Design Festa
Participation Report
Design Festa Day
ICU Atelier will be exhibiting on May 18th and 19th, 2024 at M-50 (bright area) on the 4th floor of the West Building of Tokyo Big Sight.
These past two days have been quite busy.
Please check it out below!
May 18th, 2024
Design Festa starts at 10am, but exhibitors can enter from 6am. This is because they have to set up the venue. ICU Atelier entered the venue at 7am and started setting up. Don't forget to say hello to the people at the other booths, as they will be helping us out for the next two days.
On the left is a photo of the exhibition booth, and on the right is the menu.
It was quite a rich exhibit as it also featured exhibits from the ICU Festival.
I'm glad that everyone was able to complete their creations (for sale) safely!
While we were preparing, an unexpected incident occurred. It was announced that the opening time would be brought forward from 10am because it was too hot outside. ICU Atelier was able to open and set up without any problems, so it was a relief, but it's important to be careful of things like this happening.
After that, the venue opened with a furious surge. As soon as the venue opened, participants made a mad dash. It seemed like they were running to be the first to purchase works by popular creators. In contrast to those popular creators, our booth was a little deserted... But as time passed, participants began to look at various booths, and more people came to see our booth. We introduced our circle and our works to those people, handed out business cards, etc. We also went around the other booths and did a lot of shopping.
The day passed by in a flash as I worked in the store and shopped.
May 19th, 2024
On the second day, Sunday, the number of participants increased. Some ICU graduates came to our booth, so we could learn a little about the past of ICU. There were also Art circles from other universities that set up booths so we could interact with them and we could see and buy works by professional creators, which was very stimulating.
The closing time was 6 p.m., but people packed up around 4 or 5 p.m.
In the end, I even received a souvenir from the person at the booth next to me, saying, "Thank you for taking care of me these past two days." It was a two-day experience that really brought me closer to people.
Thank you, everyone, for your hard work over the past two days!
The two below are vlogs summarizing of the two days.
(These are works by the artist and not from ICU Atelier, but I think you can get the feel of them. Just for reference.)
This year's Design Festa was a bit hectic due to poor announcement and planning, so I regret that. If I had made a solid plan and confirmed with those around me while preparing, I think we would have been able to prepare with more time to spare.
As for the profits, we were in deficit. However, we got a lot out of it because we were able to interact with creators and ICU alumni!