san japan 2026 YIPEE!!!
I know my comment system is currently down - tbh I’m always like ahh oh well. LOL.
Our Argenti & Boothill bandana stamp rally went amazing!! I decided that I would only participate in stamp rallies with my friends or a very specific niche fandom and my hunch was correct! I also like how the final prize felt like a true collaboration item rather than a hodgepodge of stuff.
We had 27 complete prizes (bandana + photocard) and those were all completed! We also had an additional ~10 or so people that participated just for the bandana. So overall we were left with ~10 bandanas (split between the two of us). We got a lot of super passionate fans that were excited to see a stamp rally theme for their niche fav - it really felt like such a fun gift and experience to give.
Anyways here’s the recap.
San Japan is my favorite Texas convention to vend at - they have a really dedicated Artist Alley staff that takes very good care of their artists. I think top tier for me. We got a generous setup window 1 day before the convention, and I got there around mid-day to get the good cheap overnight parking (lol absolutely a MUST).
(Barely unpacked from ANYC which is why my whole setup is in two-ish suitcases)
Bblux got there shortly after. Her husband’s brother coincidentally had his bday this weekend so they had a boys night and we were able to catch up (I love Bblux’s husband too but it’s always fun to catch up with the OG friend, you know??).
We got the pizza I got during my Kawacon weekend and then some ice cream. Good treats to kick off the weekend.
She worked on one of her mini gengar crochet goodies at night while I was filling her in Umamusume lore and Nu: Carnival lore (so funny actually).
We grabbed breakfast in the morning at the spot I liked last time. Good breakfast always just makes me happy.
Here’s my table setup! I tried to have side arms to have more display space but I need to get another table clamp setup to make the structure more strudy as the totes were heavier than I expected (so that as shelved for now). My yaoi palace table runner is a joke (I have the normie version on the other side but haven't had to display it yet)... my feeling is I need to add even more BL things!! I do like that it signals that my table will be full of bl/fujo/etc bishounen, etc etc etc.
It’s very interesting to see how the color shift changed from my Ikkicon setup (much more light and airy). I think adding the contrast helps my merch stand out a little bit more - especially with my sticker sheets which have quickly become the best seller - more thoughts on sales at the end of this post.
My stamp rallies were the bandana rally, a D.Gray-Man rally - IG link (1 of 2!!), and a small doodle date rally.
Artist alley closes at 8 which is pretty late, so finding food after is always a priority. We (BBLux, er husband, and I) picked a tex mex? place and I got a tuna tostada which was sooo refreshing and yummy. We also got guac and elote.
We gave ourselves homework that night (I had a commission I accepted from a fellow artist).
Then next night our other friends drove in from Austin to visit and we had such a nice friend dinner outing. These moments are so precious to me as our schedules get so busy we don’t always get to meet up.
I got gifted some Marui goodies from a fellow tenipuri fan, SO SWEET!!!
Con finished and made my immediate escape back home, haha.
Okay table talk:
I’m really happy with how my tables have been doing. I do also wonder how I can increase/maximize sales. I did see some sales numbers shared in some artist spaces that I'm in so I'll be thinking on that!
- Niche works great for me. I also have very little interest in making merch outside of my fandoms.
- The good benefit of the above is that I get a really good combination of like minded customers (YAY)
- I got nice compliments on how I set up my sticker sheets - I think they work nice as small prints too.
- Ppl bought my secret fav item - Stay One Night!! I also sold out of my remaining stock of my previous sketch zines, so now I can make a new one. My mind is already going wild with my next project(s).
- +I had a wonderful person come back to my table and reading my zine… they were so sweet. I love when people are like “you were not kidding about the R18 label” which is… funny. But true!! Things are not censored (but also not hyper-rendered)…. anyways my future books will probably be more plot based.
- The amount of people that saw our IG post about the bandana stamp rally and actually did it warmed my heart! I really do feel like we had great feels all around from the experience we had and the experience of the partifcipants. I have a little beef with some stamp rallies that are too premium/feels like a consumerist cash grab or rallies where the artists don’t even have a stamp (that’s the stationery snob girlie in me, lol sorry)???
- I had 1 attendee that had seen all of Major (and is also a sports/BL fan) - that one conversation gave me so much energy I can’t even explain.
I also stopped by my local stationery store to pick my Hobonichi weeks for next year (they were down to single digits on the solid colors and had already sold out on many of the limited editions).
I thought I would go with the blue color but ended up picking the poppy red! I brought my special momo poppy sticker since it will be the feature sticker.
^ I'll save the full deco for december.
The cover on cover was sold out in store so I ordered some remaining accessories on Yoseka.