It’s three days after NijiPop Culture Festival happened in Cebu. My good friend AGC has covered the event and told his story.
I got friends from Cebu telling me stories, same as the people on Facebook and Twitter who have shared their stories from their POVs as well. I am about to listen to a diss track produced about this as well.
I’ve read most of the tea, and I agree that this took the crown from ConQuest 2023 as the worst pop culture event the Philippines has seen. Nobody deserved bad event experiences.
I’m not yet done being angry, posting my sentiment on Facebook. A good friend of mine also told me to calm down, and let the ones who are there say their point. After this blog post, I’m taking his good advice and move forward.
Why am I so angry about this? Let me echo this: For a decade I spent in the events scene – 8 years of it assisting as staff for various events under professional guidance – I have never felt my heart sunk again since ConQuest 2023.
The problems which weren’t sorted out, and the implosion afterwards, left me questioning myself if this is the events industry I want to keep living on. I take that personally.
I almost quit the events industry realizing these risks. However, I really appreciate good events, some organized by students, and I know several of those. I am inspired by those good events. Maybe I could put up a separate post on that soon, and may those keep inspiring future event organizers to do their best.
Before that, we give a special mention to Pokeverse
NijiPop Culture Festival even topped Pokeverse in the said “worst event of 2024” category held a week prior:
- Pokeverse’s problem is that they lacked enough product knowledge of the latest Pokemon lineup post-Satoshi/Ash as evidenced by the amenities prepared inside,
- Hefty ticket price of Php1,000 per day for a weekend event at the historic Megatrade Hall, home to various events and trade shows in the metro (to wit, Php500 is already an expensive ticket price for most young con-goers), and
- Little to no support from the wider local Pokemon community because they found out who are the organizers. Not even an appearance on national TV a day prior to the 3-day weekender can help the cause if the fans figured out what other ventures the organizers have and stuck to it.
- It doesn’t help that the local community have organized their successful events – first at a venue within a popular pop culture hub, second at a mall in one of the metro’s busiest business districts.
What happened to Pokeverse – and then NijiPop – frustrates me.
I care less about what the actual organizers were doing in the past, my concern is that through their incapacity to manage their team, those who attended NijiPop in person didn’t have the best experience they deserve.
And then these frustrated participants will communicate that feeling to their friends locally and internationally. And then what, we’ll have less chances of inviting foreign guests to our country because we can’t keep our stuff together?
I’m aware of what the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions industry in Thailand and Singapore are doing plus their government’s support, and I wish their best practices get replicated well in our turf.
As the need for government support comes to this industry, we also need to sort ourselves and get more young people into learning more about the MICE profession as well as constant up-skilling. The professionals are rallying for it, doing their best efforts, sometimes without compensation, to improve the industry. These I can say with confidence.
Looking Back…
I had to ask one of my good friends whom I met from NijiPop booth during ARCHCon – I clearly forgot whom I met, but they told me it was one of the actual organizers. I was keen on covering NijiPop, except that ARCHCon was the last out-of-Manila trip I had for that year alone.
What got me interested in covering NijiPop is that they’ll invite VTubers (that’s an absolute plus in my book). They got a local partner for that, but I just checked recently with the said VTuber group, and a representative told me via email that they were forced to not proceed as there’s lack of clear communication and formal agreements. To that I say, good for them, they dodged a bullet.
NijiPop’s website also listed a partnership with the local World Cosplay Summit organizer, but it obviously did not happen as I’m told there’s only one team who signed up for a qualifier there.
If you access NijiPop’s website, it goes to a status page instead of the info I mentioned. The first update following the event is about refunds.
Lessons Learned
Given that I’m reading all the stuff I can read about NijiPop – including one in a research paper format, here’s what I can conclude:
1. Do not let anyone use your name on your behalf
One of the organizers listed on the event’s website (under the category of Key People) said:
“I regret announcing myself as a guest organizer, and see now that it is being used against me at the convenience of others. I accepted the title at the time believing I would be given more say in the planning.”
Her name and her affiliation with an overseas event gave weight to the event that was being planned at that time. However, she made it clear that:
“I gave my feedback on the guesting experience early on, but I was not involved in any of the venue decisions, ticketing, sponsorship, artist, or any other conversations my title suggested.”
At least I can confirm through my contacts that she took care of her end of the stick, managing the foreign guests, their airfare and accommodation.
As I write this piece, mentions of her on the event’s official social media page are removed. I understand that some would still be skeptic about her involvement, and so was the other person listed on the event’s website before the details were taken down. I will not delve on this matter any further.
2. Book the venue first
One of the biggest mistakes NijiPop did was to not book the venue first. They promised that the IEC Convention Center or IC3, a big venue for pop culture events, would be the home for the first NijiPop.
Months passed and they announced they’re moving the event to Gaisano-owned GMall of Cebu. In an email to exhibitors and boothing artists, they said this:
“We understand your frustration with IC3, and while the community didn’t give us the chance to improve the experience there, your feedback is reflected in our event pass sales metrics. To make NijiPop more accessible and enjoyable for everyone, we’ve chosen Gaisano Mall of Cebu as our new home!”
Refunds from artists who booked their slots were requested following the announcement. The thesis-style account of events from the event’s Social Media side said that in a meeting held April 12 this year, securing the IC3 venue proved challenging due to financial constraints.
“Instead of allocating funds for the venue, they made it their utmost priority to book flights for guests and even cover their visa expenses, excluding their talent fees. This was done despite the inadequate accommodation provided for local guests they had invited. The disparity in treatment between invited guests raises questions about the fairness of their management.”
3. Be mentally prepared for your event
Two things I noticed from multiple accounts is that the actual organizers were not mentally prepared to do this after all. What I can understand so far are:
- The actual head organizers of NijiPop are said to be unresponsive when needed, and
- They did not delegate tasks properly.
They have a responsibility to delegate tasks and check on the status from time to time. That’s the role of an organizer.
Here’s what I also read, this time from the Sponsorships side:
“Before [one of the actual organizers] went into a hiatus, he would command the 4 heads or sometimes the Sponsorship team to “Act Independent from him, and do tasks on what Niji Pop needs”.
“This left a huge inconvenience to the Team Heads and the Sponsorship team as they were left alone to fend for themselves. Although [a part of their team] tried to rally the heads and the sponsorship team, the morale and the motivation of the team was affected.”
I’m still trying to digest and understand another account from a fan event team member and this damning detail from a former friend of theirs involving one of the guests.
4. Listen to feedback from those who have organized events prior
I also understand that the actual organizers received crucial feedback from the ones they roped into this, one of them is part of a team organizing cup sleeve events in the city. Here’s their feedback:
“They still want to push with [IC3] so we gave them our comments, suggestions, concerns and thoughts on why not use [IC3]. We have given this as a point of view of people part of the community but did they listen?”
5. Don’t mess with the artists even if you’re a fellow
For the record, Cebu LitFest last year was held at the upper levels of IC3 to the dismay of those who participated in it including artists from Manila. Said event was then known as GaLitFest, and memed upon.
Sure, it adds validity to the rumors against IC3 being cursed, but the way the organizer communicated with the artists at that time was haphazardly quick to say at the least. That doesn’t convince me however that IC3 is cursed. I need more input on that part.
Back to NijiPop, some of the artists have backed out of boothing there already. One document shares:
“This is such a sh*tshow I don’t want to cross paths with them again. As an artist, this is THE MOST STRESSFUL EXPERIENCE I’VE EVER ENCOUNTERED. Not only for me but for fellow artists who have spent their time, effort and money to only get this kind of treatment.”
In conclusion
NijiPop Culture Festival’s actual organizers should have been capable of what they’re doing since they organized events before.
One question I had in mind is why are they able to set up this event when past records show people have had bad experiences against the actual organizers? A document was leaked to Facebook about that. This also links to the first lesson I pointed out, however I don’t expect to have that aspect be elaborated.
My gut feeling tells me that this is not just a simple matter, and if people looked into this enough, we may end up with a spider’s web of connections.
Those who don’t even have a hand in organizing this disaster would end up being dragged and forced to speak to defend themselves or at least clear their names out of this mess.
I am not here for that kind of rabid speculation, the kind of feeling that killed my impression of the VTuber community in English-speaking communities – I wrote what I learned and can be shared as lessons so as this won’t happen again in the first place. Repeated trauma of bad events can bring the PTSD out of people, I assume.
The academe can make a thesis out of this, con-goers will make this a bad example of how not to organize events, and by the looks of it, it’s getting memed already.
NijiPop Culture Festival now joins Pokeverse, Mackenyu Arata’s meet-and-greet at ManiPopCon, ConQuest 2023, and GoKaisho in the list of events which received negative publicity.
A good question was raised: How come this moved forward given all of these mistakes? Some who still took part in this event had their NDAs notarized, and it will be a waste of time and money if all of this was postponed or cancelled. You can call it anything else, but I call it delicadeza.
There are people who participated as staff or guests who knew the risks of proceeding and still hung on to ease the frustration of everyone, and I wanna give them a huge hug for making it through. They learned a lot more lessons than I did, which they can apply into their what-if scenarios in their own events.
NijiPop’s first entry and its sinking will be in history books, and I hope it’s the last time I’ve heard of terribly bad events.