AN Halloween Event & rant...

 I suppose its a bit late but I might as well make a post about this anyway! I participated in the Artist Alley at the Anime North Halloween event held on October 27. It was my first time attending this Halloween event at the JCCC hosted by Anime North... at first I wasn't interested because I had attended before many years ago just as a con goer and it was really dead/boring and not much activities where there, plus the Artist Alley was really small and also kinda dead?? But since the table fee was only $20 and it was just from 6pm-11pm on one day, I figured, why not... it was a Friday night so I could make it there after work.

Except I got stuck in rush hour traffic and ended up late!! I was rushing and barely made it on time... and there was a long line to get in. There were soo many cosplayers! I was so shocked. I got placed at, what I thought was the best location for a table, right near the entrance, but it turned out to be awful because groups of people just congregated there taking pictures and it was near the garbage cans too. Everyone who walked in went right past me because my display was small and not very eye catching and to be fair, I didn't have a lot of inventory. I had mostly leftovers from AN and only made a few new Halloween things (that didn't even end up selling, sigh). While the table next to me had a constant stream of sales. It was the total opposite at Anime North, where I was super busy and made a lot of sales. And the feeling sucked... knowing that some spoiled brat ten years younger than me who started their business recently was doing so much better than me. They gave me dirty looks so I offered one right back. It wasn't all bad though - my first customer ended up being someone who recognized me from Anime North and that made me really happy to have a familiar face to talk to, and I happened to see someone I had known since high school but hadn't seen for a very long time. The crowd is definitely different at this event for sure, mostly young kids. Most of them were fine, except for these two guys who kept coming around my table, touching my stuff (even knocked my merch off the table and had to pick it back up off the floor, no apology or anything) and these punks who just came up to me, pointed to all the stuff on the table and shouted "FREE?? FREE?" at me. But not to anyone else's table... okay, sorry my stuff looks so trashy that you don't wanna pay for it?? And then there were these really nicely dressed asian lolitas who just avoided my table and gave me massive side eye for no reason. I noticed this at Anime North too - all the western lolitas are super nice and we even have a chat and gush over things even though I don't even know them, but the Asian ones will just give me a dirty look and not say anything, even though I wanted to compliment their outfits, I'm afraid to?? So fucking weird.

And I guess this is a good time to end my tabling at events. I know I would have gotten more sales if I worked on and invested in my display more, and I would have probably gained more followers if I posted more reels and shit but damn. I'm so fucking tired these days. Even before the pregnancy, having a full time job and doing this by yourself on the side is really tough. I never really got much sales to begin with but during the pandemic somehow my follower count on Instagram and my Etsy sales increased a lot and it gave me confidence. But I guess now that the pandemic is "over", people aren't spending much time indoors online anymore. And times are tough, I get that. That's why I've kept doing this because I enjoy making crafts anyway, it's only a bonus that people like my work enough to pay for it. But now it doesn't bring me the same amount of joy anymore I guess? Or do I just really need to boost and promote my business as an "Asian woman owned small business"? Or maybe I just need a break to re-evaluate what I truly want to make and what makes me happy, regardless if I get the views or if people want to buy my work. I guess seeing all these indie artists boasting about their sales really makes me feel shitty that it's not happening for me too, even though I've been doing it for much longer... And with manufacturing being so easy these days, no one is dumb enough like me to still make things by hand, right? I even overheard one girl pointing to my stuff at the AN event and going "Oh yeah, I remember making these a long time ago.." It's hard keeping up with what's trendy. I made Kirby things because that's what people seemed to like, and I genuinely ended up really liking Kirby too, but now that people aren't even interested anymore, I'm left with all these Kirby things. I really don't know what to do with the crafts that I don't end up selling. And I don't know what's going to happen to the future of my crafts after having kids. I'm really worried that I'll just never touch it again, because it's not exactly kid friendly stuff. And since I'll be working after maternity leave, it's not like I'll ever have the time to craft again with kids around. I suppose for now, I'll just have to make as much stuff as possible while I still can... It was definitely a long, fun time.