Anime Garden

My first solo booth!

Anime Garden by AFA was announced pretty last minute, only a month prior to the event. It was held at Gardens by the Bay, which is outdoors. As it was too rushed for wheeskars, I signed up alone and got a whole table to myself for the first time. Due to this, I realized that the joy of having a whole table to myself. I was able to comfortably fit all my merchandise and even had to bring out older retired merchandise to fill in the space. I added some punch-needle hand-made coasters to the table. It was my new hobby.

This was the first time I would be alone tabling, so I asked Eric (day 1) and Aki (day 2) to help out. Never again would I want to ask my customers to hold my fort while i ran off to the toilet 😭 The day was really hot and stuffy in the booth. Everyone was trying very hard to keep cool with portable electric and manual fans. We kept going outside to the open air to catch a breather. Despite the hot weather, I was cosplaying on both days. My booth neighbors gave me thumbs up in awe. I was dying internally though. Kuzuha (day 1) was a single layer of shirt but I was wearing 3 layers for Xavier (day 2). I spent the weekend fanning myself with a folding fan. When the fan broke off, we tried to fix it up with tape. I decided I needed a portable electric fan. I later bought 2 flat looking fans based off wheeskar’s recommendation.

The tables were placed on along a corridor that was sloped. During the day, I dropped one of my favorite washi tape (it was from the lout of count’s family zine I was a part of :<) and it vanished into thin air. Eric and I went out searching for it a few times and we are convinced that the floor ate it up. As It was an outdoor event, there was no way to keep our items locked up and secured. I packed up after the event ended at 10 pm and left it in the car for the next day. Most of the other booths left their set up in the open. I heard that some stores were trashed the next day, by animal or man unknown…

Interestingly, despite it being an impromptu event, the crowd and footfall was decent. Most people came for the concert and performances. Performances were held from 4pm over the weekend. At 9pm onwards were performances from my favorite artists Hiro (MY FIRST STORY) and NANO. The concert really hyped things up, we were jamming to the music from the booth. I haven’t listened to jpop like these for a while and it really took me back.

I was able to socialize with familiar and new faces at this event. It was the first time I showcased Love and Deepspace goods (also the first time I cosplayed Xavier) Fandom girlies are so passionate and enthusiastic. We met for the first time and chatted up a storm. I also found out that more of my friends were in the fandom. They were hiding it very well… Those of us in the fandom immediately turned around to gang up on friends who weren’t in the fandom. We pestered them to download the game 😌👌

Look, this marks the start of Aki’s journey into being Laksayo’s Helper 1.

PS: This event was also when I discovered that my foundation did not match my skin tone anymore after holing up at home all the time.