TOYSREVIL's One-Stop Guide to Conventions & Comic-Cons For 2017!
This list essentially consist of events that would feature “art / designer toys”, “indie art toys, and lowbrow-art - AKA most toy news you’d read about on this blog! Also events that I would be (or more likely would be, no guarantees here :p) covering on this blog this year.
Note that while I might not be too actively searching or digging for content (as I had in the previous years), so I would recommend YOU email me direct, if you have anything relevant you’d like me to pimp for these events, thanks!
EMAIL: toysreviler[at]gmail.com / Submission Guidelines = to help you further help me :)
DISCLAIMER: This list excludes Toy Fairs & Festivals in Japan, and other events in the Asia region, pop-ups internationally. Do email me direct at “toysreviler[at]gmail.com” if you have an event you want listed, and I’ll check if they fit here, all good in the boyhood :)
At this point, I have no plans to visit any one of these events (outside of Singapore), primarily because I cannot afford to, so I would be perusing the aisles online instead … join me? :)
Cheers
Andy TOYSREVIL
Designer Toy Summit (Saturday, March 18th, 2017) in Memphis Tennessee, USA
(www.designertoysummit.com / Facebook / Facebook Events / Instagram / Twitter)
ABOUT DESIGNER TOY SUMMIT: ”Open to all Toy Designers, DIY Toy Customizers, Sculptors, Plush/Doll Artists, Toy Companies, Retailers, Wholesalers, Bloggers, Podcasters, Art Supply Distributors, and anyone else who's goods or services may contribute to Toy Making, including 3D Printers, 3D Scanning, Vacuum Chambers, Molding, Engraving, Fabrication techniques, Etc.”
Thailand Comic Con (April 21-23) in Bangkok, Thailand.
(thailandcomiccon.com / Facebook)
Location: Siam Paragon, Bangkok, Thailand.
ABOUT THAILAND COMIC CON: I’ve not been to this event ever, and with whatever little coverage I managed to cobble up, it seems to feature more indie toy-makers, with a strong(er) Artist Alley. I would imagine being able to see more indie makers and comicbook artists here, as compared to the other two events in Thailand - which last year itself, saw all three happening in the exact same weekend! (Part of the government’s plan).
ToyCon UK (April 29-30, 2017)
(toyconuk.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Buy Tix)
Location: @ York Hall Leisure Centre (5 Old Ford Rd, London, E2 9PJ, United Kingdom.
ABOUT TOYCON UK: Starting out as a one-day only event in 2013, the event has since grown to TWO-days now, featuring the brightest and most exciting artisans in the British and European circuit!
Alas I do not cover them as much these days, as folks have chosen their blog of choice to share toy news with, and it’s not this blog you are reading now! LOL … A pity tho … Nevertheless, go get your blog-fix at TheToyChronicle.com - who is a Sponsor for the event.
Bangkok Comic Con (April 29 - May 1st)
(bangkokcomiccon.com / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube)
Location: @Bitec, Bangna, Thailand.
UPDATED 16.3.2017: Thanks to a reader's enquiry (Thanks, Mickael!), the date for the event has since been changed!
ABOUT BANGKOK COMIC CON: I had the good fortune to be at the inaugural event circa 2014 (I Was A Cosplay Judge), where it had a predominently media-strong focus (coverage #onTOYSREVIL), featuring television and film (the organizers are a media company, “True Visions”), with anime/cosplay overtones, and hints of comicbook and toy collectibles - with the main brands being MAFIA Factory’s CE, and other mass toy brands, like Funko and even Thailand’s Bloody Bunny.
I’ve not covered subsequent years’ as much though, and I reckon this year might not be much different otherwise.
Art Toy Culture (May 3-7)
(arttoyculture.com / Facebook / Instagram)
Location: @coex - 513, Yeongdong-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 06164, Republic of Korea.
ABOUT ART TOY CULTURE: A relatively young event, starting circa 2014, but without a about featuring the brightest works in the Asian region, including South Korean’s finest (one of my favs these toy-days), with practitioners from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore heading over there too!
Definitely TONS to see, and I aim to feature them heavily! Or, as heavy as I have news to feature, anyways LOL
Thailand Toy Expo (May 4-7) in Bangkok, Thailand.
(thailandtoyexpo.com / Facebook / Instagram)
Location: Central World, Bangkok, Thailand.
ABOUT THAILAND TOY EXPO: I’ve not had the chance to visit any past years’ Expos, but they have shown themselves to be extremely “designer-toy” friendly, and as well a premiere venue for 1/6th-hobby, in particular the non-media licensed niche, which includes 3A Toys.
An exceptional event with their focus a splendid “fit” with this blog for toy-news! This year’s Thailand Toy Expo lasts FOUR DAYS.
TheToyChronicle.com no doubt will be on-site, as have VinylPulse.com been in the past.
CurioCon 2017 (May 13-14)
(curiocon.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram)
(curiocon.com)
Location: Pasadena Convention Center (300 E. Green Street, Pasadena, California 91101)
ABOUT CURIOCON: This year is it’s inaugural event, helmed by the folks who run DesignerCon - which is predominantly a year-end fixture. This current event will cater to an earlier part of the year. I would be interesting to see what they have to offer in terms of the vendor mix, IMHO.
Being tight with SpankyStokes.com (as is for DCon), expect more news from that end of the www.
Five Points Festival (May 20-21) in NYC, United States.
(fivepointsfest.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram)
Location: 299, South Street, New York, NY, United States of America.
ABOUT FIVE POINTS FESTIVAL: Organized by Clutter Magazine x Midtown Comics, the event will see Clutter’s annual Designer Toy Awards having a new home here, instead of being tagged to New York Comic Con in previous years. As well the vendor mixture will no doubt have a very focused veer towards “designer toys”, along with Urban / Street Art, and as well bringing “Comics” back to a “comic convention”?
Cluttermagazine.com will no doubt have the headsup on news. I’ll try to keep up on my end here on TOYSREVIL :)
San Diego Comic Con (July 20–23)
(comic-con.org/cci / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram)
Location: San Diego Convention Center, United States.
ABOUT SAN DIEGO COMIC CON: It has “always” been a dream to visit SDCC for me, ever since starting down this blogging-shenanigan LOL … but seems it’s more a Media-based event now - which fits my other media-hobby blogs to a “T” - but in terms of collectible toys, there is still the mass media-licensed products to gawk over, and maybe mass designer toy-brands like Kidrobot to make their mark.
Blogsites would regularly visit and report on this event straight-up, so you’d do well to visit VinylPulse.com and SpankyStokes.com for on-site reportage.
Aside, I’d come to realise, if I ever do visit SDCC, I’d end-up spending too much time waiting in queues to enter Halls where they feature film and tv shows LOL
Popcon Asia 2017 (August 4-6)
(popconasia.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram)
Location: TBD / Jakarta, Indonesia.
ABOUT POPCON ASIA: Thanks to a select few gems of folks, I had the opportunity to visit Popcon back in 2015, and saw first hand the event and vendor spread. It marries the mass media aspect of pop culture, wth a very strong representation of indie-artist spirit, featuring an amazing array of independent illustrators - many of whom draw and write in their own native tongue - and indie art toy scene, from the regular suspects seen in tons of coverage on this humble blog.
Other notable Indonesia-brands include GLITCH and their comicbook arm KOSMIK. Not necessarily a mass-media retailer-based spread, as other larger-styled events are in Indonesia.
Singapore Toy Games & Comic Con (Exact Date TBC)
(singaporetgcc.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram)
Location: TBD / Singapore
ABOUT SINGAPORE TOY GAMES & COMIC CON: STGCC celebrates their "10 Year Anniversary" this year, with what seemed to be an earlier event date scheduled for September? (TBC). Since it’s inception in 2008, I’ve visited and covered on-site, and even helmed my own booth for a couple of years too! So I have seen all that is to be seen publically in this scene, from the queues to the counter, to behind the counter, to behind the store-room door LOL
The event now features a splendid mix of mass media comicbook and movie-themed licenses - with larger names like Hot Toys, and even Medicom Toy represented (they are both distributed by Action City, so…), with designer toys and mass media collectibles represented by Mighty Jaxx, FLABSLAB, Falcon’s Hangar, Simply Toys, and a huge "collectible statue" presence.
The Artist Alley has grown to be an incredibly strong representation of indie brands and artists from the Asian region - from Japan’s Instinctoy and Blackbook Toy, to Taiwan’s Genesis4, to China’s Cacooca, to local names like Pobber Toys and Daniel Yu.
The focus has shifted very much to a strong “designer toy” slant in recent years, which works perfect for my blog, but not for my wallet LOL
Organised by ReedPOP! (same folks who do NYCC), do stay tuned for further coverage on the 2016 Edition on this blog though, as I’ve not finished yet! LOL
New York Comic Con (October 5-8)
(newyorkcomiccon.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Location: Javits Center, United States of America.
ABOUT NEW YORK COMIC CON: “Sister”-convention to SDCC, but with a decidedly stronger “collectible toy”-slant, no doubt in thanks to the hype and representation from Tenacious Toys and the strong artist community in NYC.
Organised by ReedPOP! (same folks who do STGCC), NYCC is always an event I look forward to blogging about every year.
Taipei Toy Festival (October 7th-10th)
(taipei-toyfestival.com)
Location: Huashan1914‧Creative Park, Taiwan.
ABOUT TAIPEI TOY FESTIVAL: An event I hope to visit at least once in my life, I’ve covered TTF since 2007, and will continue to do so this year. And where in the past I would receive emailers and headsup, in the recent years Monster Taipei (organizers of the annual event) has since chosen to promote inwards, via their own Facebook. Still want to visit TTF tho LOL
The event features the brightest and most active artists and brands in the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia regions, and has become somewhat of a barometer in terms of "what’s in trend" in SEA, actually. I remember that one year when it was ALL about designer tees LOL
Indonesia Comic Con (October 28-29)
(indonesiacomiccon.com / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube)
Location: TBD
ABOUT INDONESIA COMIC CON: A ReedPOP! Event (same organizers of STGCC/NYCC), following the same formula wth a mix of mass media and local art/brands. I hope to focus on the designer-toy aspect of this event, which sadly is not a very strong component of this annual con.
DesignerCon 2017 (November 11–12)
(designercon.com / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Facebook Events)
Location: Pasadena Convention Center (300 E. Green Street, Pasadena, California 91101)
ABOUT DESIGNER CON: Without a about, the event has become a KEY aspect of the designer/art toy scene, starting out as the Vinyl Toy Network in 2008 (which was two events spread out, in Spring / May and December too), and officially renamed “DesignerCon” in 2011, the event has since become an “pilgrimage” venue for international artists/practisioners to attend and booth from.
There will be a huge on-site presence from SpankyStokes.com. VinylPulse.com, and UrbanVinylDaily.com had a strong coverage of last year’s event. Expect the same from them, as I would be! LOL
C3 AFA SINGAPORE 2017 (November 24-26.2017)
(animefestival.asia / Facebook / Twitter)
Location: Suntec Convention Center, Singapore
UPDATED MARCH 22.2017: Announced is the collaboration between Sotsu’s C3 x SOZO’s “AFA” to form a singular event titled; “#C3AFA”! (Read more ).
(Original Post) ABOUT ANIME FESTIVAL ASIA: I’ve covered this event since it’s inception in 2008, and it is known for and continues to be, a representation of licensed manga / anime / media-mix of genre awesomeness! LOL
An extremely niched focus - not in a narrow way - but a celebration of J-Culture, from Pop/Music (now an extremely HUGE component of the event), to J-Pop.
Helmed by SOZO, specifically organising J-Pop events in Southeast Asia, AFA has since branched out to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand! The J-Pop Culture influence is STRONG in SEA, people!
TOY-wise, expect licensed properties, and extremely little-to-none indie toy makers. That one time I helmed a booth, offering Peter Kato and Crise Rose toy collectibles, there was no one else offering indie toys, at all :p
One aspect of the annual event in Singapore, is the strong Artist Alley - now known as “Creator’s Hub” - and their “fan-art” offerings, something which the Western aspect of Conventions are cracking down on, but thriving here, at least in AFA Singapore.
TBD
Tokyo Comic Con 2017 (Date Pending)
(tokyocomiccon.jp / Facebook / Twitter)
Location: Tokyo, Japan.
ABOUT TOKYO COMIC CON: Last year’s was the inaugural event, with a splendid showing of designer toys, thanks to Tomenosuke, actually! Besides that, ToyQube and Unbox was on-hand as well, amongst the predominantly mass media feature film presence, with what looks to be a very “fan-based” event, which I personally enjoyed seeing.
VinylPulse.com was on-site last year.
ToySoul 2017 (Date Pending)
(toysoul.hk / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube)
Location: Hong Kong.
ABOUT TOY SOUL: If TTF is somewhere I want to go at least once in my toylike, TOY SOUL has become the second! Featuring predominantly brands and practitioners from Hong Kong, a lot of the artists here were who got me starting down this toylife in the first place! Names like Eric So, Kenny Wong et all remain strongly engrained in my memories :)
Aside, it is only one of the event that I have actually asked to mule for toys - specifically Prodip Leung x How2Works’ collectible figures LOL (I do not mule any event otherwise).
AsiaPOP Comicon Maila 2017 (Pending)
(asiapopcomicon.com/manila / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter)
Location: TBD
ABOUT ASIAPOP COMICON: Helmed by Universal Event Management (a subsidiary of Al Ahli Holding Group - a Singapore-based events company), they helmed their first APCC in Manila last year, with plans to organise similarly APCC-branded events in UAE, Korea and USA.
