TouhouCon

I really wanted to like Touhoucon. The attendees themselves were very nice, and being a fan of Touhou, I loved the other stuff that was available to buy. From an artist standpoint, the only stuff that actually sold was my Touhou stuff (makes complete sense - I specially made more Touhou art than I already had because this is called... surprise, "Touhoucon"). I heard a lot of artists complain about having poor sales, and not knowing why, when they had literally no Touhou merch available. So in that aspect, I found that a strange thing to complain about. On the other hand, the HUGE and VERY HORRIBLE issue with Touhoucon was the horrendous drama dealing with the hotel rooms.

Hotel room drama: I don't know WHY they decided to do this, but the guy in charge of Touhoucon mass emailed all the guests, artists, and dealers for Touhoucon, telling them that ZOMG HE MANAGED TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE HOTEL AND GET A BUNCH OF US FREE HOTEL ROOMS AT THE HILTON!! A bunch of people who originally would've found cheaper hotel rooms, or perhaps would have just driven the distance each day (I heard of some people who were only half an hour away, but decided that they would stay at the hotel because, hey, free hotel, right?) So for one thing, it was a lot of drama trying to secure the free hotel room (people were lining up and fighting to get them). But the BIGGEST issue was that, after everything was all said and done, and we even asked hotel staff to CONFIRM that we would NOT BE CHARGED for it, as it was taken care of already by Touhoucon... a few weeks afterwards, we get a charge on our credit card for many hundreds of dollars! I don't know if this was all a scheme planned by Hilton and the owner of Touhoucon to try to get a bunch of extra money for Hilton (getting a huge influx of dealers and guests to pay for very expensive hotel rooms they originally would not have booked), but the entire thing was just super fishy. In the end, the Hilton just charged everyone and said that the guests and vendors were all responsible for the bill regardless of what was promised (they charged my credit card because I had to give it to them to pay for the parking at the hotel, without even getting consent from me for paying for the hotel room), and the owner of Touhoucon to this day has not paid anyone back.

I attended TouhouCon as a vendor. The team behind TouhouCon projected x amount of attendees. They did not achieve their projected numbers. So, to cover their costs, the credit cards of the artists/vendors were charged. Thousands of dollars was stolen from dozens of vendors ("dozens" is an estimation, as there is a Facebook page with dozens of members who were charged). And I say "stolen" because the cards were charged without our consent. I, along with dozens more, have not been refunded.

OVERALL: Terrible.

VENUE: Held at the Hilton Anaheim, we were on the second floor conference area. The hotel itself was gorgeous. There were a serious lack of signs to point people where to go.

STAFF: While OVERALL nice people, a lot of the staff wasn't able to answer questions I had regarding the convention. Post-convention, and especially regarding the extra credit card charges, nobody from TouhouCon has been responsive to emails since the end of the convention.

LAYOUT: Standard layout.

ATTENDANCE: Being a niche convention, it had low numbers. But being a niche convention, that's what you should expect.

AFFORDABILITY: Other than the hundreds of dollars I was charged with without consent (some others were charges thousands), the con was regularly priced for a convention in that area.