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So this is the second year that Citru5 has been boothing at events and AFA is our 6th event and I thought, why not try something bigger and go for it? I consider AFA a really prestigious event because it’s really huge, the biggest event in Singapore of the year where everyone overseas comes just to booth and share their stuff and see stuff. It was a scary thought but I signed us up anyway because if we were going to start boothing for real, we might as well take it all the way and see how far we could go before age and time stops us. I guess I considered this a test? And also a challenge hahaha.
But so many things happened?? We went with our usual printing numbers of printing not more than 15 per badge designs despite hearing from other booths that we should have printed at least 30 per design because I thought that we were still a pretty small group and besides, it’s only Friday, it shouldn’t be too bad. EXCEPT FRIDAY DIDN’T FEEL LIKE FRIDAY AT ALL. WHY WERE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE ON A FRIDAY MORNING? WHY AREN’T PEOPLE IN BED SLEEPING OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT THE HALL AT 7.30AM IN THE MORNING, GO AND SLEEP! People just started rushing in and lots of our badges got depleted or close to depletion near the end of the event and we had to close early so that Haru could be sent down to the printing shop to restock (and so I could head off for tuition uhm). AFA’s the first event where we actually brought the badge machine to the event itself and just made badges on the spot to try and supply enough to meet the demand. Saturday was just a day of hardcore punching and printing and we had to send Haru down a second time in the afternoon because we were running out of things, and it was scary because we never expected this kind of response argh! AFA IS…REALLY SCARY!
Still, I enjoyed lots of things at the event. I enjoyed meeting new people such as Manda, Funrin, Jo, Sei, Saito, Don and the twin sisters of Black Label CDS, and meeting people like Sana, Hika, Rui, Cas, Reiru, Nii, Cy, Ume and her lolis, Pricey, the FNP mahou shoujos, the moe-warriors of CDS, Daiyaku, Sie, Yun-hime, Stifler, Datworks and also JY and her lovely crew, thanks for being such good booth neighbours and I hope I didn’t bother you guys too much with the chatting and noise. You guys were really cool and I hope we get to see each other more often ;7;/ Thanks for the chocolates and snacks as well from Black Label and also to FNP and Pricey for the endless help I received during setup day when my other boothmates weren’t here, when we ran out of plastic bags and when we needed someone to help us deal with the badge making (thanks Moe-san) and also on the last day when you guys helped to carry my boxes ;____; Thank you so much, I don’t know what I would do without you guys, you people are amazing!
Setup day was pretty LOL because none of my members were present to help so I ended up just laying out the tablecloth and cutting up some prints with pricey before just sitting at the booth and talking about life and exams. We went to find dinner after FNP set up their booth and we ended up searching for almost an hour without finding anything because all the shops were already closed so no dinner that day hahaha. Also it was the first time I was asked to lower my prices and give discounts at an event U___U. To be honest, I found that really rude because every artist worked hard and no one should be shortchanged or have their prices forced lower just because the customer has no money. Also, if you think my stuff is expensive then you might as well just leave without spending your money, I’d rather earn from people who genuinely appreciate my work without complaining about prices…
I think the good and bad thing about boothing at AFA is that you get a sneak peek at the setups of the commercial booths, it was really funny seeing the almighty Animax sign on the floor hahaha, but also that you couldn’t walk around much during the event itself so I didn’t manage to get some things I wanted, but it was ok. I still managed to get a lot of stuff though as seen in the top photo. I didn’t have much stuff at the event but I had enough to do a little giveaway. I didn’t want to bring the things back home and I thought I should give away some free shit to the boothers who’ve worked so hard just to get by those hectic three days so I just took a bag of my leftover badges and started offering them to people. I HOPE PEOPLE LIKE THEM and then afterwards, people started GIVING FREE STUFF BACK???? IT WAS A LOT OF STUFF???? Thank you Saito for the artbook and the compliments! Your works are so cute I’m just askljslkdsf and agh NO I DIDN’T ExPECT ALL THE FREE STUFF IT’S REALLY OVERWHELMING BUT THANK YOU GUYS ;;____;; Everyone’s so nice and it’s really warming sobs. ALSO THANK YOU FUNRIN AND REIRU AND WAHA FOR THE DRAWINGS STARTS CRYING YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST??? ALSO I GOT TO DRAW CLAY TERRAN LAY ME DOWN TO CRY.
ALSO DINNER WITH THE DOUJIN CIRCLES I SWEAR YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST COMPANY TO BE WITH. All the jokes and laughs and gossip about little thingums. It was really fun and I can’t wait for the karaoke session after my exams end ^0^/ ALSO CONGRATS TO CDS AND WAHA AND KC FOR THE BIRTH OF INORI AIZAWA HEHEHEHE. I want to say more but I think this is getting pretty long so one last thanks…
This time, I really wanted to thank Haru for helping me so much with the AFA preparations this time and also for being considerate and asking your schoolmates to man the booth so that I could study for my math paper the next day. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I could have done the paper so thank you so much. I love you smooch smooch. And thanks Eiko and Jay as well for putting so much work into the event itself and CONGRATS GUYS! WE DID IT! WE SURVIVED AFA!