Otakufest

Con moved to a different venue this year and it was quite disorganized. There were no clear signs where the main entrance was and loading in felt like a free for all for the first day. Sales are about average for a medium sized 3 day con. Wouldn't really recommend flying in for this convention. Also we had an unlucky spot where the AC pipes were constantly dripping water on our table. Con also allows proxies so pretty much half of the AA and Vendor hall consisted of proxy sellers. Wouldn't really recommend flying to this convention. Outside the convention felt somewhat unsafe, especially at night.

They changed their venue to Miami Beach Convention Center, which is understandable. I think if they kept the old venue, they would’ve had overcrowding since this con has grown pretty big over time. In fact, their holiday event at Pembroke Pines in 2023 was horribly overcrowded because the venue wasn’t the biggest, but thankfully the newest venue is big enough that this was not an issue. I was an attendee at the regular Otakufest last year, and parts of their old venue’s artist alley didn’t have the best lighting, but the lighting this time was good. The effect of a holographic print I have shined really well.

Staff was communicative when I was taken off the waitlist and offered a booth. I received an email and a phone call about it. When I called back, Jun quickly sent me the link to my table payment and added the correct link as I asked on the website’s exhibitor directory. Check-in was very efficient and the staff was communicative regarding their delay on exhibitor badge arrival. (The badges were delayed to arrive at 5PM on Thursday.)

This is a minor criticism, but some artists were placed right outside of how the artist alley was marked on the map, which was a bit confusing layout-wise. It still wasn’t too bad because they were at least still adjacent to the rest of us as far as I saw. One of my artist friends had her booth location marked incorrectly on the site as well.

Sales-wise, me & my table neighbors had a slow day on Friday. However, traffic and sales had a significant boost on Saturday and I made my table back on that day. My sales were great overall, although I feel like they still could’ve been better.

All the attendees I met were very nice. I had some who couldn’t buy anything, but were happy to follow me on social media, which I appreciated as well. Overall, it was a great experience and I will be happy to come back next year.

Artist alley and vendor rooms are separate. Approximately 5 feet walkway in between booth aisles and had to squeeze behind chairs to get to the end of the aisle to exit. All booths were flush to one another so could not squeeze through without moving your table. Attendees however were very big spenders (in my own personal experience). Vendor hall was very very spacious, would reccomend purchasing a Vendor pass instead of artist alley if attending.

The convention center is conveniently near the airport, but there is hardly ANY food around (especially decently priced. We're talking $3-4 bags of chips and $8 hotdogs) there isn't any water available though I can attribute that to covid making water fountains unusable. The table was cheap, but the layout was so freaking weird. They set all the tables up in LONG, Narrow rows. AA artists were constantly bumping into each other's things and tables trying to get in and out. The worst part though would have to be the lighting. I have been told that Artists have been trying to get the lighting changed at this con for years since it opened.... but we're all left in the dark. There's also no word of this in the emails so if you're not local, good luck finding a store nearby to get LEDs or a flashlight. My table seemed so dark that it was impossible to discern my prints. I feel like it hurt sales. Sunday ended up being a better sale day than Saturday which seemed a little backwards. The attendees just weren't biting and I felt like other artists felt similarly. I flew in from NJ and if it wasn't a local con I probably wouldn't go back. I got to see a little bit of Miami and the weather was nice but that's about it. I normally have pretty good profits at cons but this one I barely made out even.