Dealer’s Hall @ FanimeCon 2019

X marks the spot! Treasures abound at FanimeCon’s dealer’s hall, where you can find hundreds of vendors with a wide variety of loot from your favorite anime or popular brands. They also have food in this hall too because shopping so hard works up an appetite!

Here’s a list of some things I saw in this year’s dealer’s hall:

Plushies (Pokemon plushies were very popular!)
Scrolls or posters that depict your favorite anime
Vinyl decals and stickers
T-shirts and other clothing
DVDs/Blu-ray and video games
Manga and art books
Figurines
Toys
Swords and other cosplay items

This is a great place to look for more generic posters or items from your favorite anime. I had been eyeing a couple blu-rays and finally decided to pull the trigger. Plus, there were directors and voice actors from these shows present at the Con that I wanted to get autographs from.

Pro tip: If you come to the dealer’s hall on Monday (e.g., the last day of the Con), the vendors usually have larger discounts. The only drawback to this strategy is that they might run out of what you want. If you’re willing to chance it, this is the way to get the best deal.

This dealer’s hall can get a little crowded with peak times during the middle of the day on Saturday and Sunday, but I never felt packed in like a sardine the way I have at larger conventions (e.g. NYCC 2018). I do wish this hall was a little bigger. With a bigger hall, they could fit a wider variety of vendors and have more space for folks to walk. Of course, this is just my ideal situation and really a common piece of feedback for large conventions. This also speaks to the growing popularity of Fanime. I think the size of this hall was more than adequate for the number of people who attended FanimeCon in 2019. I trust that the convention organizers will continue to find creative ways to use what space they have.

While sometimes a little busy and overwhelming, the dealer’s hall is the place to shop around for that item you’ve have been eyeing from your favorite anime or to find something that you didn’t know you wanted like a sweet vinyl decal of the Kodama (tree spirits) from Princess Mononoke or a glorious Goku figurine. I left this year’s dealer’s hall with a few treasures and I do not at all regret the effort and money spent finding them.