luck out and somehow make it work. Boothing is getting harder and more expensive to start and it just saddens me that so many are stopped short because of stuff like this. It can't rly be helped I guess unless prices go back to the way they were in the old days. Thank you for always sharing your experiences via these vlogs! Happy 1 year anniversary and I hope that your channel only grows bigger and your future endeavors only get better!
Thank you for dropping by Mints - and also for the big shout out on both Twitter and Twitch! Honestly, when I was making this video on Monday and Tuesday, I saw on my IG stories and twitter about how all the creators at Doujima that I know of were sharing they had a great time. It was everything positive, so there was a point I thought if it was just me feeling negative about the event. Grateful that you came up with that thread and I found out I wasn't alone about it (we can share the backlash from event organisers then haha j/k) I am actually all for the grouping of fandom - the only reason why I didn't mention it is because I am not too familiar with that concept, having only heard it through other people's experience (like alche and his trip to Shanghai cons which are similarly structured like comiket), as well as how many of us local creators tend to not stick to one single fandom thus making the categorisation a tad more tricky. If I recalled correctly, one of the local events tried to do this - I think it was Artcade - where they got shortlisted applicants fill in their key fandom and the organisers then did their best to group them together at that venue, e.g. all originals and crafts were bunched together. This effort was unfortunately overlooked because the event was a little under 100 tables and most visitors had no problem going through all of them. The competitor part mostly becomes an issue imo when your own boothmate becomes your sales rival - I don't have it in me to promote my stuff over theirs at the same table, while it is fair game if it is a separate booth. I shall take care to recommend things more carefully in future events, like the sharing of booth (or not). I didn't intend the video to be open-advice for more freshie or aspiring booth creators but more of a reminder/note to myself - though I guess I can consider making a general event advisory video of my compiled knowledge towards the end of the year. 😁
Just found your video by chance, thanks for showing us a boother's insight on this event!! I'm a buyer who went on day 1, and yes it was super confusing to navigate even when I planned my route in advance 😭 It was too huge too, I was super drained after completing a HS stamp rally and didn't manage to go through all the booths... Missed out on many stuff ;-; Hopefully next year is more organized, and works better for both boothers and buyers 🥲
Thank you for dropping by, and also coming to visit the creators at Doujima~! Yeah, many of my friends told me the same thing about how tired they were by the time they reached my section. Poor layout really made the experience so exhausting for everyone.
It was the same for me! The only time I could comfortably leave my booth to walk around was before the opening timing on day2, haha (when most of the tables were still closed)
awesome vlog, man! really enjoyed watching it and seeing the experience overseas. currently prepping for my first event and this was a delight to put on in the background while i worked, hope your future events go well too!
thank you for this video!! i also faced all these issues that you mentioned ;; as a first time boother sharing the booth with friends i was pretty surprised with the lack of booth numbers, social media marketing, and some of my otaku friends told me that they didn’t even know this was happening 😢 hopefully neo tokyo project will take all of the feedback well and improve next year
T.T Other events are definitely not like that. Yeah, so many creators have came out to talk about this so hopefully Doujima team will take them as feedback and improve.
Spotted myself in your video at 3:49, wearing the Ado Wish shirt and flat cap! Really enjoyed your video and I had a good time at the event as I was visiting my wife's family in Singapore around that time. I also totally felt the same about the tables and I had to save a map on my phone to find the ones I wanted to visit. I felt bad having to ask, but like you, everyone was friendly to show me the way. I also only found out about the event by just randomly searching for things specific to Suntec City. If I am visiting SG again and there's another event going on, I'll be sure to come by and say hello.
Thank you! It must have been quite a surprise to find yourself caught in one of my random shots, haha. It seemed that events like these are popping up every month, so perhaps you will be able to pop by at one of them whenever you return to SG in the future.
@@kuehmerlion Considering I was one of the few ang moh there it wasn't too difficult haha. I'd love to check out AFA sometime if they have hololive guests again.
highly agree about the table sharing part, to shout out ur brand a solo table is really a need, but it is just very sad that most booth in sg is simply too ex
Ya it can get very expensive especially for the main AFA and SGCC convention. And also at the end of the day, Singapore still very tiny so crowd tends to be on the smaller range and those numbers may not be enough to cover your expenses. It is indeed tough =(
Well said for my issues with Doujima! You said it well and better!! The signages are part of the troubles I think we all face, and as boothers, not giving enough space for us to enter and exit the booth is a huge issue that I think can be done way better without the troubles of even mentioning it. Although I do think that marketing is one issue that we face as boother and is a constant need to do, Doujima hasn't been good to many of my others friends (Entrance buff is really strong) and I think the reviews from many different artists speaks for themselves about how disappointing this event has been. They have done the bare min, and I do think their response for most things that we complain about, has not been good response and instead felt like sarcastic comments. If the boothers have to rely on getting near the entrance to earn, and that the ones who doesnt means they get the short straw, I think that this event is basically a fail for the ones who didnt get good spots, which is half of the boothers. Events has to ensure that every corner of the place gets their fair share of earning, If they are unable to ensure so, that means that the set up and the way they are doing is totally wrong.
I agree with what you said. I do know a couple of fellow creators who were located on the exit side - namely section A, B, and C who still did well for Doujima which is why I didnt want to speak for everyone in terms of sales as there are a lot of different experiences and accounts. Though, I believe we can all agree that this year's Doujima left much to be desired and could have been handled better. Sad 😟
@@kuehmerlion I think the part which baffles me the most, was that at the entrance you can also exit, because theres two doors. Which makes me think, what about the guys at A? If they can exit here, there's no reason to go to A at all. The whole entire layout was a goddamn scam, and would be so angry if i was people on the left side.
@@marcusphua9115 One of my neighbours told me the exit was also closed off after 4+ on Day 1, forcing everyone to exit through the entrance too. If it was true, then like you said it was very unfair especially to section A (including me). I didn't mention this in the video because unfortunately I couldnt get proof on that.
@@kuehmerlion they have definitely cement themselves as the worst event of the year, even as it being the biggest. sometimes biggest isn't always better, and they had reached diminishing return with too little audience and too much booths.
Yes that is a well made video and it is true that the table number is pretty much missing and literally hard to find but overall that was an awesome vlog over at Doujima and nice meeting you too 😁👍
Hey Douglas, it was so cool to hear about your new offers - I shall not elaborate further since this is a public space but, looking forward to great things from you too!
Somehow stumbled your video and love it! So well-made, informative and on-point! I was also boothing at the event, and I agree with your concerns, especially about the lack of signages combined with the weird block naming. My table was far on the back, block D, and as I got a corner table, I had multiple visitors asking for directions and saw some others clearly got lost. Some even thought my block was block A 😅 I'll be also boothing at Doki Doki, though I don't win the table gacha, wish us and everyone luck there 🙏🙏🙏
I feel your pain in regards to the poor directions and layout. I won't ask you for your booth no. at Doki Doki (for privacy reason) but come and say hi at the event if you happen to see me there!
@@kuehmerlion yupyup, I'll see if I can find you there, though having a stranger coming to your booth and saying, "Hey I commented on your doujima video" sounds rather creepy lol
Honestly I agree of how they placed the tables I had a hard time looking for the artist that I wanted to buy from as some booth didn’t have the numbering on them and I walk and walk until I manage to get to the booth that i wanted.
Thanks for sharing your views on Doujima and I must say I do agree with your thoughts on the event. The lack of signages is really disappointing and artists have to print their own signages so that visitors know where they are. The setup on Friday night was so bad as there was no signage at all and most artists were just confused and worried if they set up on the wrong tables. Surely an experienced organiser like Neo Tokyo should know that they need to provide simple zone signages. Perhaps they know but is just unwilling to. Let's talk about the event itself. I am a pretty new boother. This is my 4th since I started last September. My past 3 events were all very decent. I was really excited to be part of such a major event - Doujima and to be able to be in the same room as many famous artists. But because of my table location which was pretty far back into the hall, the traffic around me was pretty low and hours into the first day, I realised that the sales will be disappointing and the fact is, there were too many choices for similar fandom merchandise. Oh, and I had a booth partner who was also selling similar fandom merch. So we were indeed cannibalising on each other. But then again, if I didn't split the table cost with another person, I will have to bear the entire table cost which was a big amount (we didn't apply during the early bird period so we had to pay for the full cost). Anyway, long story short, the sales for both days are short of what I normally earned for previous events and I've decided that no more Doujima until I've got a lot more followers/merch/improved art... One thing's for sure, Doujima is not for the new and small artists. The crowd is there definitely, but most of these visitors already have in mind what they are looking for and which booths they are going to. Whatever left over money they have (which unfortunately, isn't a lot left), are then distributed to the smaller artists. Or from what I've observed, if a potential customer like what they see at my booth but perhaps still unsure about it, they will make a mental note to come back after they have seen other artists' works. Sometimes they do (and I'm super grateful for that), sometimes they don't (which I'm not surprised as who honestly wants to walk back to the other end of 3 halls just to get a print unless it's oh-so-beautiful-and-i-can't-do-without-it). Well, if you or anyone has good advice for a new boother like me, please feel free to comment. Would be really happy to receive any.
You seemed to already have a good understanding of the overall experience with events (SG) so I don't have much to add on as advice! The poor floorplan planning and complete absence of signages really affected us all in a bad way - like you have mentioned, some potential customers would want to get something from you, but only after they have seen everything else. And when they do decide to return - many realised they couldn't retrace the steps back and find the table they were looking for - especially so because of how numerous the booths were. I guess, avoiding large artist events like this would be my recommendation for newer or less experienced creators. Go try for the smaller ones that have under 100-120 tables as that is what seemed to be a number range for most visitors to go through all the booths comfortably.
I think all your problems were valid and I hope they fix it next year. 500 is alot and almost too many artist alley tables. I doubt most average visitors would buy stuff from 5 booths. The talk at the end was the most interesting part, alot of good stuff for artist to keep in mind when they doing conventions.
Thank you for watching! Ya, the booth numbers were too many for my personal liking - and the competition was already so tight with the numerous good artists around.
That floor layout is wild, not to say it doesn't make sense, it is just backward. If they just swapped the entrance and exit, all the lettering and numbering would make sense.
reformmating my last comment, if you saw that no you didnt. But an event like this is my dream. I love anime conventions but a big part for me and my con circle is the AA. id love to hit up an event thats solely about supporting local artists and buying fanart and original works I like. Whole the cons i usually hit up over here in the US have AAs. it varys. Some will favor vendors over artists, some will go all out, and some will select the same 9 people for every con. and while theyre works nice, i want variety, i want to see all the amazing artists.
From what I have noticed over here in Singapore so far, the artist alleys are mostly filled with artists than vendors - some going as far as 90% artist tables. But yea, cons do have their own set of preferred artists so even here you will usually see many familiar faces among the artist pickings. I get you though, having a wide variety is great to have!
I can’t blame you for oversleeping, what a super late set up time! I know here in America, artists typically get to set up much earlier the day before. It’s also okay to complain if things aren’t as they seem. I was shocked how crammed it was between artists that’s not fair to those with disabilities or something and seems like a safety issue!! Not all events and cons will work for you or everyone. I do hope you try others though it’s interesting to see how different the con and market life are over there compared to the states 😊
I haven't been to any cons in the US, but I do watch a lot of vlogs and yea, in comparison it seems more spacious than the ones in Singapore - starting from the table length which is typically 1.2m in length (a little less than 4ft). I will definitely wanna try other markets too, especially outside of Singapore when I get the opportunity to in the future~
Poor Currynoodle cant get his Ipad ,I agreed on boothing on your own when you have more item and experience ,it does worth investment for a booth with a good display.I do heard of Doujima sales drop on day 2 this is not the 1st time i heard from boother from MY exp there.Reason can be day 1 shopping burst and Sunday mass.Thankyou for the insight in SG ACG scene.
Poor Currynoodle, indeed 🥲 Generally, I expect Day 2 sales to drop across all events (in SG) but for Doujima this year, never did I thought that the difference would be so big for me. The fatigue is real (plus perhaps Mother's Day too).
I navigated using the map on my phone but like you said, the letters were confusing it's not consistently back to front. The sections kinda mashed into each other too, one second I'm in A then the next, I'm in B.
Hello!! TQ for the video!! Your observations of DJM were very thought out and well-articulated imo, agreed with many of them. The entire issue with the event's (lack of) signages and the weird placement feels a lot like a massive UI/UX issue, it's kind of ????? that the I row is between D and E?? Like what? And H is at... the exit?? Nani???? As a somewhat baby boother (last time producing merch was before covid...) It's also nice to hear your post-con analysis regarding sales cannibalizing, especially if you're producing merch with a lot of competition already (ie hoyoverse) the last thing you want to do is cannibalize your own friend;;; Having big signages marketing not just yourself but your merch is a great idea as well, will look into that C: All in all great video, you've gained a new follower from me and I'm off to watch your other videos on other cons (੭ ᐕ)੭*⁾⁾✧✧✧✧ (Randomly me and my friends got caught on your video in front of our booth at around the 7:43 mark and we were like （＊〇□〇）……！ wwwwwww)
Hello~! Thank you for dropping by and hello again from the accidental cameo xD I am not a very experienced boother too so I am learning from the many other creators as well. Hopefully the next one I will be able to focus on more artists too and share their insights. If you ever come across my booth out in the wild in the near future, don't be shy and come say hi!
Hello! I’ve also just started my small business selling stickers and prints (not necessarily related to anime) and I’m planning on boothing soon too! I’ve stumbled across your videos and they are all extremely helpful so I was wondering how do you find these fests/cons to booth at? Currently I’ve been searching online but I can only see info about makers market 😢
Hi! I am acquainted with many local fellow creators and artists so we tend to share events that we found and know of. You can DM me on my IG or reach out to me personally and I can try to loop you in one of such communities.
Hello. I was randomly recommended this video and both the comments and video itself were very informative in a natural way! I have very little knowledge of what’s going on besides this being an art convention it seems..? I am sorry that you and others are experiencing grievances with it… it must suck.
Thank you for stopping by~ It is a somewhat of an unique experience even for many of us as the things that happened was more of an outlier than of what normally happens at the Singapore anime art convention. But it is okay, we can all learn from this one way or another and strive for improvement.
You spotted my kueh tote bag~ thank you. It is one of my fairly-popular item so I do keep a healthy stock of them with me, so no worries - come grab one the next time you see me at a future event!
Imo NTP is the worst(not counting ddam) organiser in SG, which is unforunate because as you said they host one of the largest events. They've definitely gotten lazy and are relying on creators and reputation to bring in a crowd, and with all their complaints about boothers subletting, crowding behind booths, etc, and the "threats" against artists doing that for next years event, my opinion of them is rather low. Where other organisers at least pretend to care about boothers, with free water, better tables and the like, it feels like NTP are just taking advantage of the fact that there are always more artists than booths so they can get away with whatever. Which is not to say the event is terrible, since it still runs somewhat smoothly, but considering we're the ones paying, and doing the promo for them, the least they could do is let us share booths freely to help absorb some of the cost. After all they wouldn't be here without us
It is really unfortunate, and even if a few creators choose to not go for such events, they are still the minority and event organisers don't have that kind of urgency or need to change and improve since there are still a lot more creators and potential boothers willing to jump in for a chance to enter their events regardless - take for instance how well-received and oversubscribed Doujima 2025 was.
i just wanted to say i really love watching your videos! my algorithm doesn't show me many convention vlogs outside of USA, so it's really interesting to see the differences in set-up, organization, and merch diversity in your vlogs. i also find your voice really pleasant to listen to and your art is wonderful
Thank you! I don't get many viewers outside of Singapore and to a certain extent Southeast Asia region too so I am surprised to read this 😊
I love watching other artist alley vlogs but I don't see many SG-related ones which spurred me to create my own instead. Glad you like them!
I agree! It’s nice to see other perspectives or how cons run in different parts of the world.
I think your rant/complains are actually valid & have a lot of point. I never been Doujima or any oversea event but I do boothing in local events few times for years now (I'm from Malaysia). what you're ranting is actually what organizer should and must provide to the boothers.
I was actually shocked to see the boothers have to set up the table even have to figuring out where the booth number before setting up the display because I never seen boother have to do that since the organizer usually setting the table and we just have to setting up the display. The number booth setting is actually doesn't make sense as well.
I agree that Boothers should put their table label so the visitor can easi;ly track which boother they want to go. Really nice video btw!
It is quite sad to see this happened, because there were quite a few international creators, including from Malaysia who came to Singapore to table for the first time at Doujima'24, and this was the experience they received. Otherwise other local events in SG typically isn't like this. =(
Thank you for watching though~!
YAY NEW VIDEO!!!! I really hope that this encourages more and more people to speak up about their qualms with conventions these days ;;; The lack of signages really hurt a lot of people and Sunday is already the dead day for every convention, so it falling on Mother's day this year just makes it worse. Last year, doujima kind of cemented itself in the SEA creators' space so it really enticed a lot of SEA artists to want to sign up for this year's and from what I can see online, a lot of them were just very disappointed in the outcome and have been very vocal about not wanting to return.
500+ booths is way too many booths to not do signage or even grouping by fandoms. You mentioned becoming your own competitor with your table partner so I'm unsure if fandom grouping is as good of an idea as I was thinking but I do feel that it allows visitors to more easily zone in on what they want rather than they have to walk through all the tables just to maybe find something. And they might get tired and not find it anyway only to realize what they missed after the event.
There is such a huge convention burnout, gst is getting higher and no one wants to spend as much money anymore. All this just combines together to create disappointing sales for most tables.
I do think your advice on getting your own table if you can afford it is very helpful and something that I don't see a lot of people say. I agree, it's kind of like reverse 1999 (haha) where some dps characters do better solo because they just get all their cards HAHAHAHAHA. But that also brings up the issue of the huge hurdle in joining these events since a small artist who just started will definitely not be able to cover the cost themselves unless they have a full-time job and are willing to drop that kind of money. So it's either they drop a lot of money, or they risk getting cannibalized, or they luck out and somehow make it work. Boothing is getting harder and more expensive to start and it just saddens me that so many are stopped short because of stuff like this. It can't rly be helped I guess unless prices go back to the way they were in the old days.
Thank you for always sharing your experiences via these vlogs! Happy 1 year anniversary and I hope that your channel only grows bigger and your future endeavors only get better!
Thank you for dropping by Mints - and also for the big shout out on both Twitter and Twitch! Honestly, when I was making this video on Monday and Tuesday, I saw on my IG stories and twitter about how all the creators at Doujima that I know of were sharing they had a great time. It was everything positive, so there was a point I thought if it was just me feeling negative about the event. Grateful that you came up with that thread and I found out I wasn't alone about it (we can share the backlash from event organisers then haha j/k)
I am actually all for the grouping of fandom - the only reason why I didn't mention it is because I am not too familiar with that concept, having only heard it through other people's experience (like alche and his trip to Shanghai cons which are similarly structured like comiket), as well as how many of us local creators tend to not stick to one single fandom thus making the categorisation a tad more tricky. If I recalled correctly, one of the local events tried to do this - I think it was Artcade - where they got shortlisted applicants fill in their key fandom and the organisers then did their best to group them together at that venue, e.g. all originals and crafts were bunched together. This effort was unfortunately overlooked because the event was a little under 100 tables and most visitors had no problem going through all of them. The competitor part mostly becomes an issue imo when your own boothmate becomes your sales rival - I don't have it in me to promote my stuff over theirs at the same table, while it is fair game if it is a separate booth.
I shall take care to recommend things more carefully in future events, like the sharing of booth (or not). I didn't intend the video to be open-advice for more freshie or aspiring booth creators but more of a reminder/note to myself - though I guess I can consider making a general event advisory video of my compiled knowledge towards the end of the year. 😁
Just found your video by chance, thanks for showing us a boother's insight on this event!! I'm a buyer who went on day 1, and yes it was super confusing to navigate even when I planned my route in advance 😭 It was too huge too, I was super drained after completing a HS stamp rally and didn't manage to go through all the booths... Missed out on many stuff ;-; Hopefully next year is more organized, and works better for both boothers and buyers 🥲
Thank you for dropping by, and also coming to visit the creators at Doujima~! Yeah, many of my friends told me the same thing about how tired they were by the time they reached my section. Poor layout really made the experience so exhausting for everyone.
Enjoyed the vlog!! I couldn't walk around much so I get to see what i missed out on :D
It was the same for me! The only time I could comfortably leave my booth to walk around was before the opening timing on day2, haha (when most of the tables were still closed)
awesome vlog, man! really enjoyed watching it and seeing the experience overseas. currently prepping for my first event and this was a delight to put on in the background while i worked, hope your future events go well too!
Thank you~ I hope your first event will go well for you!
thank you for this video!! i also faced all these issues that you mentioned ;; as a first time boother sharing the booth with friends i was pretty surprised with the lack of booth numbers, social media marketing, and some of my otaku friends told me that they didn’t even know this was happening 😢 hopefully neo tokyo project will take all of the feedback well and improve next year
T.T Other events are definitely not like that. Yeah, so many creators have came out to talk about this so hopefully Doujima team will take them as feedback and improve.
Spotted myself in your video at 3:49, wearing the Ado Wish shirt and flat cap! Really enjoyed your video and I had a good time at the event as I was visiting my wife's family in Singapore around that time. I also totally felt the same about the tables and I had to save a map on my phone to find the ones I wanted to visit. I felt bad having to ask, but like you, everyone was friendly to show me the way. I also only found out about the event by just randomly searching for things specific to Suntec City. If I am visiting SG again and there's another event going on, I'll be sure to come by and say hello.
Thank you! It must have been quite a surprise to find yourself caught in one of my random shots, haha. It seemed that events like these are popping up every month, so perhaps you will be able to pop by at one of them whenever you return to SG in the future.
@@kuehmerlion Considering I was one of the few ang moh there it wasn't too difficult haha. I'd love to check out AFA sometime if they have hololive guests again.
Haha then perhaps we will crossed path in AFA 😁
I never been to conventions before, your videos are greatly appreciated, helpful and inspiring to be one of the boothers like you. JIA YOUS
highly agree about the table sharing part, to shout out ur brand a solo table is really a need, but it is just very sad that most booth in sg is simply too ex
Ya it can get very expensive especially for the main AFA and SGCC convention. And also at the end of the day, Singapore still very tiny so crowd tends to be on the smaller range and those numbers may not be enough to cover your expenses. It is indeed tough =(
Well said for my issues with Doujima! You said it well and better!! The signages are part of the troubles I think we all face, and as boothers, not giving enough space for us to enter and exit the booth is a huge issue that I think can be done way better without the troubles of even mentioning it. Although I do think that marketing is one issue that we face as boother and is a constant need to do, Doujima hasn't been good to many of my others friends (Entrance buff is really strong) and I think the reviews from many different artists speaks for themselves about how disappointing this event has been. They have done the bare min, and I do think their response for most things that we complain about, has not been good response and instead felt like sarcastic comments. If the boothers have to rely on getting near the entrance to earn, and that the ones who doesnt means they get the short straw, I think that this event is basically a fail for the ones who didnt get good spots, which is half of the boothers. Events has to ensure that every corner of the place gets their fair share of earning, If they are unable to ensure so, that means that the set up and the way they are doing is totally wrong.
I agree with what you said. I do know a couple of fellow creators who were located on the exit side - namely section A, B, and C who still did well for Doujima which is why I didnt want to speak for everyone in terms of sales as there are a lot of different experiences and accounts. Though, I believe we can all agree that this year's Doujima left much to be desired and could have been handled better. Sad 😟
@@kuehmerlion I think the part which baffles me the most, was that at the entrance you can also exit, because theres two doors. Which makes me think, what about the guys at A? If they can exit here, there's no reason to go to A at all. The whole entire layout was a goddamn scam, and would be so angry if i was people on the left side.
@@marcusphua9115 One of my neighbours told me the exit was also closed off after 4+ on Day 1, forcing everyone to exit through the entrance too. If it was true, then like you said it was very unfair especially to section A (including me). I didn't mention this in the video because unfortunately I couldnt get proof on that.
@@kuehmerlion they have definitely cement themselves as the worst event of the year, even as it being the biggest. sometimes biggest isn't always better, and they had reached diminishing return with too little audience and too much booths.
thank you for the video! i wanna try going to dojima next year and got a good insight. hopefully the admins improve after this
I will go as a visitor for next year! Yes, I do hope and look forward to a much improved Doujima in 2025
Yes that is a well made video and it is true that the table number is pretty much missing and literally hard to find but overall that was an awesome vlog over at Doujima and nice meeting you too 😁👍
Hey Douglas, it was so cool to hear about your new offers - I shall not elaborate further since this is a public space but, looking forward to great things from you too!
@@kuehmerlion Ahh thanks very much hahah and gotcha , see you around in the next one !! 😁😁
Somehow stumbled your video and love it! So well-made, informative and on-point! I was also boothing at the event, and I agree with your concerns, especially about the lack of signages combined with the weird block naming. My table was far on the back, block D, and as I got a corner table, I had multiple visitors asking for directions and saw some others clearly got lost. Some even thought my block was block A 😅
I'll be also boothing at Doki Doki, though I don't win the table gacha, wish us and everyone luck there 🙏🙏🙏
I feel your pain in regards to the poor directions and layout. I won't ask you for your booth no. at Doki Doki (for privacy reason) but come and say hi at the event if you happen to see me there!
@@kuehmerlion yupyup, I'll see if I can find you there, though having a stranger coming to your booth and saying, "Hey I commented on your doujima video" sounds rather creepy lol
@@wildapelhaha let's just say by now, I am no stranger to people coming up to me and telling me they watched my video 😂
Honestly I agree of how they placed the tables I had a hard time looking for the artist that I wanted to buy from as some booth didn’t have the numbering on them and I walk and walk until I manage to get to the booth that i wanted.
Thanks for sharing your views on Doujima and I must say I do agree with your thoughts on the event. The lack of signages is really disappointing and artists have to print their own signages so that visitors know where they are. The setup on Friday night was so bad as there was no signage at all and most artists were just confused and worried if they set up on the wrong tables. Surely an experienced organiser like Neo Tokyo should know that they need to provide simple zone signages. Perhaps they know but is just unwilling to.
Let's talk about the event itself. I am a pretty new boother. This is my 4th since I started last September. My past 3 events were all very decent. I was really excited to be part of such a major event - Doujima and to be able to be in the same room as many famous artists. But because of my table location which was pretty far back into the hall, the traffic around me was pretty low and hours into the first day, I realised that the sales will be disappointing and the fact is, there were too many choices for similar fandom merchandise. Oh, and I had a booth partner who was also selling similar fandom merch. So we were indeed cannibalising on each other. But then again, if I didn't split the table cost with another person, I will have to bear the entire table cost which was a big amount (we didn't apply during the early bird period so we had to pay for the full cost). Anyway, long story short, the sales for both days are short of what I normally earned for previous events and I've decided that no more Doujima until I've got a lot more followers/merch/improved art... One thing's for sure, Doujima is not for the new and small artists. The crowd is there definitely, but most of these visitors already have in mind what they are looking for and which booths they are going to. Whatever left over money they have (which unfortunately, isn't a lot left), are then distributed to the smaller artists. Or from what I've observed, if a potential customer like what they see at my booth but perhaps still unsure about it, they will make a mental note to come back after they have seen other artists' works. Sometimes they do (and I'm super grateful for that), sometimes they don't (which I'm not surprised as who honestly wants to walk back to the other end of 3 halls just to get a print unless it's oh-so-beautiful-and-i-can't-do-without-it).
Well, if you or anyone has good advice for a new boother like me, please feel free to comment. Would be really happy to receive any.
You seemed to already have a good understanding of the overall experience with events (SG) so I don't have much to add on as advice! The poor floorplan planning and complete absence of signages really affected us all in a bad way - like you have mentioned, some potential customers would want to get something from you, but only after they have seen everything else. And when they do decide to return - many realised they couldn't retrace the steps back and find the table they were looking for - especially so because of how numerous the booths were. I guess, avoiding large artist events like this would be my recommendation for newer or less experienced creators. Go try for the smaller ones that have under 100-120 tables as that is what seemed to be a number range for most visitors to go through all the booths comfortably.
@@kuehmerlion Yup, that's my intention for now - go for smaller events. Nonetheless, it was still a good experience. At least I learn from it.
I think all your problems were valid and I hope they fix it next year. 500 is alot and almost too many artist alley tables. I doubt most average visitors would buy stuff from 5 booths. The talk at the end was the most interesting part, alot of good stuff for artist to keep in mind when they doing conventions.
Thank you for watching! Ya, the booth numbers were too many for my personal liking - and the competition was already so tight with the numerous good artists around.
That floor layout is wild, not to say it doesn't make sense, it is just backward. If they just swapped the entrance and exit, all the lettering and numbering would make sense.
Yes, it seemed like it should have been flipped. Instead, we got this mess of a layout.
reformmating my last comment, if you saw that no you didnt.
But an event like this is my dream. I love anime conventions but a big part for me and my con circle is the AA. id love to hit up an event thats solely about supporting local artists and buying fanart and original works I like. Whole the cons i usually hit up over here in the US have AAs. it varys. Some will favor vendors over artists, some will go all out, and some will select the same 9 people for every con. and while theyre works nice, i want variety, i want to see all the amazing artists.
From what I have noticed over here in Singapore so far, the artist alleys are mostly filled with artists than vendors - some going as far as 90% artist tables. But yea, cons do have their own set of preferred artists so even here you will usually see many familiar faces among the artist pickings. I get you though, having a wide variety is great to have!
I can’t blame you for oversleeping, what a super late set up time! I know here in America, artists typically get to set up much earlier the day before.
It’s also okay to complain if things aren’t as they seem. I was shocked how crammed it was between artists that’s not fair to those with disabilities or something and seems like a safety issue!!
Not all events and cons will work for you or everyone. I do hope you try others though it’s interesting to see how different the con and market life are over there compared to the states 😊
I haven't been to any cons in the US, but I do watch a lot of vlogs and yea, in comparison it seems more spacious than the ones in Singapore - starting from the table length which is typically 1.2m in length (a little less than 4ft). I will definitely wanna try other markets too, especially outside of Singapore when I get the opportunity to in the future~
@@kuehmerlionyeah tables in the states are much bigger! They’re usually 4-6 feet. And if you want a premium or vendor spot they can be 8 feet.
Poor Currynoodle cant get his Ipad ,I agreed on boothing on your own when you have more item and experience ,it does worth investment for a booth with a good display.I do heard of Doujima sales drop on day 2 this is not the 1st time i heard from boother from MY exp there.Reason can be day 1 shopping burst and Sunday mass.Thankyou for the insight in SG ACG scene.
Poor Currynoodle, indeed 🥲
Generally, I expect Day 2 sales to drop across all events (in SG) but for Doujima this year, never did I thought that the difference would be so big for me. The fatigue is real (plus perhaps Mother's Day too).
I navigated using the map on my phone but like you said, the letters were confusing it's not consistently back to front. The sections kinda mashed into each other too, one second I'm in A then the next, I'm in B.
I can relate T.T
I kept going back and forth between sections because it got so confusing
Hello!! TQ for the video!! Your observations of DJM were very thought out and well-articulated imo, agreed with many of them. The entire issue with the event's (lack of) signages and the weird placement feels a lot like a massive UI/UX issue, it's kind of ????? that the I row is between D and E?? Like what? And H is at... the exit?? Nani????
As a somewhat baby boother (last time producing merch was before covid...) It's also nice to hear your post-con analysis regarding sales cannibalizing, especially if you're producing merch with a lot of competition already (ie hoyoverse) the last thing you want to do is cannibalize your own friend;;; Having big signages marketing not just yourself but your merch is a great idea as well, will look into that C:
All in all great video, you've gained a new follower from me and I'm off to watch your other videos on other cons (੭ ᐕ)੭*⁾⁾✧✧✧✧ (Randomly me and my friends got caught on your video in front of our booth at around the 7:43 mark and we were like （＊〇□〇）……！ wwwwwww)
Hello~! Thank you for dropping by and hello again from the accidental cameo xD
I am not a very experienced boother too so I am learning from the many other creators as well. Hopefully the next one I will be able to focus on more artists too and share their insights. If you ever come across my booth out in the wild in the near future, don't be shy and come say hi!
Hello! I’ve also just started my small business selling stickers and prints (not necessarily related to anime) and I’m planning on boothing soon too! I’ve stumbled across your videos and they are all extremely helpful so I was wondering how do you find these fests/cons to booth at? Currently I’ve been searching online but I can only see info about makers market 😢
Hi! I am acquainted with many local fellow creators and artists so we tend to share events that we found and know of. You can DM me on my IG or reach out to me personally and I can try to loop you in one of such communities.
Hello. I was randomly recommended this video and both the comments and video itself were very informative in a natural way! I have very little knowledge of what’s going on besides this being an art convention it seems..? I am sorry that you and others are experiencing grievances with it… it must suck.
Thank you for stopping by~ It is a somewhat of an unique experience even for many of us as the things that happened was more of an outlier than of what normally happens at the Singapore anime art convention. But it is okay, we can all learn from this one way or another and strive for improvement.
The map was so bad and the font was awful...
I didn't know you were there 😭 I want that kueh tote bag!
Hope to see you at a future event!
You spotted my kueh tote bag~ thank you. It is one of my fairly-popular item so I do keep a healthy stock of them with me, so no worries - come grab one the next time you see me at a future event!
Imo NTP is the worst(not counting ddam) organiser in SG, which is unforunate because as you said they host one of the largest events. They've definitely gotten lazy and are relying on creators and reputation to bring in a crowd, and with all their complaints about boothers subletting, crowding behind booths, etc, and the "threats" against artists doing that for next years event, my opinion of them is rather low. Where other organisers at least pretend to care about boothers, with free water, better tables and the like, it feels like NTP are just taking advantage of the fact that there are always more artists than booths so they can get away with whatever.
Which is not to say the event is terrible, since it still runs somewhat smoothly, but considering we're the ones paying, and doing the promo for them, the least they could do is let us share booths freely to help absorb some of the cost. After all they wouldn't be here without us
It is really unfortunate, and even if a few creators choose to not go for such events, they are still the minority and event organisers don't have that kind of urgency or need to change and improve since there are still a lot more creators and potential boothers willing to jump in for a chance to enter their events regardless - take for instance how well-received and oversubscribed Doujima 2025 was.
Dude , You need to film properly (you gave me vertigo), otherwise goodluck buddy
Sorry about that. I am well aware I am not a good videographer and I wasn't able to get the stabilizer to work