[con/artist alley] Animeuwu Market Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival report

This is a summary of my experience as an artist alley vendor for Animeuwu Market at their Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival on September 28, 2024. I was going to save this for a more complete report later after I finished my cosplay write up which I can only do after I uhh finish my cosplay for real which will happen after I fix my previous cosplay, but my memory is already failing me as a 40+ year old and I decided to better report on it now lol.

Animeuwu Market is a quarterly(ish?) market run by the local anime merchandise store, Anime Yankii at a suburban mall shopping center which no longer really functions as a mall of the 90s, with department stores and chain stores and a food court, but instead hosts a Korean grocery store, some restaurants and a few franchises and independent shops and offices throughout the half abandoned premises.  Anime Yankii and the market established since after the pandemic in 2020 and sometimes works to advertise other local markets, such as Dallas Comic Show, Minna Art Market and independent events which are all the rage now that almost all large 3 day anime conventions have been priced out of north Texas due to overall greed and inflation in recent years yet stagnating salaries for the average worker in this godforsaken hellhole country. I have attended the majority of these markets because it’s close by, sometimes just to browse, but mostly to buy stuff from artists because I am fortunate to have a more stable and well-paying career and I just like shiny new trinkets. Their last few events have featured English voice actors in the US because that is also a somewhat recent boom, I believe there are/were a few anime companies with offices in Dallas so at least a few actors are local which is very lucky. I signed up specifically because I love danmei (Chinese works revolving around same-sex male relationships of various genres) and this event was dedicated to Heaven Official’s Blessing by MXTX, a danmei webnovel that has a superb animated adaptation with Japanese and English voice acting as well as the original Chinese voice acting. I figured, why not apply to vend at least once at this nearby market and talk to fans about danmei that I was already going to attend in cosplay? If I get in, I can make a few sales and get my business cards passed along, if I don’t get in, it would save me stress and expenses and I can concentrate on my cosplay; a win-win situation for me either way.

I’ll start with the less than stellar stuff in order to end the report on a fun and positive note. Anyone else do that?

• First off, I have never done well at any art market, for any show, around any topic or concept, ever in my entire life as a hobbyist artist for the past 15 or so years. This is not because my art sucks, although it’s certainly not the best and I acknowledge that lol. But I am not very enthused about generating new plastic items from overseas if I can help it as an eco-conscious artist, and so I have only a small amount of very obscure character charms nobody cared to buy, and the other items I have to sell, button badges and stickers, are either not trending anymore and/or can only be sold cheaply (versus charms/prints which can easily be sold for sizable profits because of the universally accepted pricing.) I ended up selling only one new hualian print so apparently that wasn’t a good investment either, doh.
  • Not to mention, when MXTX and danmei first started getting translated to English and other languages in 2018, everyone was informed to not make profits off fanart because of an official statement from the publisher banning such, and so even if my art somehow magically got better, I still would feel guilty about quadrupling the production price for maximum profits, although I doubt Chinese lawyers are currently hankering for a lawsuit against a nobody fanartist in the United States. I did my best to draw new art within the 2 weeks of learning I got accepted and ordered a new print and new card reader for the event, but the cost of the table plus an order of 25 prints and the card reader with moderately fast shipping made it impossible for me to make a profit. (I’m not counting business cards because I do actually need more business cards for my online shop.) I was $45 short of breaking even, but at least I made back the table, which I wasn’t sure I could do with such cheap offerings.
• Nextly, the event took place in late September, which is still summer in Texas. Despite it being in the high 80s F instead of the usual 110s F, it was still hot walking from the car with my heavy stuff into the mall, then hot inside the venue with all the people and lights and wearing layers of cosplay and a kn95 mask. I was thankful for handheld fans but it was not enough cooling for my elderly body, I was drenched in sweat from the first hour and felt truly miserable for the next 6 hours. If I had not cosplayed or worn a mask, I would still be warm but not suffering, so that was 90% on me for cosplaying in lined hanfu and wearing a very dense mask.
• Finally, I was really rushed due to having to work at the office the week before, only having 2 weeks to prep since getting accepted, and my family suddenly needed my free time in the evenings right before, so I couldn’t sleep well for several nights up to the morning of the event, as I was either up late working on art prep or cosplay prep or just anxious and unable to sleep. The night before the event I only had a few hours of sleep and it really showed on my sweaty face.
• Also I was not able to buy stuff at the artist alley for me, not really having enough time between visitors at my table to really peruse until the end, and everyone was already starting to pack up by then and I also still needed to see the voice actors. However, I am almost positive I will see them at the next event (when I will not be selling stuff) or online, so I wasn’t too bothered.

But there were still really good things about this event that made me very happy to have tabled, so I will end with all of those here!

• I didn’t have a very busy table location, I was at one end of the room at the alternate entrance. I have no idea if it would have increased sales if I moved to the center of the hall in a more crowded location or at least before guests ran out of money by the time they got to my table, but my location meant there was a lot of free space around me, much better for me as an introvert who needs their breathing room. I had a slow and steady stream of visitors up until the last 2 hours and that was the perfect amount of interaction for me. The people who were super into danmei liked the side characters I drew from other books and of course, people had fun recognizing the obscure characters and older series I drew from. I genuinely didn’t feel like my art style was ill-received, it’s just that I didn’t make merch of what they were looking for (enamel pins, other expensive stuff I could not justify producing, certain pairing artwork besides hualian), which was expected because I didn’t wanna work that hard.
• Because it was getting slow after 4pm, I closed up shop 1.5 hours early, the vendor next to me was already putting up their stuff, and I headed upstairs to visit the voice actors, aka what I originally intended to do before I got into the artist alley lol. Every guest was super friendly even after a whole day of chatting with fans, and I got 2 signed prints from Jordan Dash Cruz, the voice actor for Qi Rong, the character I was cosplaying, who also voiced Stark from Frieren. He was soooo happy that his character in Heaven Official’s Blessing was my favorite, I was the first to say so that day or probably ever lol, plus I got a photo with him and gave him a fake polaroid of my Qi Rong fanart because that was all I had to gift. I also saw people buying my merch to gift to the voice actors, so I was pleased to have thought of making those fanarts because I’m pretty sure no one else at artist alley did so lol.
• Surprisingly a lot of my original jewelry (not the fan merch stuff) sold very quickly and was admired by many non-buyers. I did price them low to move them, and I forgot to bring supplies to finish a few more although I doubt those would have sold tbh. There were a lot of female fans and general mall shoppers who enjoyed browsing the handful of designs I had. My jewelry doesn’t sell online because there is a plethora of options online, so it made me happy to see my concepts were well-received in person, in a well-lit spot with attractive packaging and display. I absolutely love jewelry and making jewelry, it’s one of the reasons I went ahead with naming my store Atelier Insomniel.
• Some friends I haven’t seen in several years found my table and we caught up. This would not have happened if I hadn’t tabled because I would be in and out within an hour lol. I was also able to give away a lot of candy to visitors and random children from the playground outside. Good karma interactions all day!

So overall, this was a okay experience for me. I was lucky in some aspects, and very unlucky in other aspects. If just one bad thing had been not so bad, I would have marked this as a successful return to the artist alley life. But such as it was, I probably would not be vending again (at animeuwu market or any other market) and that is assuming I even get accepted, which let’s be real, was a surprise to me this round. Some of my artist friends have been rejected by local one day markets including animeuwu, and they are much more experienced and successful sellers with more popular art styles or lots of cool merch stocked so… this is probably the last market I will realistically ever be in ever. If you missed your chance to buy my merch without shipping/taxes, too bad, I don’t think they’ll let me in again! But if you still are okay with paying shipping and taxes, here are the links to my online stores:

Etsy (for international orders and videogame charms): https://www.etsy.com/shop/insomniel

Ko-fi (for more jewelry and all fandom button badges): https://ko-fi.com/insomniel/shop

Now I want to emphasize I don’t place the blame on anyone that I personally had a lot of misfortune vending and thus will not be vending again if I even get accepted again assuming they have a similar event next year. Much of my bad luck was beyond my control like weather and timing and everyone being a busy/impoverished cog in this capitalism machine, and the few things that were in my control I was not giving up on – cosplaying while masking, pricing everything very cheaply which guests did say was too cheap, and just not producing new expensive trinkets just for this event. But overall, I’m glad I risked it all to vend and got accepted, I could chat leisurely with danmei fans while sitting at my table full of pretty merch and decorations instead of the alternative which is rushing around and not talking to anyone besides maybe a voice actor or two. Honestly I feel super motivated to continue drawing fanart and making jewelry and accessories and cosplaying despite the low personal returns. It’s the pride of having completed a creation that an artist enjoys the most, after all.

If I saw you this weekend, thanks for saying hi, I really appreciated it. I hope that good fortune is in your future, and blessings of the mid-autumn follow you throughout the upcoming seasons!