This past weekend, I attended Hype Con 2025 as a fellow TGON writer for the first time! I had gone once before during September of last year on my own and left happy with the experience and utterly satisfied with the nerdy merch I was able to buy. This time around, I had the pleasure of sharing the lively energy of this convention by going with a few friends. While this 2025 experience came with some differences, the event itself delivered just as much fun and more!
Pulling into the Santa Clara Convention Center, the first thing we noticed was how the line had already wrapped around the entire building. While this was a normal sight for me having attended this event before, even I was caught off guard when we actually joined and saw as it later wrapped around in different ways with how long it was getting. Taking a look at the parking lot next to us, we all realized that finding a way to get dropped off at this event is the best option. Parking was inevitably taken up completely by the look of things. At the same time, though, I couldn’t help but appreciate the apparel of the others joining in. From adults to even little babies, almost half of the attendees were wearing some kind of fandom merch to show off what they loved. It was a personally delightful sight to distract from the wait, especially when I saw people wearing merch for the shows I liked. In general though, just the same as last year, the line wasn’t a huge stressor as it ended up moving impressively fast once the doors opened.
Once we got inside, we received paper Hype Con wristbands as well as 2 tickets to participate in the raffle at our convenience. This time, my friends’ willingness to participate allowed me to see how the raffle worked and what they were offering. I stood by their side as they wrote their names down on their tickets then placed them into the full clear boxes. Each one represented an item they had on display behind the raffle table. The most enticing prize that one of my friends tried their luck on was a special Pokemon figurine. With other prizes and apparent opportunities to win smaller items such as stickers, it was actually pretty cool to take a proper look at what Hype Con’s raffle had to offer.
As we kept walking, we took a look at some of the stands selling all kinds of trading cards – mainly Pokemon and One Piece by my observations. I’m not too big into card games, but I will admit it was cool to see a lot of them up close in such professional display cases. However, it was also shocking to see that prices can go up to $700 for certain individual cards! It served as such an enlightening reminder of just how big and serious trading card culture truly is.
Afterwards, we went over to a long table for a crowded stand selling a variety of different nerdy items where, at the end of it, I was able to see the sneakers that were on sale. While I was only able to spot a few of them, it was still enticing to take a look at what was offered there. After this, we walked around a bit more and ran into some other stands selling beautiful handmade jewelry at pretty decent prices. Nearby, there were also some stands selling interesting looking vintage toys. All of which served as a small, yet eye-catching taste as to what Hype Con had to offer on this day.
Soon enough, we then found ourselves at Hype Con’s artist alley section! To my surprise, this section had been placed right by the convention center’s entrance – the opposite side of where it was last year. This made it a lot more convenient to get to right away as this was the part of the con I was most excited about and the part we all engaged with the most. Walking past all the stands, I saw all kinds of handcrafted merch themed after my favorite anime, shows, and movies. There were prints, patches, keychains, crochet plushies, embroidered sweaters, and so much more! All of which were super exciting to see.
One of the most memorable stands we ran into was run by Imperfecto Art, who had a plethora of jean jackets with different anime characters hand painted so beautifully on the backs of them. They were also selling anime themed rugs next to a small TV screen that showed the time lapse video of how they made them which was super cool to see. After leaving their stand, we came up to another one run by Rehana Is Crafty, the owner of which was super nice. She also had such a cute Mario Bros art print dedicated to the power-ups which I almost ended up purchasing.
In fact, there were a few other artists I was very tempted to buy from as well. This included Misul Studios who sold stylish accessories with funny phrases on them and Komun Horangi who sold keychains and standees of characters from one of my favorite anime, Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. They also sold the cutest My Hero Academia stickers, among other products for a wide variety of other shows and anime I liked. Though, for the time being, I had placed all these shops on my mental list to come back to.
My first official purchase actually started with the stand for Otaku Dose. While one of my friends was asking the owners about their art and how they make their products, I was looking around at their display and saw the cutest sticker of P-Chan from Ranma ½! As a sticker collector, I bought this one on the spot considering how rare it is to find any merch for Ranma ½ at cons or even anywhere online. The guy who sold it to me was also very nice and even put the sticker inside a cute little envelope with the Otaku Dose signature written in pencil. Putting it into my bag made me so happy before venturing off to find other stands, where I found Strawberry Soft. Everything about their shop was simply so cute! They sold mini magnets, pins, and hairclips with adorable designs all made from clay with a glossy finish. I ended up purchasing a pink hair clip with a little charm of hello kitty holding a heart as well as 4 small magnets – a bear cookie, a heart, a rubber ducky, and a pastel-colored rainbow. With their wide selection of different designs, I took a bit of time to choose which items I liked best, but the owner was super patient and even kind enough to point out the lower priced bundles they were offering. Interacting with all these artists and viewing all the cool merch on display for the first time was definitely one of the immediate highlights of my Hype Con experience.
Making our way over to see the rest of the convention center, we all turned our heads to see the line of special guest booths where all the voice actors sat interacting with fans. It was pretty exciting to see all those voice actors in person and how lively their area looked amidst all the other events happening around it. As for opportunities to sell your pops, there were only a few Funko pop stands making offers last year, but this time around we spotted a lengthy table behind us completely dedicated to selling rare pops as well as trading cards too. So, if you have any collectables you think are rare that you’d like to cash in, Hype Con is the place to do it! Soon after, we made our way to the other side of the convention center where we saw a wide range of different stands selling everything from Funko pops to Sanrio trinkets. In the middle of exploring this booming section, to my surprise, we also ran into some parked Cybertrucks right near the food area. While it caught me off guard, it was a pretty memorable part of the con as people got to sit in them and take a rest or engage in a few nerdy activities such as playing video games with friends.
After this, though, we rested for a while ourselves at one of the table sections and took a moment to share all our purchases. This is also where I got to see everyone’s amazing cosplay and really take in the K-Pop music that had been playing all throughout the con coming from the far away area where they were now doing K-Pop dance tutorials. When it comes to this part of the convention, I always love hearing the different styles of so many K-Pop songs and the cheers of how much fun everyone seems to be having while dancing to each one. On top of this, the table section is also where everyone tends to converse about the different trading cards they bought and see how they fare in the games by playing a few rounds – which was also super fun to see!
We continued onward from here and took a proper look at the K-Pop section where they had a ton of stands selling all kinds of cool merch! Think Artist Alley but completely dedicated to K-Pop groups and their members. While I’m not an avid K-Pop listener, I enjoy this section for their K-pop journaling supplies as I like to use them for anime journaling. In terms of that, I saw a couple of cute journals as well as stickers and washi tape sold at the Insieme Together stand that could make one’s journaling work super pretty! The most eye-catching items on display at the rest of the booths were photo cards and polaroids of various K-Pop groups, handmade figures, and plushies for BT21. Visually, everything was both aesthetically pleasing and adorable to look at. As I neared the end looking around this section, the winner of the cosplay contest could be heard over the speakers for all to hear in a grand announcement. While I imagined the moment of glory for the person who won, it seemed a generally worthwhile experience for everyone else too since it was announced that they also received a prize for participating!
After this, I ended up making my way back to the Artist Alley section to purchase the keychains of the three main characters from Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun at Komun Horangi’s stand after much personal debate. While I often get this way at Artist Alleys, especially for keychains as I have so many already, I just couldn’t resist how adorable they looked in their art style – not to mention how hard it is to find merch for this anime as well. Telling the seller all of this as I purchased them also made for quite the rewarding interaction as it seemed to have enticed her to watch the anime herself. I am glad to say that I was totally happy after buying them and enjoyed showing them off to one of my friends once I caught up with them
Finally, we both caught up with our other friend who had been at a trading card stand carefully choosing a few Lorcana cards to purchase. I watched as she had her own fruitful conversations with the seller while also taking a peek into the world of Lorcana myself by sifting through her selection. My appreciation for the designs and pristine layout of information encouraged me to take a look at what other Lorcana cards had to offer at different stands we visited. Starting and ending with this fascination for the world of card games served as a full circle experience before embarking on our journey home once the con had finished.
Overall, I’d say I had a great time at this year’s Hype Con! With so many fandoms and aspects of nerdy culture to explore, there’s always something new to discover. This is especially true for the handmade items you’ll find considering that, for the most part, the vendors seem to change with every event. While it is only a one day convention, if you make your way around the building fast enough, you’ll be able to see everything that it has to offer. It’s the perfect place to take family and friends for a good time if they’re into anything pop culture. While they don’t have a schedule out just yet, you can always check their website for the date of their next event or follow them on Facebook and Instagram for updates. If everything I’ve mentioned seems like a good time, it’s totally worth going to the next Hype Con event if you’re a bay area local. With its support of a wide variety of interests, you’re sure to have an experience that uplifts your nerdy side!
