EOY booth. Black Label side. Don’t ask.

Yes. After a month of procastination and nagging from the Evil Overlord, I have finally gotten up my lazy butt to do our event reports for AFA and EOY. Both events have rather different objectives and though the crowd overlaps, there are subtle differences which I will mention along the way. Since there will be plenty of coverage on these events elsewhere anyway, I will talk mainly on our involvement and my opinions about both events.

So how many of you guys saw our logo high up in the air of AFA? This year, we were part of the organizers behind Extravaganza, the illustration showcase/competition which is the combination of the major art competitions/exhibition in Singapore. It was a successful exhibition which saw many outstanding entries from everyone. Kudos to Manda for submitting the most appropriate Moe Moe Kyun image. It is bound to please and scar many minds in years to come.

Hallo, Danny Choo. Thanks for the graffiti.

Haimerejzero and Tragic Comedy having their art showdown at Extravaganza

Our presence is not limited to just Extravaganza. We also shared a nice little booth smack in the middle of Akibatown with good friend, Surface.  Many thanks to everyone who patronized our store. It is always fun to meet others who like our art. Meeting Shoko-tan and others who visited our booth was fun too and an experience to remember. ‘Panchira-hon!’ will always be in my mind.

Image of CDS/Surface booth from the Surface side taken from Wet Calamari.

It was a fun AFA for us to say the least. To the AFA organizers, もう一回！

Coming quickly at the heels of AFA is EOY. Although EOY has been around for a long time, this can technically be considered a new event since the previous organizer, STAC has disbanded and a new organizer has taken over the event. Held on Boxing Day at the National Library, unlike AFA, it is a paid event. Of course, like AFA, they managed to get a singer/seiiyu, Makino Yui to entertain everyone. Not a lot compared to the multitude of stars at AFA but it is a good first time for the new EOY organizing team.

AFA concentrates more on the commercial aspect of the fandom, which was fun. But EOY has a focus on local-talents which I appreciate a lot. Save for Makino’s presence (which I missed due to manning the booth), the entire event was based mostly on fans and their participation. That is an aspect of AFA which is sorely lacking.

Over at AFA, the main interaction was between commercial entities and the consumer. Down at EOY, the interaction was mainly between members of the community. Sure, my metaphorical cash register did not ring as much as I needed it to but it was still a good experience. If you guys decide to do it one more time, you got the support of CDS.

Dirty trooper likes Mio. Picture provided by Gordonator

On the whole, the year was a good year for us. As 2009 ends in a couple of hours, here is a big ‘thank you’ and ‘Happy New Year’ from all of CDS to everyone. To a better 2010 for everyone!

P.S. We will be at SOY’B as soon as I get along to paying the booth cost to the organizers. And yes, we will have reprints of the K-on scroll posters there.