Hello lovelies,

this year started with a big drama at the bring and buy. But let me start at the beginning. 

Animarket organized and hosted the October and May bring and buy since May of 2016 at VHS Längenfeldgasse. They are connected to the Animanga club who also organize one of the biggest (and oldest) Anime event in Austria: Aninite. 

Over the years there have been a lot of changes in the organizition and there have been lots of falling out. Like, really a lot. But, the people who had the falling out, sometimes organized new anime conventions, so their falling out was a good thing for the people on the other end. 

This year there was another falling out. A bunch of people founded the new convention "conpact"/ "conpass" and the person who had organized the bring and buy for Animanga last time, made a new event called Merchbazar. And as he was the one who had booked the place, he used it to hold the new event and this left Animarket without a location on this date. They retaliated and as the 30th of April was a Sunday, they booked their market the day before. It got pretty messy as both tried to make the other one look bad and the community was confused and most of them picked sides. 

To sum it all up, there were two different events, with the same b&b concept on two consecutive days. 

The lolita community decided to stay with Animarket and only sell on one day. As an artist I thought, I would go and have booths on both events and maybe enjoy the fruits of others' bickering by selling more. 

Animarket

To be honest, it was the better event, by far. We had a booth right next to the stage and could stalk our fellow lolitas all day long. The food was amazing as they organized food trucks for the first time. One could chooese between Vietnamese food with banh mi, an Italian with Arancini, one of my favourite and I can't remember if there were other ones. There was a Japanese food stall at the entrance of the hall and they also had some delicious food. Even M. could eat something as some of them had a non-soy vegan option. 

The fee was 17€ for a 1 meter booth, payable directly at the event. 

 

And this was my booth. This time I had less handmade brooches and a lot of plexiglas and resin jewelry.

All resin pendants were 7€ per piece. I especially liked the resin with the daisies in them. Not sure if they are that visible though. 

 

And here are the brooches. I sold more than I thought I would! That was amazing.

 Our view directly to the bring and buy. 

I bought only a few items this time from the bring and buy but sold a lot:

The skirt also came with two hairbows. I'm not sure of the brand though.

I finally have a new beret! I love them but I always forget to wear them. 

And a new shirt with a "lolita" print. It's cute and airy.
 

For this day I wore my comfy btssb dress with a vintage hair band.

Merchbazar

The booth for 1 meter was 20€ and this makes it 3€ more expensive than Animarket. 

Foodwise, they only had cup ramen and onigiri and I'm not a fan of both. M. was not able to eat anything at all due to his food allergies. After all the yummy food we had just a day ago, that was a real let-down.

My sales were terrible compared to the day before. I also noticed that a lot of people went there both days and of course bought their items already the first day.

I already had significantly less stock and that felt amazing. Suddenly the table was not overburdened with items anymore. 

Our view the second day, I even had a cute little helper. Who only ate the rude customers.

 

My outfit was another comfy dress. It was pretty hot both days, actually it always is, and very humid. When so many people are in a small room, it really does get icky fast.

 As for the next season in May, I will probably only be at Animarket. Both events are too close to each other again, that it won't be nesseccary to go to both, even though Merchbazar will host at a bigger location and a few days before Animarket. Maybe I'll switch it up a bit over the years or go to both when one of them decides to host it another month or at least with some time between them. 

All the best,

Auris Lothol