The Conventions of 2025 Part 5: DerpyCon and AnimeNJ++

Greetings, readers! Since this is Part 5 of the ongoing summary of this year’s conventions in the tri-state area, I’m going to cut the lengthy explanation and jump straight into introducing our next event:

Last time we left off, we attended two events held at the Javits Center in New York City: August’s AnimeNYC, and October’s New York Comic Con. For this installment, we will be making a return to New Jersey, a state that I haven’t visited since May’s Garden City Anime Fest for our two final pop culture events of the year. In fact, New Jersey alone would get a lot of attention from me this year: Five of the eleven events I went to in 2025 were all based in New Jersey, and all of them had anime as their central motifs, if not their main motif. I say this because these two events, despite being very much anime events, had secondary themes attached to them that complemented the primary anime theming of the events.

Our journey begins with DerpyCon 2025, held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in New Brunswick. After attending last year and being throughly impressed, I decided to return the following year, anticipating another chill and easily affordable event to begin the endgame of events this year. I drove out for about an hour and a half to the hotel where the event would be taking place, lucking out with a good parking spot in the front of the venue that I could easily come back to throughout the day to store my convention goods until the end of the day. The main lobby was pretty much unchanged from the past year’s event, with the main check-in desk being up a small stairway. Beyond that were the various professional voice talents invited to the event, and unlike last year I managed to fit some time into the schedule to chat with the actors. The first floor had plenty of seating in the lobby, in addition to a hallway leading to a tabletop gaming area and a doorway into the main auditorium used for performances and the Cosplay Gala towards the end of Saturday. Upstairs in the second floor of the lobby were the four panel rooms, the booths for various assorted New Jersey conventions coming up later in the year and into 2026, the maid cafe, a manga library, and a cosplay repair room. Since I didn’t attend any panels at this event this year, my visits to the second floor were to collect more cosplay pictures as well as photos of the general venue. And the general atmosphere of the venue’s main halls would change dramatically as the sunset neared and the lobby steadily cast less and less light.

Next up for DerpyCon is, of course, the convention staple that I look forward to at every event: The Vendor’s Hall and the Artist’s Alley. Going into the event, I was under the assumption that the layout of the vendors and artists would change very little from the prior year. To my initial shock, stepping in revealed a more spacious vendors area, with fewer booths than 2024. At first I thought “did they downscale the number of booths to save costs?” As it turns out, they didn’t. The Artist’s Alley was separated from the vendors and moved downstairs to what was previously one half of the event’s arcade and gaming section, allowing the vendors to spread out their tables and give more room for attendees to walk through. Given that the event’s vendors and artists quickly overcrowded last year during the mid day, especially the artist half of the room, separating the two sections into individual rooms was for the best. As for the Artist’s Alley itself, it actually had a respectable number of artists tabling—not a huge amount given that there was only so much room for the organizers to work with but overall a good number to socialize with and purchase art/merch from. That said, the shift in where the artists were stationed this year did lead to some initial confusion from the attendees according to a few of the creators managing booths at the event. Thankfully, It wasn’t bad enough to the point people were getting lost since the small scale of the venue and it only being down one flight of stairs. It was nowhere near what the first two years of AnimeNYC required out of its attendees just to transfer between the vendors and artists’ respective sections. Unlike last year, I left the event with several completed commissions and a few others pending to be finished post-convention, plus a few stickers that I got intrigued by after seeing them on the second floor.

The gaming section, as mentioned previously, was on the lower floor, now sharing one half of its section with the Artist’s Alley. A few of the bigger arcade machines from last year were MIA to save space, but there were still several good modern Japanese arcade games lining the back wall. A two-sided Street Fighter 3rd Strike cabinet was placed near the entrance, and an indie game had public demo available for play on a computer stationed next to the entrance into the Artist Alley. The rest of the games were a mix of classic and modern game consoles, some of which relied on flash carts loaded with game ROMs or rentable games you could rent for the day. I saw quite the diverse set of retro games across the various classic consoles, though at the end of the day they’re all very familiar choices to anyone invested in retro games. The modern consoles located on the righthand side of the room were all set up for fighting games. Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Smash Ultimate, the works. I forgot if there were tournaments for different games held in the gaming section, but considering the Dragon Ball: Sparkling Zero tournament held last year at this very event, it doesn’t sound far off that there would be more of them in 2025. Tabletop and card games were also at the event in a separate, somewhat obscured room to the left of the auditorium, which I peeked inside briefly to see what games they had. It was a nice and relaxing vibe, and its distance from the rest of the convention made it a good place to take a break. But of course, I was only there for one day and had to make every hour count. 

Dining options weren’t available on-site at the hour I felt the need to grab a bite, so I took a small break to divert over to a small local restaurant just down the road. There were a few options around the area, and the one I settled on was a bar+restaurant hybrid that served pretty much everything that you could find at a traditional American restaurant. Afterwards, I returned to the venue and pretty much spent the day wandering the venue and grabbing cosplay shots in-between waiting for commissions and conversing with the people in the vendors and artists. In total, 81 cosplay shots and four commissions were received, and the former can be found here. The commission scans are still on-hold, since February was somewhat of a slow month for me (and I still have some tech stuff to figure out). As the day went on, the main lobby progressively got darker, and the natural light gave away to small amounts of interior lighting. During this time, I started conversing with the special guest voice actors that remained at their booth since there were no longer lines in front of their tables and most of the attendees moved into the gaming section after the vendors and artists closed up for the day. Since my budget took a big hit from New York Comic Con and I was planning some big purchases for the holidays, I passed on getting anything from the voice actors’ booths, not that I would have had much of a chance to really show off anything I got. As I began to wrap up my visit, some attendees and cosplayers remained in the lobby and on the second floor since there were still places to sit and chill and panels remained live for another few hours until 10 in the evening. For the most part, all that was left to do in the day was some gaming in the gaming area, watch panels, or depart and wait for the next day. Having exhausted pretty much all that I could do at the event for the day, I packed up, returned to my car, and left.

Overall, DerpyCon 2025 was a convention of just the right size after the huge and exhausting trip of New York Comic Con. It was also a joy returning to New Jersey after several months since my last event in the state (Garden State Anime Fest). But if you thought DerpyCon was a bit on the smaller side and wanted wanted to experience more of New Jersey, then I have wonderful news for you! Because just two weeks later, another event was set to take place in the state:

AnimeNJ++. Yup. After lots of careful reconsidering, I ended up adding this event to my 2025 schedule at close to the last moment, curious to see how it could have changed from 2024. To make a long story short, it was a considerable improvement over 2024’s event, but to illustrate why would require me to dive into my thoughts of the event the previous year. To recap, aside from the vendor’s hall/dealer’s room, the venue hosting the event was  compacted by the layout of the venue as well as the crowds that gathered in on Saturday afternoon. This led to the main halls and the Artist’s Alley in particular suffering for having almost no room to get through, and the Artist Alley was only barely big enough to stuff in 16 artist booths aligned in an oval shape. In addition, the hours of the event changed mid-day as it was suddenly announced that the venue would be closing at 6:30, only for security to continue to operate as if they were following the original closing time of 6:00. Needless to say, it caused me to get locked out of the event’s vendors and artists before I was fully done with the section, putting a bad taste in my mouth and causing me to bail the event right then and there. This moment remained a sore spot in my mind for the next few weeks to come, and put a damper on what was otherwise a solid year with some good events and others that could have been improved. The following year, I was contempt with skipping AnimeNJ++ entirely, only for a friend of mine to announce sometime in the second half of 2025 he was attending the event on Saturday to see a friend’s panel. This got me curious to give the event a second shot, which led to AnimeNJ++ (and the Festival of Games) joining the schedule at the last-minute. However, this time, I ordered Friday tickets to see if maybe it would allow me to avoid the congestion of the main hall during the mid-day. And thus, on a somewhat cold November morning, it was time to commence the event proper.

Entering through the front door into the Hilton Hasbrouck Heights hotel, I discovered that I had arrived at the event an hour before most of the event’s features would open. With some time to burn, and since attendance was currently too slim to start looking for cosplays to snap pictures of, I decided to do something I usually don’t do at most events: go to a panel. And luckily for me, the panel was something that was right up my wheelhouse: The early years of anime being localized and presented to worldwide audiences and how it progressed form the 60’s into the 2000’s and then the modern day. It was entertaining, and the sort of feature that let me rest my legs before the day began proper. After the panel ended and I gave my feedback to the panel’s host, I navigated back to the main hall, now with all of the convention’s features officially open. Curious about the vendors and artists at the event, I immediately entered the vendors and artists portion of the venue, only to be greeted by a major setup shift: The Artist’s Alley was now merged with the vendors into the larger ballroom, while the smaller ballroom was now the home of the special guests and voice talent. This change made the Artist’s Alley much more bearable to walk around, compared to the prior year when it became almost impossible to comfortably browse through after the first hour once attendees were forced into single-files lines that went around all the booths. And given that artist allies are usually my favorite parts to linger around, I appreciated this change more than you could ever imagine.

But well, what about all the other things to do at the event? Well, as it turns out, there was quite a bit to do at the event despite its small venue size. Right next to the vendors and artists—and where the Artist’s Alley was in 2024, was now home to all the special guests and voice talent. The event’s two star guests flew in from Japan to attend, setting up shop in the back of the guests room, and it made me realize that I am completely incompetent at speaking Japanese without a translator at the ready. The special guests this year were film director, illustrator, and character designer Keita Amemiya, and singer and songwriter Sawa. Both very talented and well-respected creators in their respective fields, although you’ll have to take my word for it in the case of Sawa since I missed her at her booth on the day I attended. Keita Amemiya’s presence at the event represented one of the focal points of AnkmeNJ++ that you don’t see at other anime events: Tokusatsu. The entire medium of live-action Japanese superheroes and monsters of maybe the giant variety gets little attention at anime conventions in the modern day despite being one of the biggest parts of Japan’s culture. New York Comic Con does give the genre some small attention depending on the year since it greatly expanded past comics, western films and western television in recent years, but you’d be hard pressed to find an anime convention that celebrates Tokusatsu as equals with Japanese manga and animation. Or at least, on the same level as AnimeNJ++ 2025. Given the size of the convention, there was only so much room to add representation to the Toku genre through some panels, artists, and special guests with an attachment to, or fondness of, the genre. Then again, my interest in Toku is minimal and not the reason I come out to these events despite a steadily growing interest of the genre in recent years; mostly thanks to some friends of mine and other people I know being quite into it. Saturday’s programming also ended with a live watch of one of Keita’s films, which I believe was said films’ debut dubbed into English, though I do not remember which film it was by memory.

The gaming hall was in the same spot as it was last year with the same selection of games: lots of fighting games, some beat-em-ups, and a little Mario Kart to round out the collection. It was quite nice, even if the reduced attendance numbers meant most of the games stayed vacant and saw little play during event hours. Also, since the venue was quite small and trying to fit the quintessential Japanese rhythm game cabinets into the venue would have been complicated, you didn’t see the rhythm games like DDR, Chunithm, or Taiko no Tatsujin that normally grace the arcade and gaming setups of other anime conventions. As for myself, I didn’t bother with the games on offer, since I tend to pass by any gaming options at there conventions unless it’s the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo and most of these are games I either already own or lack interest in. It did have some licensed anime fighters you don’t usually see at these anime events and I recall some of them even had tournaments run for them on the weekend. Back up on the second floor where I visited the panel early in the day was also where you could find the hotel’s restaurant and connivence store, and well as the other panel rooms. 2024’s big live Saturday Night concert was on a much higher floor in the hotel, though I am not sure this was where Keita’s film was shown off and/or where Sawa did some kind of show of their own (aside from a panel Friday afternoon that she was part of).

Since the event happened following Daylight Savings Time ending for 2025, nightfall approached much more quickly, and you could see the stark difference in sunlight outside through the main lobby or the second floor’s restaurant. Attendance was in the shorter side this day, and when also factoring in the layout changes on the base floor, I had a much easier time conversing with the artists and special guests at the event, picking up some commissioned arts from the former and some additional swag from the latter. I made sure to scoop up any cosplays I came across, totaling 32 unique cosplays on the show floor. Because this was my last showing at an anime event until March’s NJIT Minicon, I wanted to end the year with a good haul of pics to post online. That said, maybe if I had attended Saturday instead of Friday, there would’ve been more cosplays to collect photos of. Even then, after the sheer number of cosplayers that I got back at AnimeNYC 2025, I don’t think any records for total cosplay photos taken during a single event were going to be shattered at this event, and possibly in future events as well. With what I was able to get, I was still satisfied in the end by the day’s end. And with everything wrapped up and closing down, I bid my farewells to the artists and special guests I met at the event or knew from prior events and exited the vendors and artists for the last time. With not much left to do afterwards, I took one final stroll through the main hall, the game room, and the second floor, taking a few last-minute snaps of the venue as I exited the hotel, wrapping up my visit to this year’s AnimeNJ++ with no conflicts from security.

In conclusion, AnimeNJ++ 2025 was a genuine surprise of an improvement, mostly for improving what I took issue with in 2025. Even if I was not able to go on the event’s more eventful day to experience a more populated and high-energy vibe, it was still worth the trip and put a satisfying capstone on a great year of anime and comic-themed events. Will I make this part of my regular convention schedules going forward? Well, I cannot make any promises, but chances are you’ll at least see me drive out to AnimeNJ++ whenever I can, as long as there are no major scheduling conflicts that is.

And that concludes Part 5 of 2025’s convention trips. Next up, we’ll get to one final event and my plans for the convention summary blogposts going forward.

The Conventions of 2025 Part 4: AnimeNYC and New York Comic Con

 “Welcome to the CITY, we got fun and games, we got EVERYTHING YOU WANT!…”

…come on, just met me have this one.

Anyways, hello. It’s been a while but here’s Part 4 of my convention trip coverage for the year of 2024. This one is an interesting set in particular, since it involves two of New York City’s biggest pop culture shows coming together to celebrate anime and general pop culture respectively. And since they use the same venue and feature some overlap, I decided to cover AnimeNYC and NYCC differently than prior events this year: Both events together as a combo, going over the two events simultaneously. For the most part, you will get one paragraph discussing AnimeNYC, and then the other focused on NYCC. Admittedly, due to the sheer size of the events, there were certain features I was not able to cover: Panels in the case of both events, and the gaming section in the case of New York Comic Con.

But before we delve into what it was like to experience these events again for another year, let’s start with some background: Prepping for these two events, I knew that they both take a lot of the wind out of me by the day’s end. These are without a doubt the biggest events in my schedule each year, beating out the other anime events I attend in New Jersey and the general pop culture conventions on my home turf of Long Island. And they require by far the most amount of prep and setup before I take my trips there, given that I lose access to my car once we get to the Javits Center and the events’ size compared to the New Jersey and Long Island-based events means I must follow a stricter schedule with when and how much I choose to spend my time in each section of the building. So with that in mind, we can finally discuss the two events in detail:

By this point, and after having done these convention coverages for many years, the Javits Center needs no introduction. I’ve talked about this specific venue multiple times throughout the yearin the past and it remains the biggest venue I’ve attended in person and the most densely crowded with attendees. This year, I opted to get dropped off at the front of the event instead of arriving to the event after leaving my vehicle at a parking garage a few blocks down the road, saving me some time and allowing me to get into action sooner. While the main entrances were different between events, they all led into the main halls, overlooking entrances directly into the vendors, panel rooms, gaming areas, and in the case of NYCC, the Artist’s Alley. The routine for AnimeNYC was to begin in the back of the vendors’ hall to where the artists resided, as the Artist Alley was just as big as the year prior and would have taken me a few hours to get through it all. NYCC begun in much of the same way, riding the escalator to the lower floor where the artists resided, then beginning my tour around from there. Crowds unavoidably made navigating through difficult, but of the two events I found NYCC’s Artist Alley was the easier of the two to get around since it was in a part of the event not shared by the vendors and was able to have fewer but longer isles of artists—said isles also being generous in width, which you don’t see at a lot of the bigger events. Perhaps if AnimeNYC featured one less isle or reverted back to the fewer-but-longer isle format of 2022 and 2023’s events, it could attempt wider isles that provide more space for attendees.

The artists themselves remain a joy to interact with and share story and character ideas with, although I wasn’t able to support them as much I could in prior years due to needing the money for the holidays. Across the two events, I had stockpiled enough funds to obtain various commissions and not much else, meaning I couldn’t pick up prints or the original comics sold at most of the booths that interested me as I did at, say, Cradle Con or Eternal Con. Also, with the sheer scale of both events’ respective Artist Alley, I was forced to abandon the longer chats I usually have with the artists in the Artist’s Alley and wasn’t able to get as many commissions as I would have by the day’s end. Not that I would have had been able to regardless as in-person commissions at AnimeNYC were noticeably more expensive, and as I attended on a Saturday, some of the booths had stopped taking commissions or wouldn’t be able to complete a new one in the span of a single day. I avoided the problem at NYCC from the get-go by imposing a strict cut-off in the prices I would spend on each commission, as well as not scouting the back ends of the center isles which consisted of mainly professional artists each charging triple digits per sketch or drawing. 

Aside from the artists, both events had quite a developed vendor’s hall on the venue’s third floor, or a dealer’s room if you prefer to call it that. Personally, I’ve gone back and forth on my preferred term to call where companies and hobbyists sell merch and even the events themselves don’t land on any one particular definition. But in the case of NYCC and AnimeNYC, their respective vendor halls, as in past years of the respective events, feel a lot more corporate than the hobby-driven vendor sections at all my other events in the year. From NJIT Minicon all the way to the Festival of Games, it was rare to see some huge corporation pull up with a huge booth at one of these comparatively smaller events even in the event they received sponsorships to help get the event hosted in the first place. As for me, I saw no need to purchase anything from the vendors at AnimeNYC, but I did interact with some of the booths at NYCC and got some free swag out of it. The big highlight of the venture into the exhibitors was finally getting a picture with Godzilla at the Godzilla booth after missing my chance the prior year. 

I didn’t bother with the panels at either event due to the very strict schedules I was working under, but looking back on what was hosted, there were some intriguing panels. The panels at AnimeNYC were all located on the bottom floor, while New York Comic Con had them all stationed at the top floor, a floor that I have not managed to reach once in my years of attending NYCC since it finished construction during the early 2020's lockdown era. That, and the fifth floor has been sealed at every AnimeNYC since the Javits Center finished construction of its big expansion several years ago. Who knows, maybe at NYCC 2026 I’ll finally give the top floor some attention, even if it's only to see the sights . Now while the panels weren’t able to get my attention for 2025’s events, the gaming sections certainly did… at least at AnimeNYC 2025. Based on my own guesses from New York Comic Con 2023’s gaming lineup, the setup for NYCC 2025 was all competitive multiplayer games (mostly of the fighting variety) and tables set up for tabletop games that could be loaned for the rest of the day. It’s a similar setup to many of the anime events I attend, so I saw no need to visit it myself. AnimeNYC’s gaming area, on the other hand, was my destination once the remainder of the event closed for the day (after a brief visit halfway through to meet one of the artists selling art next to all the fighting games). The gaming offerings included candy cabinets with various Japanese arcade titles of different genres, a section of indie titles brought out for demonstrations, and the expected slew of console fighting games. Tournaments were held at both events as well, and alongside the earlier Defend the North Retro held back in July, was pretty much the closest you could get to a FGC event in New York. As for me, I’m not someone that likes to play games for keeps, and since my schedule was already quite filled for both days, I had no opportunity to lab and enter a tournament. That, and if I was looking to partake in a big tournament, I would preferably do so at a proper FGC event and not an event where I prefer to explore and socialize. I can only have so much to do in my agenda for one day after all.

As you all know by now, anime cosplays were always one of the big things at every anime event I’ve attended. While I still approach the idea of taking photos of cosplayers’ cosplays from a more casual eye, I do it with a love and admiration for the hobby and a respect for how much effort it takes to construct a single cosplay from scratch. Plus, I personally don’t see myself getting a more expensive camera to bring to these events anytime soon, especially out of fear of losing it or getting it damaged during the day. Not to mention, I’m also at the part of my life where I don’t see myself applying to become a full-time professional photographer is my future. But anyways, back to the cosplays: Somehow, some way, I did it. I set a new personal best for total cosplay pictures taken at a single event. Thanks to how densely packed the event was with cosplayers. I accumulated a total of 209 photos on that day alone. Looking back, it probably was one of the better things to come out of visiting the event on its busiest day, but I don’t know if it’s enough to make me want to consider going on a Saturday every single year. As for New York Comic Con, I didn’t arrive home with a single cosplay picture, and that’s true for all my visits to NYCC up to this point. I personally cite the overall size of the event and the ratio of cosplayers to non-cosplayers being much more skewed towards the latter compared to AnimeNYC (and other anime conventions) as my reasonings for not bothering with trying to get a big selection of cosplay snaps at one of the east coast’s biggest events. If you’re looking to see a collection of photos of cosplays at a comic convention after so many anime photo sets, there is a good chance I will be doing one at Brooklyn Comic Con 2026 later this year. As per usual, you can see the cosplays I took at AnimeNYC 2026 at this link. The commissions from both events will be scanned and posted at a later date on my sister blog as part of a big mega-dump of commissions, covering EternalCon to the Festival of Games, so please look forward to it once I can get around to using my scanner again.

With everything pretty much covered by now, all that’s left is to discuss how the events wrapped up, at least on the days I attended. AnimeNYC’s vendors and artists closed at the time common for most bigger anime events at 7PM sharp. Vendors were placing tarps up over their booths and attendees were instructed over one final  live announcement to complete their final purchases and leave. Panels and gaming, including tournaments(?), continued on until the day’s full closing at 10PM. As for me, I would depart the Javits center at 8:30PM, grabbing my last few cosplay pictures for the night and a few last-minute photos of the venue, now mostly devoid of the crowds that piled into the event mid-day. New York Comic Con’s vendors closed at 7 with the artists following suit at 8, with the latter’s closure leaving little else for me to do on that day since I was too exhausted to explore what parts of the event remained open. And thus, I left 30 minutes later to get my ride and head home. I reflected on my time with each event on the ride home, beginning my recovery period in anticipation for the next event that followed.

Overall, I’d say the quality of both events remained mostly the same as last year. The move to August for AnimeNYC was a double-edged sword since it meant having to balance two big events only two weeks apart from each other. That said, I adjusted to the change pretty quickly and it opened up opportunities to attend other events towards the end of the year (namely, DerpyCon and AnimeNJ++). AnimeNYC and NYCC continue to be a source of solid entertainment year-by year, even when the heavier corporate focus makes certain experiences less genuine. As for how I could see these events improving in the future? I think these two events are grounded enough to the point that I don’t see them doing any sort of big shake up in the next few years. Maybe if AnimeNYC tried the longer rows of tables in its Artist’s Alley from 2022 and 2023 to segregate the vendors and artists away from each other, I would see that as an improvement, but I don’t think the organizers behind AnimeNYC would consider it since it’s not really something that inherently breaks what is only part of a much bigger event. 

Well that was a lot to process! Anyways, I’ll be aiming to post the next part of the convention coverage sometime next month, followed by one-final wrap-up post.

Happy Holidays from Super Justin: the Blog

Greetings, everyone. This is a somewhat unusual post from this blog but given that November was completely silent on my end, I thought I'd give a general update on what's to come.

Parts 4 and 5 of the convention coverages for this year's events will be a bit late, as I've been focusing most of my efforts towards some big things to come for the new year and haven't had time to sit down and write blog posts for this very blog as much as I used to. If you visited my Bluesky in the middle of November, you may have noticed that I made a last-minute decision to attend AnimeNJ++, an event that I previously intended to skip. This was mostly due to the extensive retooling and re-scheduling of Defend the North that made me unable to attend the event back in July, and with the desire to fit in a replacement event, I quickly slotted in AnimeNJ++, the only event I could find around here in the mid-November timeslot, in hopes that it would be much-improved over the prior year. To keep a long story short, I'm pleased to report that the event went much better this year compared to 2024 and I'm looking forward to giving it an in-depth overview once I'm able to publish the fifth part. And speaking of parts, I intend to work on the remaining three parts of the convention coverages simultaneously over the holiday season, including starting the sixth and final part in mid-December, which will focus on Festival of Games and my general thoughts on the year of events.

As for what I spent most the year doing, I mostly gravitated towards three hobbies aside form conventions: Character development for personal projects, setting up various PC and console games to play with friends (including mod packs for games that can be modified with custom content), and perhaps the biggest task of them all: prepping for game streaming on Twitch. Since the idea of live-streaming video games has been a major focus of mine as early as last year, I've been steadily building up a list of games that I want to showcase and practicing being able to hold conversations and reactions for the entire length of a multi-hour stream. This would include major changes to most of my social media accounts, including repurposing SuperJustinChannel, my Youtube account, into a steam VOD archive, as well as (finally) opening a community Discord server when and if I can amass a small community. I am planning to begin this streaming adventure sometime late next month after the holiday season, mostly as a form of experimenting with my current setup.

There are also some new year's resolutions in the works for next year, which is to ramp up productivity and finish whatever leftover projects I had from this year and even from 2024 that have been stalled out by other interests. We'll see whenever I am able to get to them or not, as I got quite a lot on my plate at the moment and will soon have to decide on my schedule for in-person events next year.

The Conventions of 2025 Part 3: Eternal Con and Long Island Retro Gaming Expo

After two blog posts highlighting events in the spring, how about some summer events? Originally I had different plans for this post, but as I alluded to in an update in early July, schedule conflicts amongst other factors led me to drop Defend the North Retro 2025. Whenever the “Retro” event was done because the main event couldn’t happen, or they intended to have it alongside the main event later in the year, I’m unsure. Even then, this is not the blogpost for the surprising lack of major FGC events in the northeast, particularly in the New York and New Jersey area. Maybe in the future I’ll make a blogpost that discusses my thoughts on that matter, but for now, we have other things to talk about.

Like conventions! The beginning of summer was a quiet one, as I had opted to skip Brooklyn Comic Con this year to see if the event would improve in time for 2026. According to a friend of mine that tables at some of the bigger events and various others across the US, it seems like the new venue it found itself at this year was an all-around improvement from where it was in 2024, with food being more easily accessible than the year prior. Thus, it is very likely that I’ll be attending Brooklyn Comic Con next June, as long as I can fit it within my schedule. There may be some other shakeups next year, but I’m waiting until this year is done and we have dates conformed for events next year before I begin plotting and building the schedule, just as I did for 2023 and 2024. The beginning of this year was packed in events to attend, and I’d like to find some new events that are more spread out and not piled on into the same month(s), although it’s inevitable given how many events I travel out to each year. One of the events in this blogpost did take place within one of the busier months this year, but I’ll get to that when I cover AnimeNYC in Part 4. For now, it’s time for my insight on the first event of this post.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Eternal Con was back from hiatus, ready to commence at the Mack Sports Complex. For those that missed the coverage from 2023, Eternal Con is a general pop culture event focusing on comics and popular long-standing American media franchises. It’s very much like Cradle Con in that sense, with many of the same kinds of vendors and artists on the show floor. This year however, the announcement that Eternal Con was returning was on very short notice, surprising many of the local artists that were contacted to table at the event (according to what I had heard at Cradle Con). All of this led to the event having one of its smallest Artist Alleys in years, filling only part of the second floor with obvious gaps between each booth. Its vendors area on the lower floor fared a bit better, but we’ll talk about it further as we dive into the event. Parking at the event was easy and attendance was just the right size. The entry fee and the accompanying badges were inexpensive purchases, which in this day and age is very welcome with prices for both attending events and purchasing goods from them climbing steadily over time (especially when taking into account outside factors).

Once you got your badge, it was time to head in, and proceeding through the row of auditorium doors led directly to the Artist’s Alley, which was divided into three sections: Left, Middle, and Right. The center section was by all accounts the “main” section and where most of the big artists tabled. It was also the only section to be completely filled with artists and their tables. Contrast the left and right sections of the Alley, which didn’t fill up completely even with the right side also doubling as a small auditorium for panels. Even if the Artist’s Alley was smaller than usual for this event, it was still about 20 or so artists to chat with and purchase goodies from at the end of the day. The big haul of commissions that this event brought in past years did not happen, but I still went home with four commissions total and some books from other vendors that caught my eye, including one from a vendor that I previously met at Garden State Anime Fest two months prior. The artist section was decent, though I believe if vendors were given greater time to prep for the event in advance, the greater of a chance we would have seen the whole floor filled with booths of authors and illustrators much like Cradle Con earlier in the year.

The lower floor of the event had all the vendors and special guests, and anyone who has gone to a comic or general pop culture event can likely guess what was being sold. It was, to keep it brief, a mixture of pretty much everything: Comics, movies, games, collectibles, etc. For me, it was nothing new, though I did browse it a fair bit throughout the day. One vendor dressed in doctor getup showed me a custom wind-based instrument that was designed to be easy to use, though since I was saving my funds for commissions (and two very big events the following month) I didn’t return later on to purchase one. One thing that did peak my curiosity was a statue of Simon Belmont from the Castlevania franchise, using his design from the not-so fondly remembered Wii fighter Castlevania Judgement. I was very tempted to grab it, but at 120 dollars it was too steep and was also being sold online for similar prices anyways. The very same booth with the statue also had a set of 2000’s anime DVD’s you could look through and I took some snaps of them for research post-event. Some big names in live action and voice acting were positioned along the back wall of the event’s vendors section, but I didn’t interact with them since I knew I would have had to spend further funds just for pictures with them.

The end of the event was, admittedly, very anticlimactic. Since everything closed down all at once at 5PM sharp, I pretty much had no choice but to say my goodbyes to the artists and bail from the event. In conclusion, I had an overall good time, but schedule conflicts with three other things that were happening that weekend made me much more exhausted than usual after leaving from EternalCon. In addition, the event had some growing pains to shed after skipping last year and not giving its vendors enough time in advance to prep. Lastly, the current venue is still not ideal for an event like this given the odd transitions between the two floors and how the panel rooms seemed out of sight from the rest of the event. And sadly, it seems as if there aren’t really any big convention spaces on Long Island that are of the same size and cost as the exposition complex Eternal Con has been stationed at since 2022. Thus, options are limited for how the convention can grow given those limitations. Still, it’s a really inexpensive event to attend and easy to slot into a schedule for a few hours, and at this rate I’m practically required to return next year given that I’m buddies with a fair number of other artists that attend and table at the event each year (and other local events in the area. Only time will tell where the event goes in the next few years.

Alright, it’s been long enough of a wait, it’s time to talk about none other than Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. You know it’s always one of my anticipated events as it’s nothing like any of the other events I put into my schedule each year. And given that retro games are one of my biggest interests, I could not ignore an event like this happening just a short drive away from my house. And this time, the event was celebrating its tenth anniversary since its first show in 2015.

Since the event was fundamentally the same as last year’s, I’m going to focus the coverage on what had changed as well as any new additions made to the event. Entering the building through the first floor, the vendors’ marketplace remained the busiest section of the floor with people setting up shop to sell all kinds of retro games, consoles, and merchandise. Unlike 2024, there was a much bigger effort to have an Artist’s Alley at the event! The back side of the marketplace had eight artist booths total, stationed into two squares of four artists each, and there were a few spread around the main font area of the marketplace as well. In total, I counted around twelve artist booths total, which is a major improvement from prior years where you could count the number of artist tables at the event on a single finger. As for the rest of the marketplace, everything was pretty par for the course: people selling retro games, game consoles, and official and homemade merchandise. The rest of the marketplace area was home to an Indie NES Games exhibit and the return of Mario Kart Double Dash!! 16-player tournaments. And well, to say the Mario Kart Double Dash tournaments were popular would be an understatement. People _crowded_ around the booth to watch 8 duos team up and race each other across four Nintendo GameCubes and four widescreen TV’s. It truly is the chance of a lifetime, given how rare and expensive it would be just to do a similar setup at one’s own home. Beyond that was the Hangar Arcade stocked full of pinball machines, arcade rhythm games, and candy cabinets filled with fighting games and SHMUPs. No matter what time of the day it was, this section was always busy with players playing across the many machines that were laid out.

Moving into the gaming areas on the first floor, the four quadrants all returned: Console Freeplay, PC Freeplay, Tournaments, and the Museum. The Console Freeplay is very self-explanatory, featuring a large number of playable titles on consoles of several different eras and categorized into different “corners” based on genre. Of interest in this section was a computer with a whole Forza Motorsport arcade racing controller hooked up and used to play Sega’s Indy 500: it had a racing car seat, a gear shift lever, and gas and brake pedals alongside the usual steering wheel. I can only imagine what price point this would fetch for in today’s money… or even in late 90’s or early 2000’s money that. The signature attraction of the freeplay section, and to coincide with its 40th anniversary, was an exhibit on the history of the Nintendo Entertainment System. It would end with a look on early emulation efforts and homebrew scenes and how they would evolve into the modern day, including a Windows PC running the 1997 NES emulator “NESticle” that visitors could play. Walking over into the neighboring PC gaming section, the lineup featured a lot of returning classics from last year playable on real hardware or a close approximation of it. Turns out the NES was not the only system celebrating its anniversary, as the fabled Windows 95 turned 30 this year. For this special occasion, two Windows 95 computers were set up for free browsing. Visitors could pick one of the games on the desktop to boot into, or even kick back and doodle in good ol’ Microsoft Paint. Another computer present in the section could boot into an archive of the World Wide Web as of the year 2000 and included a listing of archived websites to load into to ease the process of having to memorize a bunch of different websites that existed at the time. What caught my interest the most in the PC Gaming section was a Compaq laptop with a monochrome screen running Chip’s Challenge, though sadly it would be removed from the section partway through the day as it was difficult to keep running at all times due to its age.

The Museum returned in full force from the year prior, with many of the same rare and exotic consoles and imports from over the years. A few systems were rotated out, but the main lineup had all of the same highlights as 2024 and allowed attendees to demo some hardware that either never caught on or went unreleased in the USA. British microcomputers, Japanese monitors and TV sets (and even karaoke sets!) with consoles built in, it was all here. Admittedly, the “PC Museum” component of the Museum, which housed various gaming computers of the 80’s and 90’s, could have been configured a bit more neatly but it was still filled with a lot of cool setups you don’t see much elsewhere. And last but not least was the Tournaments, returning along with the High Score Challenge that now resided inside the Console Freeplay. This was probably the one part of the event that felt like it didn’t fully deliver—there were less tournaments compared to prior years so the tournaments could last more hours into the day. The overall lineup, while solid overhaul and having some popular choices for games in various genres, didn’t feel like it rose to the heights of prior years. A common genre to see in tournaments, fighting games, was seldom non-present with only three games: Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Smash Remix, and the infamous Shaq Fu. All of the modern fighting games that appeared at 2023 and 2024’s events were phased out entirely. Instead, the event’s tournaments mostly consisted of sports titles: Tecmo Super Bowl, NHL ‘94, NBA Jam, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. The other tournaments were made up of puzzle games (Puyo Puyo Tetris and Super Puzzle Fighter II) and competitive Pokemon Generation 3, the latter of which seemingly ate up most of the tournament scheduling. While this is only speculation on my part, I believe this sudden departure from previous events’ tournament areas was because of the lack of people submitting tournaments to the event and the absence of streaming equipment to livestream, record, and archive the tournaments. The roster of games in the High Score Challenge was a bit more varied in genre, and with its fair share of unexpected presences at the show. It wasn’t flawless, and there were some games that maybe would have fit better in the tournaments area, but overall it was a good selection of games to try and set the best records on at the event. The tournaments section also served as the new home of the Pokélab, allowing for players of retro Pokemon titles up to Generation 5 to receive long-gone legendaries and mythicals and add them to their cartridges.

The second floor got a few changes since the year prior. The Timeline exhibit, serving as a display of the chronological history of consoles and handhelds released in the Americas, returned with mostly the same lineup. I believe a game or two did get added, but I did not analyze the Timeline in-depth to compare it to last year. Many of the consoles were now hooked up with flash carts to allow for easier swapping out of games during the event, which made it better to demonstrate the kinds of games a console was capable of pushing with technology at the time. Next to the Timeline exhibit was the Arcade Age Exhibit, featuring American arcade cabinets in a mix of 80’s and 90’s machines set to free play. Many of the machines that were absent at least years event returned, including some very crucial titles in America’s arcade history that were absent from last year’s show. Would you believe me when I said that last year, there was no original Pac-Man machine? Anyways, the rest of the second floor was made up of special guests relocated upstairs from the first floor Marketplace, a section devoted to the game company Retroware in place of last year’s indie gaming section, and the new home of Panel Room 2. I will admit, going from a big and well-developed indie section (especially one that featured one of my childhood gaming idols) to a section completely dominated by one company felt like a step down from the last year. The relocation of the panel room and special guests, on the other hand, were decisions for the better, I’d say. Especially to get them away from the huge crowds and overall chaos of the marketplace on the lower floors. There were other guests that attended the event for panels, including some very wild and interesting subjects. Among the list of panels that took place in the big auditorium and the second floor’s Panel Room 2 were subjects like “What is retro game streaming like?” or “Tell me about some British microcomputer mascots”. How about “Give me the best Neo Geo games to play”, “How is designing new Atari 2600 like?” And of course I couldn’t forget “How does print media play a part in game preservation?”. There were lots of good panels here across the three days of LIRetro, but I only really had time for two of them due to everything else that was happening at the event.

The third floor, the last big section of the event, was the “Floor of Oddities”. Here, you could find various miscellaneous LCD handhelds, niche and gimmicky platforms like LJN’s VideoArt, Tiger’s Game Com, and Mattel’s Hyperscan, along with obscure accessories and setups such as two Sega Genesis “Tower of Powers” linked for Doom 32x Resurrection multiplayer. It was a great showcase of when hardware developers tried to get creative and innovative with their products, and probably my first time ever being able to pick up and try them out in person. The Hall of Oddities did have some small room for improvement—one of the tables was stashed with some leftover hardware that was not fully set up and/or operational. You could still read and learn about the histories of each piece of tech, so there was that, even if these consoles/handhelds didn’t get to sit on a table by their lonesome, waiting to be discovered. Aside from the Floor of Oddities, all that’s really left to talk about is the cosplays and some smaller loose ends. I didn’t really pay attention to the cosplay at this event all that much, but there was a sizable number of them across the two days that I attended. I didn’t really take many cosplay shots at the event, but I wanted to give special shout outs to a duo of cosplayers that cosplayed as Beat and Gum from Jet Set Radio Future for repping one of my personal favorite Sega franchises and one that is generally overshadowed by other, bigger franchises. While not a full-on cosplay, one person came to the event and was a puppeteer for a giant two-dimensional Mother Brain cutout on the second floor, complete with LED eyes, sounds, and confetti to simulate drool. It was quite the insane sight, let me tell ya, and something that was pretty much impossible to miss. Lastly, the main auditorium featured two musical guests: Lacey Johnson on Friday, and Super Thrash Bros on Saturday. The two performances marked the end of each day’s roster of activities, and everything else would find closure around that time.

Unlike prior years where the market place closed at 7 PM and the gaming sections at 10 PM, everything in the event would be shut down by 9 PM. Consoles were being turned off, CRT’s were being powered down, and the marketplace booths were being tarped up until the next day. As for me, I wrapped up the way these convention coverages usually end, bidding farewell to the people I have known for years that were helping run the event, and exited through the front doors. Overall, the improvements to the show were very welcome and LI Retro remains one of the premier destinations for retro gaming enthusiasts year by year. It is, however, an event that is still limited in some way by its venue choice. The Cradle of Aviation, as much as I love it, has a very irregular layout where it’s hard to accidentally walk into certain sections of the event. Its size is able to accommodate for pretty much everything the event needs at this point in time and serves as part of the show’s current identity. However, I wonder if the show will grow to such a size that it will need to abandon the Cradle and look elsewhere. And given that this is Long Island, options are limited.

And that’s pretty much all I got for you all today. Sorry that this post took me two months to write; I ended up with a lot of back to back projects following the end of AnimeNYC that all needed my attention, forcing me to put this blog entry aside for most of the rest of the month as well as September and October. I intend to do something different with Part 4, which will cover AnimeNYC and NYCC, to get back on schedule with these blog entries. And speaking of the blog entries, I originally intended to end the year of events with DerpyCon this weekend, but since I was in the mood to attend an extra event after not being able to make it out to Defend the North, I am currently looking into adding one more event to the schedule for mid-November. In addition, a surprising sight came to my eyes not long after I arrived at Long Island Retro Gaming Expo this year:

…The Festival of Games? Is it really and truly back for 2025…?

The Conventions of 2025 Part 2: Garden State Anime Fest and CradleCon

Well it looks like I just couldn’t catch a break out there. Within the span of two months, I would attended a total of four different conventions, two of them only a week apart. You could say it was my busiest Spring in my history of attending events and I would whole-heartedly agree. Usually during this time of the year I would attend only two events, CPAC and CradleCon, only for the influence of DerpyCon 2024 to drive me to double the convention count. This decision heavily impacted most of the rest of the schedule, as it drove me to make the beginning of summer free from any conventions so I could have a chance to rest up and, more importantly, celebrate my birthday season without the need to prep for another event. But anyways, back to the topic on hand:

With Castle Point Anime Convention done, it was time once more for con prep season, and this time it would be for an event that felt like no other event I had attended up to that point: Garden State Anime Fest. Taking place at the Sussex Community Fairgrounds, Garden State Anime Fest was the first event I’ve attended since CPAC 2017 where the event was divided between multiple buildings instead of a single venue (sometimes with a secondary building to the side). The drive to the event itself took me through the New Jersey countryside in a trip unlike any other: , a route filled with farmland, a calm atmosphere, and farm animals chilling. Eventually, we would reach our destination, and at first it appeared as if there was nothing. But then, I saw a sign in the distance: “Garden State Anime Fest”. I drove down further, seeing a brick-red building and lots of parked cars. As I took a parking spot and started walking up to the small outdoors reception booth to register our tickets and claim our badges for the day, I was curious how things would turn out, given the relative lack of indoor space common to other anime, comic, and gaming events.

The main body of Garden State Anime Fest consisted of the following: Three buildings that contained vendors and artists, two roofed pavilions that served as the panel rooms of the event, a snack bar, and multiple food trucks. All of these were short outdoor walks between each other, with some benches scattered around to rest on. Unsurprisingly, I spent most of my time in two of the three buildings to converse with artists and commission some art, but I would gander at the larger of the two pavilions as shows were held throughout the day. It had a very eye-catching red rooftop and lots of space for seating, plus its open nature let you spectate from outside. From my perspective, these pavilions provided a very different feel from the panel rooms at other events, which are typically enclosed rooms with projectors. Here at Garden State Anime Fest, the panels were held pretty much out in the open and the host would have to carry the entire panel through just their performances and Q&A’s with the audience. I believe the smaller of the two pavilions did carry a screen based on the pictures I took of the event, though I cannot confirm nor deny it. The cosplay contest held in the main pavilion partway through the day was pretty meaty—about over a dozen entrants total, and with an event of this size it’s a very nice and respectable thing to see.

The three buildings where the vendors and artists were located will be labeled here for the sake of simplicity: Building A was the largest of the three buildings and had the bulk of the vendors and artists tabling. Building B featured some vendors but was mostly all artists, and Building C was the opposite, mostly vendors and some artists to round out the  seller list of sellers. The bulk of my attention was very much focused on Buildings A and B, due to the greater number of artists residing in those buildings versus what was in Building C. And to my surprise, the event had a much greater density of artists than what I was assuming the event would have at first glance—about thirty to forty total artists if I had to make a guess. And without the over saturation of popular franchises like what you see at the bigger and longer-lasting anime events, the Artist Alley of Garden City Anime Festival felt very much like a blend of an anime artist alley and a comic artist alley. Some comic book artists in Building A were even selling their books of their original stores just like you would see at a comic event. It was a blend of event styles that you don’t see often, and the last time I saw an event do this was Brooklyn Comic Con, where they pulled off the same “Anime event with comic stuff” but in reverse.

Building C felt very much like the overflow part of the event: it had a few of the vendors and artists that couldn’t fit into either Buildings A or B, and what parts weren’t taken by vendors were reserved for tabletop gaming and a small number of video games in the back of the building. There were no fighting game tournaments or Japanese arcade gaming like at Castle Point or last year’s AnimeNJ++, just a few lone PS5’s to pull up to and play whatever. In hindsight, I do wish I did spend a bit more time in Building C, but it was a bit longer of a trip across the venue compared to Buildings A and B, which by comparison sat right next to each other. At this point, all that’s really left to talk about at this event were the food trucks and the voice actor guests: A total of three voice actors sat at booths in the back of Building B, and during my trots through the event I made a few stops to meet and greet them during my waiting for convention commissions. They were all very pleasant to chat to and hearing that they would be open for partaking in voice work for a project of mine (should one ever get off the ground) was very heartwarming. The rates for selfies were a bit high, but well these hard-working people needed some way to get paid in times like this and I don’t engage with voice actors, let alone special guests at cons unless they’re out in the open (which they usually are not). As for the food, several food trucks were parked outside in the main body of the event, right outside the main pavilion used for panels as well as Building C. I ended up gunning for a burger with potato chips on the side from a truck that served homemade burgers. It was a really refreshing meal, given that I usually am forced to settle on hot dogs with their poor aftertaste when I’m at a con for the entirety of the day outside of only a few events with burgers available (DerpyCon and AnimeNJ++). Later in the day, right before the event wrapped up for Saturday, I snagged an ice cream cone from another truck parked outside. There was also a snack and drink bar in the back of the main pavilion, directly across from Building A, but I pretty much didn’t bother with it for the sake of my own health.

As the day went on, the weather would gradually improve from cloudy to light overcast, settling on a nice, peaceful sunset as 6pm drew closer and closer. The cosplays on offer at this event were strong enough that I began to take cosplay shots not long after stepping into the venue. Given the attendance size of this event, I didn’t leave with as many as I do on bigger events, but I still thought that the number of total shots were significant enough to warrant posting them anyways. The commission haul for this event ended up being on par with other events I usually attend, which is well-appreciated given I wasn’t expecting to leave Garden State Anime Fest with that many. Once 6pm hit, the entire event closed down for the day, with no evening activities open for those looking to spend a bit more time. It’s an understandable decision, given the outdoor nature of the event and the lack of much of anything left to do at dusk. All of the vendors and artists got up and left, the food trucks drove off, and soon the event grounds would be left a ghost town for the day. I took a few last-minute pics of the venue as I walked back to my car, went around to explore and take in the surrounding countryside view, then drove back home. Overall, the event was a great time and I got a lot out of it, but I’m uncertain if I want to return next year given that this was my third of four events in the spring and convention fatigue is very much a real thing. That, and there’s one more event I want to cover for today:

Cradle Con was back in season for another weekend, and very little of the event has changed since last year. selling new and Driving out to the Cradle of Aviation was a lot more streamlined than the New Jersey events I’ve attended this year so far, and it was nice to finally attend another event in my home turf that didn’t take me over an hour’ to get to. The parking lot was a bit packed on arrival, but once I did find parking, everything was smooth-sailing from there. Admission had gone up in price a bit since last month, but it’s still a steal for the amount of convention you’re getting. If the venue sounds familiar, it’s the same one that hosts the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo every August, although I’d say Cradle Con isn’t struggling as much in terms of space. The first floor is the vendor’s hall, stretching across the main lobby of the building as well as the cafeteria in the back. Notably, the hangar area was not used as an extended vendor’s hall this time—instead it was reserved for an experience known as “The Cereal Club”. Pay for a ticket and you get to go in and watch old cartoons while eating cereal. It was a fine idea idea in hindsight, but in my own personal thoughts in the middle of the gay at the event, it felt like too much of a money sink compared to all the merchandise being sold at the vendors and artists booths.

Speaking of artists, the Artist’s Alley that lined all of the second floor at this event was quite booming with artists that all catered to different genres and art styles. It was a huge grab bag of all you could ask for at an event like this: Comics, cartoons, anime, realism… I may have my preferences but this was a very welcome selection of artists. It even had one unexpected but very eye-catching sight in the form of a tattoo artist that set up an entire studio at the event and did live tattoos in the Artist’s Alley! They flew in all the way from Europe and if you signed up to receive a tattoo love at Cradle Con, you would get a hefty discount (at the cost of being at the table for most of the day). I unfortunately did not catch who was the tattoo artist, but should I ever see them at another event in the future, I’ll be sure to give them the showcase and recognition they deserve here on this blog. Artists also pooled into parts of the lower floor, whom were all professional or long-time comic artists that sat alongside a plethora of special guests. It was also, if you can believe it, my first time touching a VHS tape in many, many years as one particular guest had a VHS of MTV Celebrity Deathmatch in a good but well-used condition. I don’t remember if it could be purchased, but considering I don’t have a VHS set up nor enough of an interest in 90’s celebrities, it would have been far out of my interests to bring back home with me regardless.

Panels were available on both days and mainly focused on various long-lasting American comic and media franchises. Star Wars even got its own themed section of the event with live performances from cosplayers and LARPers in appropriately-themed costumes based on the legendary sci-fi franchise. As you all can likely assume by this point, most of these didn’t appeal to me as I was already laser-focused on the Artist’s Alley and the artists and comic authors tabling there. It felt like just the right size for the event and was filled with many pleasant people to chat with and support through purchasing their goods. I even got to sit with one of the artists the artist’s alley and develop a character concept based on a few references I assembled earlier that week in the time between Garden State Anime Fest and this event. And of course, as with most medium-to-large events that I attend based around anime or comics, there were commissions to purchase from the artists inside the Artist’s Alley. For this year, Cradle Con was a very profitable adventure in terms of commission count, totaling nine different commissions across the day. 

Anyways, time to wrap this all up. Much like Garden State Anime Festival, the event would end quite early compared to most bigger events. Doors closed at 5PM with no gaming, panels, or miscellaneous activities continuing on for hours afterwards. Sunday also ended at the same time to allow the organizers and vendors/artists time to ensure the place was cleaned up so standard operations of the Cradle could resume the following day. I departed pretty much right as the hour hit, with the intention of grabbing a cup of flavored ice from one of the trucks outside before departing. Alas, the truck had vanished to restock for the following day, and unfortunately they would not return for Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. But going back on topic, Cradle Con was a good event. Probably on par with last year’s event since I got to see many artists I was familiar with from the local convention scene attend and table. The panels and amenities didn’t appeal to me for understandable reasons, given that at comic events I prefer to support smaller creators over the multi-billion dollar franchises these comic and pop culture events endorse. Returning next year is pretty much a given, due to how easy it is to fit Cradle Con into my schedule.

So what’s next? Well, this summer ended up going a bit differently than I had planned due to having to shaft one of the events I had planned to attend thanks to schedule conflicts, so for next time we will be looking back on Eternal Con and Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. And given that the former finally returned from hiatus and the latter has always received glowing praise from myself, it's going to be an interesting batch of events to talk about.