Anime St. Pete is a new anime convention in St. Petersburg, Florida on September 17-18 at the Coliseum. In fact, it’s the city’s first-ever anime convention. Guests include six popular anime voice actors and a roster of Florida’s top cosplayers.
Here are seven smart reasons to be a vendor at Anime St. Pete.
Smart reason # 1:
anime st pete has the same organizers as the successful St. Pete Comic Con
Anime St. Pete is brought to fans by the organizers of St. Pete Comic Con, which recently drew 3,500 attendees to the Coliseum for the city’s first-ever comic convention. Fan reviews were glowing, news media reports were flattering, and a fan made a cool cosplay music video. In addition, Florida Cosplay Digital Magazine published a special edition on St. Pete Comic Con 2022.
Smart reason # 2:
anime st pete Con organizer creates a great vendor experience
The organizers of St. Pete Comic Con conducted a formal survey of vendors. “We wanted to listen to vendors on how we can improve,” said Dewey Caruthers, con organizer for St. Pete Comic Con and Anime St. Pete.
Here are the vendor survey results from St. Pete Comic Con, which provide a glimpse into the exhibitor experience at Anime St. Pete. (note, vendor survey conducted 45 days after St. Pete Comic Con, with one-third of vendors responding to the survey).
Many vendors reported very high sales
More than half (54%) of vendors said their sales were “much higher” (27%) or “higher” (27%) than similar size events. In addition, nearly half (47%) reported sales similar to larger size events.
The vendor experience ranged from great to good
It was unanimous: 100% rated their overall vendor experience at St. Pete Comic Con 2022 as either “great” or “good” (73% responded “great” and 27% said “good”).
Vendors were very satisfied with crowd size
Survey revealed a total of 87% were either “very satisfied” (67%) or “satisfied” (20%) with the attendance at the con.
Vendors also satisfied with venue, hours of convention, and hours for vendor set up
And 93% of vendors were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the venue (the Coliseum), hours of convention, and hours for vendor set-up.
Con organizer cared about vendors generating sales
All vendors, 100% of respondents, either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ the con organizer cared about vendors doing well (generating sales) at St. Pete Comic Con 2022. “It’s very important to me that our vendors do well,” said St. Pete Comic Con organizer Dewey Caruthers. “I love to see attendees approaching vendors to learn more about merch for sale!”
Smart reason # 3:
Anime St. Pete will be heavily promoted locally, regionally and statewide
Anime St. Pete is investing significant time and money into marketing and public relations. For example, Anime St. Pete has planned for nearly 50 blogs and more than 200 social media posts over the five months leading up to the convention (from mid-April to mid-September). There will be an abundance of quality content that will engage anime fans and convention goers.
Additionally, half of the budget will be used to promote the event on Florida Comic Cons, a popular news website that covers conventions and cosplayers, and Florida Cosplay Digital Magazine, which spotlights The Sunshine State’s best cosplayers each month. Both publications have statewide audiences. And one-third of the budget will be used to boost social media posts about Anime St. Pete throughout the central Florida region. Moreover, there will be more than $1,000 spent on local advertising.
Lastly, public relations professionals will be sending news releases and reaching out to local media to garner news coverage. These PR pros had significant success with St. Pete Comic Con 2022 (click here for news coverage), and we’re hoping for the same for Anime St. Pete 2022.
Smart reason # 4:
vendors can optimize sales and promote booth with asp vendor toolkit
Anime St. Pete has created free resources for vendors to optimize sales and promote booths, all of which has been packaged into the ‘ASP Vendor Toolkit’ that will be released in early May (more than five months prior to event). Here is what’s in the toolkit:
List of notable characters portrayed by guest anime voice actors
“One of the most unfortunate things I see at conventions is vendors not having a sufficient supply of merchandise that is in high demand,” said Anime St. Pete convention organizer Dewey Caruthers.
To address the issue, Anime St. Pete will provide a list of notable characters portrayed by the anime voice actors appearing at the con, which can help guide vendors on the merchandise or artwork to exhibit. For example, the list of 10 pops of characters voiced by the anime voice actors is helpful information for vendors who sell the popular figures.
Social media graphics that can be customized with vendor logo
A series of three social media graphics is provided for vendors to use to promote being at Anime St. Pete. All three social media graphics are designed to be customized by vendors adding their logo. Furthermore, the social media graphics are sized for Instagram (1080×1080). And the social media graphics are for use in May, June, and July (one each month).
Promotional Blog
Anime St. Pete will publish a blog promoting the vendors, which will include a listing of all of the exhibitors and a link to their Instagram or Facebook. And the blog will be published in August.
Digital program
The Anime St. Pete digital program includes a vendor list with links as well as a convention floor layout. And the digital program will be published in early September.
Timeline
Anime St. Pete understands the lives of vendors, whose constant travel can make it difficult to adequately promote their presence at every convention. So, we included a suggested timeline to make it easy for vendors to stay on track with promoting their participation at Anime St. Pete.
Smart reason # 5:
attendee Ticket prices are affordable
Early bird tickets are $20 for single day and $30 for weekend pass (increasing to $25 and $50 respectively). “It’s very simple, the less money attendees spend on tickets, the more they have to spend on vendors,” Caruthers said.
Smart reason # 6:
Vendor after-party with food, drinks and entertaiment friday night
Friday during the day is vendor set-up (9 a.m.-5 p.m.) And shortly afterwards is the vendor after-party. From 7 p.m. – 11 p.m., Anime St. Pete is providing entertainment and pizza (drinks are on you) for a vendor after-party, which will be walking distance from the Coliseum and local hotels. Details coming later.
Smart reason # 7:
Gwen-Stacy will be at anime st pete checking-in on vendors
Gwen-Stacy, the youngest daughter of con organizer Dewey Caruthers, will be at Anime St. Pete. She will be accompanying her father at Anime St. Pete as he regularly checks-in with vendors to see how things are going. And she is available to be petted during such check-ins. For those who have not yet met Gwen-Stacy, here’s a couple of snaps so you will recognize her coming your way (bottom left, Gwen-Stacy relaxing after a convention with a chinrest on dad’s arm; below right, she loves Pokemon merch!)
