Seen @ Summer Soul HK 2022 (Day 1)
"Summer Soul" is in essence a mid-year precursor to the year end "Toy Soul" event happening in December. I have only managed to feature a fraction of what is available tho.
I have been pretty interested to see this event, as it is the closest to something I realized I missed the most in Singapore: The Sunday Flea Market! But NO, this is not about "FLEA SALES", but of the congregation of TOYS under one roof, within a designated weekend, that focuses on TOYS (unlike our local comic con, which encompasses other aspects of pop culture).... What can I say? I am biased about TOYS here, of course :)
The major plus of this being indie toymakers being able to offer their toyart via booth or table, and something I wished Singapore was able to provide - beyond retailers and independent resellers, and encompass indie toymakers, without breaking the bank for booth-costs, which of course at the end of the day I realized and acknowledge too that the market might not necessarily sustain nor support such an endeavour.
That said, scroll thru the images embedded below to read about my observations comparing Summer Soul and Five Points Festival, if you so please, cheers.
Looking at both Summer Soul and Five Points - solely via Instagram uploads, and not because I am physically there at both events on the same weekend LOL - that folks have been more liberal at taking pictures of their booth/table. "Visual advertising" on their own socials is practically "free" (sure you might argue the need to pay for data or wifi blahblahblah), but the reality is you advertise for yourselves (or for your friends), rather than need to wait for someone else to come do so. If you can upload more info beyond your Table/Booth #, that would be fab too, but understandably there are a million more things you might tend to instead of starring at your phone LOL
Of course that doesn't mean there'll niot be more images uploaded via their socials AFTER the event has ended, making it more "archival" than "sales" - which of course makes more sense that they can cater to "post-event" sales rather than needing to answer folks' DM enquiries when they are physically boothing during the event LOL
Interestingly, I see more pictures of children in the event images for Summer Soul, where it seems to be a more "family-friendly" event with plenty of photo-ops for folks, which I think is a wonder situation for parental to be able to engage in their toy-hunts and not necessarily leave the kids out (speaking as a non-parental status bloke here LOL).
Folks can argue "apples and oranges", of course, but at the end of the day, I am happy to see more uploads of "toy-scores" from happy purchasers, versus vendors who might be missing an opportunity to showcase their wares, beyond the eyeballs at the event itself, IMHO.
Time like these, I would be picking apart the table displays to see exactly WHAT I had wanted, and bugged the vendor about it via DMs hahahahaha ... if I were in any position to continue my toy hunt aspirations :p
Have a fab show and toy-hunt, everyone!
Andy TOYSREVIL
