This year was the debut for San Diego's first anime only convention, Anime Conji which was held at the Doubletree Club Hotel. We learned about the convention during our trip to Anime Los Angeles in January and inevitably signed up to participate in Conji's Artist Alley. The past few weeks have been spent making more items and new, redesigned Mortified Foods buttons. We had purchased a button maker a couple months back and this was our first con selling the new, smaller buttons.
San Diego being roughly a two hour drive away and neither of us being very good at waking up early, we decided it be best to arrive the day before so we can be on time for Artist Alley check-in. We gathered all our stuff, packed up the car to near capacity and were on our way.
Day 1 - Friday
The convention clearly hadn't started when we arrived for Artist Alley check-in but by the time we finished setting up, there were two long lines for registration. There were a lot of familiar faces in Artist Alley which was comforting. Unfortunately, our table location worked against us due to the AA map not being to scale. As you can see on this map, we were to have an end table with space to the right to easily come and go. This was not at all the case as the wall was right up against our table and space behind our table was halved. We literally could not push our chair out from under the table all the way. Our neighbors were kind enough to give us some extra space we desperately needed. Thank goodness both of us are skinny or this would have been a bigger problem.
Knowing this was a first year convention with an attendence cap of 500, we tried to keep our expectations low. Clearly this was not going to be Anime Expo or even Anime L.A. However, the convention was put together pretty well for its first time out. Friday had a serious lack of signage but it improved by the weekend. The convention consisted of: Dealer's Hall/Artist's Alley, Consuite, 2 Anime Viewing Rooms, Art Show, 2 Panel Rooms, Gaming Room, Workshop Room, Costume Repair Station, Dealer's Mall and a large tent outside next to the pool where the Masquerade and concerts took place. Things were a bit strangely spread out so if you didn't have a map, it would've been difficult to find where things were.
Friday was a bit of a disapointment as far as sales went but Saturdays are always the busiest day of conventions. After the alley closed, we took everything back to the hotel room and returned for the Artist Alley 101 panel and then played some Street Fighter 4 before calling it a night.
Day 2 - Saturday
As expected, Saturday started with a significantly bigger crowd. There were a lot more cosplayers roaming about and we got a lot of very nice compliments on our stuff. People remember us from Anime Los Angeles and/or Anime Expo which is always a good feeling to be recognized. One highlight of the day was Tabe BBQ, which is a food truck that sells Asian styled tacos, burritos and bowls. We got ourselves beef, chicken and pork tacos for lunch as well as fries with special spices that make your lips go a bit numb. The pork was super spicy but delicious. I ended up going back and getting a burrito which I saved for dinner. P: Their food was just so good!
Being such a small con, you can see most everything in one day so we didn't have much else to do Saturday. We enjoy spending time in Artist Alley so overall, it was a good day.
Day 3 - Sunday
The last day of the con, we expected for it to be as dead as Friday but were happy to see there were still a lot of people around. We made some sales and chatted with people. Everyone during the convention was very nice to us and made our last day there fun. The Artist Alley began thinning out and closed at 4. We packed up for the last time and said our goodbyes. If you had a chance to stop by our table, we'd like to thank you for visiting! :D Anime Conji was our first really small convention and it was an enjoyable experience. We hope to return again next year and get a full table in their Artist Alley. They'll be moving to the much larger Town & Country Resort next year so we look forward to a bigger and better Anime Conji!
If you're interested in buying from us online, you can check out our Etsy Shop. A new website is still in the works but if all goes well, you'll be able to buy items from us directly through CatNapCaps.com. Our next convention is Anime Expo in July unless we can somehow get ourselves a table at Fanime. Once again, thanks to everyone who visited. See you next convention! ^_^
P.S. - If you're interested in any of the items pictured, please don't hesitate to e-mail us at: catnapcaps@gmail.com. We'll be adding some items to our Etsy Shop soon.
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