Con-Eventional Stories are recaps of events from the author’s perspective.
Arrive For Action
Under the weekend’s morning sunlight that pierces the windows of Suntec Convention Centre’s Ground Floor, the pitch black flooring across this hall filled itself with sitting crowds, eagerly awaiting the Covention Centre’s doors to open up.
Metal fences across the area keep folks sitting around in an organized manner, enough to not cause a jam for folks looking to pickup tickets at the Ticket Counters nearby.
Unlike some nearby roads closed due to some marathon thing. 🤔
Depending on what day it is, the morning crowds can range from piss little, to absurd mobs of insanity, that involves turning this part of Suntec into a literal man-made parking lot.
The phrase “People Mountain People Sea” might need a bigger mountain and sea to accurately describe that turnout. ._.
As is the case every morning, it’s time to Stop.
For now, until the event is cleared for entry around 10 am, as it always does with crowds slowly shuffling themselves onto the staircase that leads them towards the Convention Centre.
Strangely enough, the staff don’t allow early folks to use the escalators until the initial crowds have cleared up enough, even though that could’ve resolved some early congestion issues.
As the time to ascent comes, the outskirts of the nearby doors bring in an intriguing sight.
A small gathering of flowers, with place cards on them in Japanese text.
Some kind of congratulatory gifts it would seem, which makes some sense considering Anime Festival Asia’s lineup of guests from Japan over at this other Event Hall. 🤔
One short walk later, brings visitors before this standing Hall 404 that serves as the event’s entrance.
Errors not found here. 🤔
The Crowd’s Jewel
Upon entering the gray floors of this Convention Centre, a towering figure from a Universal Centry greets visitors.
With a Beam Rifle that will pierce through the heavens!
Or in this case, just the roof of Suntec’s Convention Centre, assuming the bullets aren’t made of imagination.
The first sight to the right comes some kind of merch store calling itself MUSE X Hakken, with a long line of folks awaiting their turn to enter the venue.
Also Hakken? Isn’t that one of the event’s guests? 🤔🤔🤔
Within the halls of this a MUSE-ing setup, comes an internal store that houses a setup of anime merch within.
Only…with a strong sense of everything here being officially licensed goods, which explains the protocol of limited entry, thus the long ass lines. 🤔
Upon exiting this relatively small shop, where folks can either swing left to the counters for paying up, or head right towards…oh come on, not again.
Despite the lines for the AFA shop looking seemingly endless, it is admirable seeing people being willing to lineup this long just for merch.
Wait, there’s a meet & greet session later too? Jeezus.
Ah well at least the Artist area should be all clear a-…
Oh for Fs sake.
Despite the area easing off in later days, it’s surprising to see folks flooding this area of creative content.
The kind of crowd levels usually reserved for other types of booths…huh.
Regardless, it’s a surprising and cool thing to note, the fact that artist booths have huge numbers of folks coming to check out their stuff. Perhaps this is what the crowds here regard as most important when attending this here AFA.
Now then, to find the stuff on the Shopping List, 🤔
Player Perspective
One mandatory errand later, an a nearby Stage begins its segment of…having folks playing live on stage, with a monitor broadcasting their game behind.
Ah, this must be the AFA Play stage that was mentioned before.
A site armed to the teeth with consoles and beanbags for attendees to binge play, whilst watching occasional Event Guest visits in segments of playing with the audience.
But the AFA Play Area isn’t the only site featuring playable stuff.
As fans of Children’s Card Games can get involved with the nearby Yugioh and Battle Spirits workshops, strategically located far away from external noise getting in the way.
…granted, who need such cards games when there’s Credit Card games to play with irl?
But if card games don’t fit the bill, the nearby booth for Fate Grand Order Duel should get people’s attention, following the previous AFA’s theme of putting FGO as the event’s main selling theme.
That said, this year’s theme involves a game with some Impact.
Some Honkai Impact, the kind that…actually what is Honkai Impact about anyways?
Oh it’s some kind of battle arena phone game, but in 3D? Huh…seems legit.
But should the previously mentioned areas be occupied AF, there’s always the freely available booths for games to try out.
Especially the One Punch Man Fighting game of…holding out for 5 minutes until it’s time for Saitama to clean up. 👊
Huh…should probably get food soon, as…hey, where’d those Cup Noodles came from?
Convention Market
Within this alleyway of food booths surrounding the wooden arches that serve as tables for attendees, a wide range of Japanese based Cuisine awaits folks to toss their Singapore dollars for.
The portions prepared to be sold all day come in large quantities, with occasional booths needing time to reload their dish, like the one for beef curry.
Across the site comes various cardboard ‘trash boxes’ for folks to ditch their litter, essentially keeping the place clean enough for future folks to dine there without worry.
Should there not be space, the back alleys come with enough spacing for people to dine in peace, next to the opened area in front of the stage, where crowds of people flood to watch the stage’s various performances.
And…huh, what’s with these Boruto Posters all over the walls anyways?
Oh, it’s for some kind of scavenger hunt thing, as these bandana wearing folks explained, whilst looking at their scrolls of…coded language to interpret the clues.
Meanwhile, the nearby cheers of the crowds indicate something on stage getting their attention, enough reason to check out what’s happening out there.
Akiba’s Stage
Oh goddammit. It’s not a stage area unless it’s crowded AF.
But for good reason, given the talents taking their turns on stage to woo the crowds of cheering ladies and gentlemen.
From a solo guitarist, to the suit wearing and singing butlers of Swallowtail,
To the elegant yet energetic singers of this Akiba stage area,
And at one point, an awesome AF Wotagei session of learning how to lightstick swing. :O
Definitely not something one would see at most events. (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
Malaysia Organizers, you blokes reading/writing this?
Speaking of stuff that isn’t seen that much at events, comes an opened Karaoke booth, that on occasion gets crowds making their own mini concert in front of passing attendees sitting around to watch.
Intermission Outskirts
With downtime until the next stage act, there was time to roam around the not so crowded alleys that house the many attractions AFA has on offer.
Especially the OMIKUJI booth, themed after the Pop Team Epic series of walking memes.
And a display case of some SIC Kamen Rider figures, that are essentially remixed models of the original characters, with a neat twist of enhancements.
Jeezus that’s a dank AF Ryuki dragon from the Mirror World gods.
But what was the most intriguing to discover, was the Otaku Summit 2020 booth that appears to be selling some kind of event coming to Japan next year.
And a Lapras plushie promoting its home turf of Miyagi. :O
Huh, wonder how’s the crowd outside?
Yeeeeep, gonna need that bigger Mountain and Sea now, Chinese Idoms.
Not that navigating was difficult, thanks to the other corners of Escalators that drop folks off at the other side of the venue, enough to reach the entrance of what folks here call The Sky Garden.
An opened rooftop area of foliage, where cosplayers and photographers hang around trying to get those dank shots that only an outdoor setting can create.
And for some fresh air, a rare commodity at most event venues surprisingly. 🤔
*Receiving incoming transmission*
Eh? Oh it’s an assignment, well back to the stage then!
Lightened Camera Action
So, cover this segment about this JobTribes thing, whatever the heck it is, as the stage began playing some kind of trailer for a product, like the event’s suddenly a discount E3 segment.
…well that’s an apt metaphor for people’s daily lives with jobs.
As the trailer turns into an absurd mesh of over exaggerating real world jobs into character classes for the game, with some…uh…interesting, results.
The trailer eventually ends with the game developers stepping on stage, alongside translators that aid in translating their plans for this upcoming mobile game.
With a crowd pleasing presence of Marisa Ise (Pic not available out of respect), as she looks forward towards voicing a future character in the game.
Shortly after, the devs step back to reveal one other piece of content that’s part of the game’s gameplay, some kind of…DEAPcoin thing? Who names these things?!
As coming on stage comes a Guest Cosplayer portraying the character seen in the trailer video earlier, revealing herself to be the ‘Pop Star’ class.
Whilst a familiar figure to the scene conducts translation duties for the guest herself.
Closing out the show by announcing an Open Audition for Official Job Tribes cosplayers, the devs themselves look forward to seeing folks getting involved with the game from that aspect.
Well that about wraps things up…almost as, uh…
Gentlemane, please.
Despite the brief snuggle session of these mascot cosplayers, things ended on a good note as it came across as a friendly scuffle more than anything.
Huh…speaking of cosplayers, wasn’t there some really high profile guest featured for the event?
Oh right there they are, all on stage for the last segment before this Akiba stage that gets crowded AF, considering that it’s the last appearance of some of these guests.
But with the role of a guest, comes obligation to observe some of the finest talents the Cosplay Singles competition has to offer.
Including some armored gods from a combination of Tokusatsu and Digimon. :O
So much so that the Digimon cosplay had to take off his shoe props before putting them back on stage…but jeezus, that stuff’s F-ing heavy.
And that’s just a small surface level taste, of what the segment had to offer.
What’s interesting to note is the amount of contestants that hail from many countries outside of Singapore, which ended without much fuss, not like there was any harm to begin with.
Relax End
Man, would you look at the time, 7pm and the venue’s still loaded.
Oh right, the night concert.
It is an AFA backed Anisong event, so of course people would still be hanging around for that main attraction.
To the point that one can hear the squealing levels of hype on the lower floors, from a single door being opened. o.o
Damn, maybe should get some water around he-…
Well damn.
Now this is arguably the best attraction to come out of AFA. (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
*END*
Author’s Note:
Thank you so much for reading!
If possible, I’d love to hear your feedback on what can we do better.
Be it the bad writing, horrible pictures, or just the fact I need more water, I’d love to hear about it.
Also,
For a less Event Simulator version of this, check out An UnCon-Eventional Story: Anime Festival Asia (AFA) 2019
Check out more stories over at S.I.R House, of Content 2019.
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