Set-up was on Friday at 10am, with an open time of 3pm that day. I got there right at 10, had to wander around to find people in charge, which didn't take long since there were already vendors setting up, so they tended to be in that area. Got my spot and unloaded. Gotta say again, it is much easier to set up an artist table than a 10x10 or 10x20 booth. Only took three trips to handcarry everything. Artist tables ended up being right next to the air conditioning vents, which ended up being both a blessing & a curse.

Set-up didn't take too long and I noticed I had space to fill. Fortunately, the parking privileges were in-and-out. Bad side was how much it cost to park - $22 for the day. More expensive than downtown. The con did get a discount code for attendees so they only had to pay $6, but I didn't find out about it until well after the con was opened. At least I only had to pay $6 per day for Saturday & Sunday. But $22 for both the van & Rini's car that first night didn't help the expenses.

Anyway, I got my extra products & some lunch, fiddled around with set-up and looked around. I was getting a little worried because it originally looked like I was the only adult artist there. Turned out a few more set up later, but I was worried I was going to be too 'adult' for this con. It didn't help that an actual child, like 9-10 years old, handed me my badges as I was setting up. Saw the same little girl fastwalk through the artist alley later and I overheard a staffer tell her that she can't be in the NSFW section. But it was indicative of the level of security at the con.

The artist alley, literally the hallway around the vendor room, was divided into NSFW & SFW. The SFW section was out over the atrium, with the NSFW alley & vendor room blocked off by some curtains that the con set up. The downstairs area where the main events, panel room, and some featured artist guests & sponsor vendors was also blocked off.

Rini showed up after she got off work and we hung around until close. We left our fixtures, but took most of our product with us since there were at least three ways to get into the hallway and it wasn't a locked room like the vendor room. They did offer to let us put our stuff in the vendor hall, but we decided it was just easier to take everything out.

Not much to report otherwise. Sales were slow, but that seemed to be the case for everyone.
There were a fair amount of people for a first year niche con with only 6 months of advertising, just not a lot of buying.

We didn't stick around for the con after artist alley closed either night, instead we just went home for the evening. To be honest, we didn't make booth cost, let alone the added cost of parking, so staying at the hotel was out of the question anyway.

So, pro's.

- They gave Daku-Con, the established 18+ con, a promo table, which was nice of them. I don't like it when fan organizations fight. And there were some people online who thought Seijin was trying to compete with Daku. So they get points for that.

- I like the hotel, all in all, outside of the ridiculous parking costs. It's smaller, but I think it is a nice con venue for small to medium sized cons. The atrium with the balconies off the hotel rooms has potential and they didn't even do anything with the smaller panel rooms on the third floor, so there is room to grow.

- The convention staffers were friendly, nice, and accommodating. I didn't hear of any drama. But I also don't have inside ears into this con like I do at some other events.

- I don't feel like they overstretched themselves like some first time cons do. They didn't take over the whole hotel, nor did it feel like they were planning on massive attendance. This was generally a very low-key event and this gives them room to figure out what they need to do going forward.

Cons:

- Security was lax. One thing I like is about adult cons is that they don't need a lot of security because you're not dealing with kids & parents all the time, but what security they need needs to be a lot tighter. Rini was not challenged when she went into the con space to get to my table. She also didn't wear her badge all the time. The staffer's kid running around, seeing my artwork & the artwork of other NSFW artists, wasn't a ringing endorsement either. Neither was the pre-teen boy who I saw in the vendor room as the vendors were putting away their boobie & penis artwork*.

- Only roughly 6 months to promote their con is not enough time, no matter how much you spam Facebook & Instagram with content. I'm sure that ended up being reflected in the amount and types of vendors & artists that they got, with the vendor room only filling up at the last minute. Also doesn't help that Nan Desu Kan is only a month away. As some people commented, people might go, but they'll be saving their money for NDK.

- Needs more programming. If things work out, I might help that by doing a panel idea I've been working on to make available to conventions I vend at.

- Needs to not put so much on just Facebook & Instagram, which can bury information in it's algorithm. I almost didn't put it on my Adult Convention list because the only information was on FB & IG and I've had too many bad experience with cons that only put their events there. I was heartened when they finally got their website to have information rather than just a placeholder.

Looking at the Cons, you'd think I had a bad experience. I didn't. It was, overall, a positive experience and I'm looking forward to next year to see what lessons they learned. I'm very happy to have more adults-only conventions around and want them to do well.

* This is reminding me of when we did our Adult Video Games panel at CONvergence last year, when a staffer came in to do a head-count and just see what the panel was up to... with their child in tow. This kinda threw us off. I saw a feedback that said the staffer was annoyed that we acknowledged a child was in the room and had changed up our conversation accordingly, saying they wouldn't have taken them in to check on an 18+ panel if they didn't think their child could handle it. Well, look, I'm the last one to say that children hearing spicy words or seeing a female nipple is going to lead them to a life of crime & hard drugs. But we have adult spaces for reasons and we also don't know what an adult in charge of a child is going to find offensive. Plus, young kids like to tell people about things they saw and heard, so even if the parent doesn't care, someone else might. It's just safer for all of us if kids are kept far away from adult spaces. 

This is my second year there and it confirms my opinion that it's one of my favorite conventions. Were there problems? Yeah, a few, but all in all, I like the staff, I like the attendees, and I like the overall vibe of the con.

I flew out solo this time, as my wife had volunteered for a local event that same weekend. Left at "Oh, My God, It's Early" on Friday morning. I will say that the renovations to the San Diego International Airport are very nice. I was taken aback because we'd flow into the same old terminal twice last year, so seeing something much larger and much more modern terminal was a pleasant surprise.

I decided to take the cheap route getting there for two reasons. 1) Money, obviously. and 2) to time things out to see how long it might take me to get back. The result might determine if I take public transport back or get a Lyft (I ended up taking the Lyft). There's a free shuttle, the San Diego Flyer, that goes from the airport to a major rail station called Old Town, which has light rail, Amtrack, and city bus. From there I took the Green Line to Fashion Valley mall station, which is then a block and a half walk to the Handlery Hotel. The train ride took 12 minutes, it was just waiting for the Flyer & the train that ate up my time.

Got to the hotel, found I wouldn't be able to check in until 1:30pm, so I checked into the con and got to the Artist Room (BTW: It's not Artist Alley. We are all Featured Artists and it's called the Artist Room) to set up. Didn't take me long to get set up. I didn't have that much with me to begin with and years of setting up full 10x10 vendor booths meant I had a lot of experience in figuring out how to optimize set-up and tear down. After set-up, I walked up to the Fashion Valley mall to get some food, as it was the only place, outside of the nearby hotels, that had restaurants. Lots of different Asian fast food up there and I wandered back with some yummy Beef Noodle from a place we'd eaten at last year.

Managed to finally get checked into my hotel room and dropped my personal stuff off there. But it was getting close to start-up time, so I wasn't able to do my planned supplies run and that had to wait until that evening after the room closed at 9pm. Sold more items than I expected on a Friday. Unfortunately, Friday ended up being my strongest day saleswise. After closing, I walked back to Fashion Valley and took the train to the next stop west, where there were I knew there was a convenience store. Bought some chips and a liter of pop. More expensive than a grocery store, but cheaper than the hotel vending machines. Went back only to find out that the hotel's bar & grill closed early and everything else in the area was either already closed or about to close. Had some chips and went to bed as I was tired from the travel, the set-up, and the vending. At least the beef noodle had been filling.

Saturday morning, I got up early enough to get some breakfast. The hotel restaurant was pretty decent and I got 4 french toasts & bacon for $20, which is a steal for a hotel in California. Got set-up & had my day at the booth from 10am to 6pm.

The con has some interesting things going on. One is that it has a full VTuber staff and has joined up with Fansly to do promotions. Several of the VTubers wandered into the Artist Room with their remote controlled telepresence machines, accompanied by a handler. The room did have some problems with connectivity, so sometimes the handlers had to push the machines around a bit until the VTuber could take control again. A pair of VTubers bought shirts from me on Friday and I never got their names. A few of the VTubers even had their nude models on the entire time they wandered around.

Also, this is the only con I know of that has a "top-tional" policy. In that, in the main areas of the convention, women can be topless. Since the con isn't doing a complete takeover of the hotel, there are still "mundanes" staying there, so it wasn't the whole hotel, which was a shame, especially since the pool area wasn't 'top-tional' which would have been a prime cosplay photo area. I only personally saw three cis-gendered women take advantage of this. On Saturday was a woman dressed as Marin from My Dress-up Darling, who had a string bikini on and had pushed her cups to the side. I only saw her for a split second as she walked by my table. The second was a couple dressed as Mario & Peach, where Peach was wearing a pink BDSM outfit. She was covered, but when her Mario was taking photos out in the Terrace Garden, she removed her top. They did a quick lap around the Artist Room before leaving. On Sunday, a woman who had been topless except for pasties in all of her costumes that weekend decided to take them off for her last trip through the Artist Room, though she took her time as she and her partner were talking to a couple of the artists. Otherwise, women chose to wear pasties if they were wearing something that might have exposed their nipples. There are a few topless men, a few topless transmen, and one topless transwoman I saw late at night.

Last year, I had a clear view of the Terrace Garden. My view was mostly blocked this year because of where I was sitting, but I still saw some of the things going on out there, including the wedding that happened on Saturday afternoon, where a con guest was getting married. Lasted half an hour. (That's how you know it wasn't Catholic :P) and they left the chair set-up for a fashion show and the costume contest.

Saturday evening, after enjoying some carne asada fries from the Bar & Grill, I wandered around and planned to go to a Retro-Hentai panel, which would talk about hentai from the 90's and 2Ks. Well, the room was full of people, but the panelists didn't show up. When someone asked if anyone here had watched hentai in the 90's, I raised my hand. I ended up doing an impromptu panel on the fly. Another person came up to attach their laptop to the monitor in the room (the mics worked, too, which meant I could be heard clearly) and, unfortunately, we ended up watching a lot of Urotsukidoji because the guy controlling the laptop was more interested in that than finding and showing any other hentai series I rattled off. Still, I got a lot of 'thank-you's' from the attendees and I think Overfiend will be getting some attention from the younger generation now. There was one guy who saw the opening of Overfiend and yelled out "That's where that's from!". He had seen the box art when he was a kid, which had a screenshot of a demon having sex with a woman and that ended up on the screen as we were looking through the episode. Seems I unlocked a core memory from his childhood. Glad to be of service!

The rave ended up being at capacity, the karaoke was interesting for a few minutes, then someone decided to do the Pokemon theme and I noped out.

Oh, another piece of advice. Don't drink the tap water at the hotel. I filled an empty Dew bottle with tap water on Saturday to have at my table and I think that's when caused my insides to rebel. Otherwise I don't think the french toast & bacon would have caused that reaction. I wisely filled my bottle from the complimentary water jug in the lobby on Sunday and had no problems otherwise. Unless it was the altitude change, but I don't think it would have waited until Saturday and happen twice.

After that TMI, Sunday was pretty quiet. Artist Room didn't open until 11am to account for hangovers. Packed up, checked out, got to talk to the Artist Room head and also one of the con heads, letting them know I had a flight out and had to leave early. Day was quiet, as I said, but I'm watching my flight schedule bounce around. Decided better safe than sorry, so packed up when I originally planned, said good-bye to my booth neighbors and wandered out.

Oh, shout out to my neighbors., Obbi-Mation & Octopodi

Flight ended up being delayed by almost an hour. I could have stayed until the 6pm shutdown, but, again, better safe than sorry. Got a good look at the new terminal while I waited. Otherwise the flight was OK. A little bumpy as we got over the Rockies, but I got out and home at an OK time.

Looking forward to next year!

The event space was at Sam's Town Hotel & Gambling Hall. It's a rather large space on the east end of Las Vegas, well away from the Strip. It had plenty of restaurants, as well as a bowling alley, a movie theater, and, best of all, free parking. The rooms were reasonable for Vegas as well. My only complaint about the hotel was they still allowed smoking in the casino area and it didn't agree with my or my wife's lungs.

The only problems we had were that the convention rooms were spread out a bit too much, but that's more a problem with the event space than the con itself. If the event rooms in one area aren't big enough, you kinda got to go to the spots that do. It would have been nice to have larger maps available. I didn't notice there were map in the little displays by the doors until Saturday. There was also a lack of a schedule outside of what was displayed right outside the panel doors. We just had a general "vendor room open this time to this time & panels rooms open this time to this time" on our badges. There was also a problem that we had to censor our displays, but this was apparently due to the hotel, not the con. There's something about the fact this was considered a 'locals' casino that there were some different rules.

All in all, it was a very pleasant experience. Our goal for a first year mini-con was to at least make booth cost. We did over twice that much. Not rolling in cash, but still good. Got to talk to a few of the other vendors as we got the chance. The "Foods for Lewds" group was right across from us and were really nice guys. Looking forward to seeing them at Hentai Matsuri. Also got a chance to go see the Erotic Heritage Museum again, which now has much more content than the first time we went years ago. So again, had fun, looking forward to next year