>>5366From what I understand it's just speculation. The way the artist alley is planned is weird, it's divided in several sections/locations based on the artists' main incomes and if the money comes from art or from another job. Then if they'rd considered eligible for the "amateur booths" they're not allowed to sell anything for more than 12€ despite inflation getting worse and worse for years after that price point was decided by organizers. Artists who are considered as getting enough money from their art all year long need to pay a shit ton of money for their tables, they don't get to choose their categories but they can sell what they want for the prices of their choice. These two or three categories are in separate locations for no reason at all. I think organizers are more focused on professional companies coming in and paying for their own spaces compared to random artists because it brings in more money and they assume there will always be artists willing to pay insane prices. Mind you these artists sometimes deal with people stealing from their tables in the middle of the night and last year someone pooped in the middle of the artist alley, somehow. I wasn't there because of the olympic games ruining Paris and its surroundings for the entire year (and other big cities because rich Parisians started fleeing very early on and annoying the fuck out me in my own city) so this is mostly based on the two times I visited the con and what's said online by visitors. Another guess is that Japan Expo organizers are worried about customs barging in again and confiscating and destroying goods from artists in the artist alley and the professional spaces. I heard it happened in the middle of the con in 2018 or 2019 at least. However I don't really believe it because nobody cares about obvious figurine bootlegs from shops that come back to most French cons every single year despite complaints from visitors.
Based on guests these past years it seems organizers don't give a fuck in general anymore. They bring in big names and lots of people nobody cares about except 50 and 60 years old nerds who think anything older than Saint Seiya, City Hunter and Dragon Ball is zoomer shit that doesn't matter, no wonder they wouldn't really care about what's going on in the artist alley. I swear when I was a poor teenager who wasn't allowed to travel anywhere alone they had the best
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