On the memorable date of April 1st I went to the Yaoi & Yuri Convention in Enschede, of course together with my craft group Tegendraads. I didn’t really know what to expect from this convention, since it was a lot smaller and aimed at a pretty specific anime subgenre, but it turned out to be pretty fun! It was really small scale, like 250-300 visitors (bigger Dutch conventions usually have around 2000), so that felt sorta weird at the start.
On the one hand, the small amount of visitors was totally fun, because it made the atmosphere really friendly and cozy, a lot more personal than the bigger conventions. On the other hand… our sales sucked. XD We mostly sold some small items, like key chains and Tamara’s bracelets and jellyfish. My new ponies (more info on the ponies will come in a later post!) got a lot of positive reactions, but sadly enough I had to take them all home again at the end of the day. It felt more like a ‘meet-up and hanging around’ convention than a ‘buy lots of merchandise’ convention, so I guess that explains it.
I also met so many random bronies! Wearing my Pinkie Pie shirt was an awesome idea to break the ice and make some contact with people. I got like five brohoofs, one glomp (which was slightly awkward, but whatever :E) and a lot of pony talk with our neighbors in the Artist’s Alley, the ladies from Teatales. It’s almost impossible to be socially awkward at conventions cause the atmosphere is just so open, I loved it.
I also gave an amigurumi workshop together with Tamara, and it was pretty fun (although more exhausting than I thought!). It’s the kinda workshop were all the participants need a lot of individual help to actually get somewhere, so lots of running around for me. ^^; It’s too bad that I had to miss the live action drawing workshop because it was at the same time as our workshop, and I missed the yuri panel too because it was right after ours and I was still busy finishing several amigurumi for people who didn’t get em done in time. :’< Oh well, maybe I’ll have more luck with the planning next time.
Aaaaand I bought the cutest chibi commission of Enphy from Mari! I never really buy RL commissions, but I love her style, it was cheap and she needed the money cause her laptop died, so I figured why not. ^^
Next target: Animecon 2012! Well, I least I don’t have to crochet my ass off to get enough amigurumi done, cause I got so much left over from this con. ^_^;;
