Hyper Japan KDJ meetup!

Phew having two Kimono de Jack meetups within two weeks of each other meant that I didn't have a chance to write up the July meetup.

Nevermind!

July KDJ meetup was at Hyper Japan in Olympia Two, London on 23 July. It was billed as being bigger and better then Hyper Japan 2010 so we were very excited! To make it better we were able to secure a table for Kimono de Jack goers to meetup and allowed to organise a mini kimono fashion show!

So what happened on the day?

I turned up around 10.20 to drop off my stuff for the show at the press office and I was glad that I had a performers pass to the event because the queue to get in was huge! Then I went to find our table which was in the manga and origami area. This was a little disappointing because if I didn't ask for help from the press office then I wouldn't have found it. Next time, I will need to ask for a table off to the side!

Now about the event, it was a mix of modern and new Japanese culture. On the ground floor there were the big stalls were the big companies were plying their trade. There was food and drinks on the left hand side while the right hand side had clothing, gadgets and other bits and pieces. Also the main stage was on the ground floor. I didn't get a chance to see any performances on the main stage because it was far to crowd for me to get a good view.

Then the lower ground floor had the independent traders and the game booths/stations for people to entertain themselves with.

There was one big name here and that was Square Enix and they were selling merchandise for their various games like Final Fantasy.

Such as this cute moogle.

However the event was incredibly busy and crowded, in fact I'm pretty sure the organisers where surprised by the turnout. As such people had to queue for 2-3 hours just to get in which was very frustrating for a lot of people who brought advance tickets or those who just popped out for some fresh air.

As for the Kimono Fashion Show, Liz and I were run off our feet organising it but we managed to pull it together.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I spent most of the day stressing out about the fashion show that I didn't get a chance to take pictures.

I hope next year Hyper Japan improve on the venue and organisation because the UK needs more conventions!