My friends attended the one in Pomona earlier this year and suggested I join them for the summer/fall one in the OC.
Tickets can be purchased online or at the gate. (The latter is not higher than paying in advance.) Security did ask everyone to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter each day. (Physical and digital cards were accepted for that.) They briefly checked the bags for all attendees and scanned barcodes on tickets. To re-enter, you need to get a hand stamp.
The event is broken out into 4 parts: K-Play Fest, SneakerCon, Anime Impulse, and Asian American Festival. The former is all things K-pop/Korean pop culture, SneakerCon is focused on sneaker and streetwear, Anime Impulse is all things anime and manga, and Asian American Festival is a mix of businesses and food related to Asian cultures. When the organizers hosted the event at the OC Fairground, each pavilion had their own building, with a center stage in the big courtyard that did performances for all of the events.
I went mainly for K-Play Fest and my friends came for Anime Impulse and K-Play Fest.
K-Play Fest had a lot of fans and vendors selling fanmade merchandise from apparel to artwork and some vendors sold official merchandise like Photocards, albums, lightsticks, and Korean pop culture merchandise. A few of the vendors who owned the sites and stores selling official merchandise for groups did some giveaways or chances to win free merchandise by following social media accounts or signing up for newsletters. There was a smaller stage inside for some speakers and to do random dance play at various times. They had the photocard trading booth outside the pavilion where you could meet other fans and trade Photocards for ones you wanted. I made some photocard swaps on Saturday and bought keychains both days from a vendor for my favorite group Stray Kids.
Asian American pavilion was mostly a mix of local businesses for home related fixes, insurance, and some other businesses like 99 Ranch Market and a skincare store online. The booths for last two businesses did giveaways and were pretty generous with their products. I walked away with a lot of food from 99 Ranch Market and some samples plus a gift card code for the skincare site.
SneakerCon is a lot smaller than some of the bigger conventions focused solely on sneakers and streetwear. There weren't a lot of apparel vendors and the few that did had vintage clothes that were old band tees or their own in-house streetwear brand. (I would look to bigger solo conventions for this topic if you're looking for big brands and lots of hype sneakers and clothes.)
Anime Impulse was in two buildings - one was for businesses selling anime merchandise that was official and inspired by characters in animes and mangas. The other was an artist alley section for independent artists selling their work in different formats. In between the two anime buildings, they had tables where you could meet and have signings with voice actors from various animes, and photo ops for pictures. They also had a drink area for bubble teas and drinks themed to the series Luxiem, which had a huge amount of activities on Sunday.
Behind the buildings for Asian American pavilion and K-Play Fest, they had food vendors and various custom wrap Toyota cars with anime characters on them. Food was pricey but some vendors had some deals like one açaí vendor sold his large sized açaí bowl for $8 versus the regular shop price of $15.50.
Parking was fair - it's $10 per day for a regular car. Split between 3 people carpooling, it wasn't bad. There were a lot of spots so it was easy to park and walk to the entrance.
In terms of size and scale, it's easy to finish this event in a day. If you know there's programming you want to see on day 2, like one of my friends who was into Luxiem, it's possible to plan and enjoy yourself over the two days. (Initially I missed the Asian American pavilion on day 1 but day 2 allowed me to fully walk it and obtain the freebies.) read more