Diversity of booths in the Exhibition Hall
The diversity of the booths across the hall makes for an interesting mix between large corporate booths to indie stalls promoting their products. Each booth has their own individual traits that differentiate it from the others.
Bandai Namco had their own gaming stations in their booth, allowing visitors to play trials of new games before they gets released to the market. This year in particular, they have an enormous TV in a stage with two players battling in the upcoming Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, which successfully gathered a large crowd of people. Another example from last year was the large inflatable balloon Pikachu floating above the Pokémon stall to promote the new Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire games for 3DS.
There are many other booths such as Animatsu and All the Anime that showcased some of the pre-release anime in DVD and Blu-Ray collectors’ edition. Gaming booths such as Koei Temco, NIS America, and Idea Factory came to showcase some of the best Japanese games. Idea Factory sold their Hyperdimension Neptunia games that also comes with a dakimakura (hugging pillow) as part of the marketing scheme. NIS America promotes its new Persona 4 Dancing All Night game with an actual dance floor that received some positive reception from the visitors who gathered around to watch people dance on some upbeat tracks.
Unlike AFAID and Jakarta Comic Con, MCM Comic Con combines the Eastern and Western popular culture together. Booths promoting popular western movies and games such as Star Wars and Assassin’s Creed also got a lot of attention. This is largely due to the fact that anime and manga fans in Europe are originally fans of western movies and games.
At the Good Smile Company booth, a lot of anime figures were shown and it proved to be very popular as the figures sold out pretty fast. By the end of Saturday, most of the popular figures have been sold out, indicating that there are a lot of demand for figures. Smaller non-corporate booths were also selling anime related merchandises. It seems that MCM Comic Con has become the one and only place where they could exploit western otaku to buy imported figures that are very rare outside Comic Con. There are also UK-based retailers such as ‘Japan Cool’ promoting itself as the UK’s No.1 Gunpla retailer. Their large booth is filled with all possible Gunpla models ranging from beginners model to advance large size models.
Some booths are just outright crazy, such as the ‘McLaren Honda Simulator’ which lets you experience what it feels like riding in F1 cars. Another one would be ‘The Walking Dead’ booth which have people dressing up as zombies trying to scare people through the wire fence. Some booths like Wacom captivated artists to try their new drawing tablets. There’s even a booth that you could get a shoulder massage for free.
On the other side of the hall, there is a section dedicated to eSports, Twitch, and VidFest which broadcasted live gameplay to the audiences and selling some dedicated gaming hardware. VidFest booths included the famous asdfmovie and other YouTube stars which sold posters as well as T-shirts.
Last but not least, PopAsia is a section in the main hall dedicated for all things Asian. The floor is covered in pink carpets and the booths showcased cute products and snacks from Japan. Kimono and Japan dishwares were also sold here. And there’s a mini stage where a group of independent fans around the UK perform songs and dance covers. Anime screening is also available where they have shown the first few episodes of Outbreak Company and Eccentric Family – courtesy of MVM.
