Good morning Reader! :)

Hope you're having a lovely week! Today I have a very special edition of the newsletter for you: I'm going to walk you through what it was like to spend three whole days at a convention. Ryucon, one of the biggest anime conventions in Poland!

I've been sharing my convention experiences with you since my very first, and I think I've come a long way since then. Let's begin!

The setup (and how I approached this event)

First off, let me give you some context. As you might know, I’m part of an art collective, ie actually just a group of friends, and we’ve been doing conventions together for more than a year now.

Ryucon is a three-day event and it’s one of the biggest anime conventions in Poland. It’s very special for us because the 2025 edition was one of the very first ones we did :)

Back then it was definitely a very, very intense experience. We had a huge table that cost us a lot of money, way more than what we were able to make. Most of us lost money on that event, including me!

So when we decided to sign up for the 2026 edition, it was always a mix of apprehension and excitement. This time we only took one table, half the cost, to be a bit more secure.

However, when we signed up, I didn’t know yet that I would still be onboarding at my new job, which added quite a bit of spice to the beginning of the event!

Like I said, it’s a three-day event, Friday to Sunday. And on Friday, I had to juggle helping set up the booth while also working; so that means frequent breaks for calls and carry on with my duties.

more than one person thought I was a staff managing the event

I even missed the first few hours of the con so I could work from a coffee shop while my friends were holding the fort. Quite stressful, but we managed 🙏

We all actually had challenges to deal with in some way during the weekend, either health or other obligations. Thankfully we were all in it together, and that support was really important to make it through the weekend.

Setting up our table, we tried to make the best use of the wall!

But being this amount of people also had some little downside, and it influenced how I approached the event.

We were five people sharing one single table; Great for help, but super complicated for space! We had to divide the table space very carefully.

So on my side, I’ll be honest with you: I was kind of sandbagging this time, and not expecting any profit.

Since I knew we would have a small space each, I didn’t order anything new except business cards. No new prints, no new products. I approached it more as a way to collect data, have fun for a weekend, and maybe clear some of my stock to prepare for the next event. I had very little hope that I would even break even for my part of the table.

And that’s the energy I had when, after finally hanging up from my last work call, we started this very, very long weekend.

The convention experience

So what is it like exactly to be tabling at a convention like this?

A lot of waiting around. Standing by the table. Smiling at people when they dare to look into your eyes. Answering questions about what things cost. Carrying out transactions if they’re interested. And thinking of ways to make this happen more often.

The back of the table is way less sexy than the front

Honestly, I didn’t have much success with it. IRL I’m a pretty awkward guy, plus I don’t speak Polish that well yet, especially not numbers, which is a big handicap when dealing with customers and prices :')

So personally, most of my contribution was about setting up, arranging the stall, allowing people to take breaks, and bringing food or coffee from time to time. The experience would have been way more stressful if I was on my own, that’s for sure!

The con was busy almost all the time during the weekend. We wouldn’t have had any breaks if we weren’t a group. But since we were all together, we were able to walk around, have some breaks, get some food.

I really enjoyed being able to get away from the crowd, sit on the ground, and sketch a little bit. Seeing so much art around, including that of my friends, really inspired me to do more, which is something I’ve barely had time for recently.

Speaking of inspiration, I want to give a special mention to Marta, the last member to join our collective. Her passion and creativity were very infectious!

It was her first time selling art at an event like this, and she always had amazing ideas on how to attract more people, what to create, what to have printed and available on the store for the next day. Really, an incredible energy that got all of us inspired. I invite you to check her out if you’re interested, her insta is not super up-to-date but she's great! :)

Since we are giving shoutout, in the same room was also the talented and friend of this newsletter Happy Skull!

I got the print on the left it's very cute 🥹

It was her first event of this size and she had a table on her own! I really love her very graphic style and the way she inks with so much personality. I also highly recommend checking out their art!

We also put together a little montage reel that shows off our stall. Definitely go have a look :) You can follow the collective's page there!

In the meantime, video still continues!

As you might know, I’ve been posting a video every single day for the past two months now. And this week was no exception despite the tight schedule!

I’m very happy with the videos I came up with: I think they were very sincere, even though I still sometimes struggle with expressing myself clearly (I'm trying tho! thank you for bearing with me)

Here are the videos I posted this week:

Dreams are overrated (or why I prefer aspiration)

You’re not lazy. Here is how to stop procrastinating.
My biggest unlock that I had to learn the hard way when it comes to procrastination and being unfocused.
My plan to finally have work-life balance
(This one was ironically filmed at work 😄 but the topic is super important)
Don’t believe the doomers. You can just do things

Filmed at Ryucon while sitting on the floor:

You can’t accomplish your dreams on your own

You need to get comfortable with burning money ⭐
I love the energy of this one, and it’s a message I wish more people were aware of

And this one filmed yesterday:

Never Trust Your Intuition (nor your logic)

Time to wrap up the stall on Sunday evening

The aftermath

You know, after a big event like this (three days of standing, roaming around, selling art), the most painful part has probably been going back to work the next day :’)

No ok, I’m joking. It wasn’t that bad. But I was definitely exhausted. At the same time, I also felt way, way more motivated about conventions like this.

The energy of talking to other artists and my friends at the table really gave me a lot of ideas on how I can improve next time... What kind of products I can make, what kind of art would be interesting to do, how to promote our art and our shop for the next event...

Personally, I want to try making different kinds of products: magnets, different keychains, more things in volume, whatever I can make at home or have made locally. I hope to explore that with you in the coming weeks :)

My previous convention stories… (in case you want to read more)

My first convention was a disaster (almost)
My living room became a sticker factory (and other convention chaos) - this one is about last year at Ryucon 2025!

Alright, that concludes this special edition of the newsletter. I hope you enjoyed these insights into what it actually feels like to be tabling at a convention as an artist 🙂‍↕️

If you enjoy reading about my convention adventures and want to support my art, I invite you to have a look at my shop! I’ll be preparing some new products for the next event, but in the meantime you can find prints and the few keychains remaining at studio.nighten.fr :)