Anime Festival Asia (AFA), worth a trip?

[Satsuki]

So I'm going back to Vietnam for holiday soon, and my flight will transit at Singapore for about 20 hours, "coincidentally" on the same day as the beginning of Anime Festival Asia in Singapore. Since I have never been to an anime convention before (freaking Auckland get everything, while Wellington - capital city - get nothing...), I have quite a bit of interest in this, but I'm just wondering, will it be as fun as I imagine, or will it just be a waste of time, and I should just tour around the city instead?

I would love to hear some opinions from people who have been there before, or better, a Singaporean Fuwan.

Edited November 13, 2016 by Satsuki

[Limerence_]

I've went to Singapore's AFA from 2012-2014. 

I only bought the exhibition ticket each time I went (15~ SGD iirc), so there were no concerts or anything. I've never went to any other anime convention before so I can't really compare the quality of Singapore's AFA to other conventions. 

You basically enter a huge hall with various booths (You have to queue up to buy things from the larger booths) selling all kinds of merch. However, some of the queues are really long (I think I had to queue for about 20 minutes for the longer ones) before I could even enter the booth. 

I'm not too sure about this, but the price of the stuff there don't really differ from the shops outside. There's usually an entire row of booths for fans to sell doujins, posters, badges, and those kind of things if you're interested in them.

Of course, there would be a ton of cosplayers too.

I would say my experience there was pretty fun. However, it's mainly because I've always gone there with my friends. That made all the queuing and squeezing (it's usually pretty crowded) worth it. 

Honestly, I would only recommend going if you're going with friends or people you know. As for the quality of concerts and performances, I can't really talk about them because I've never attended them (since you've got to pay way more to watch them).  

Hope this helps 

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by Limerence_