Anime Festival Asia Managing Director Shawn Chin Keeps it Community Focused at AFA CSF23

During our time at AFA Creators Super Fest 2023 (AFA CSF23) that happened over the weekend, we got to chat with a familiar face in Shawn Chin, SOZO Founder & Managing Director of Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in an interview.

Shawn Chin is the founder and managing director of Anime Festival Asia, the region’s largest and longest-running Japanese Pop Culture Event which has been around for about 15 years now.

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Interview is edited for clarity

Organising A Convention

Given how organising an anime convention requires meticulous planning and coordination; we asked Shawn Chin if he could shed some light on the whole process of bringing an event like this to life.

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Shawn mentions that having the right team in place is very crucial. He also said that they’ve done many shows in the past and doing events is a lot of practising. Shawn takes the things that worked well and what didn’t into accord, saying that it’s like organic growth.

Having done this for about 15 years with AFA, Shawn said that they had the time to slowly adjust what works until what it is today.

Appealing to Different Fandoms

ACG (Anime, Comics & Games) conventions usually attract diverse attendees with different interests. We asked Shawn how they create a balanced programmes that appeal to different fandoms.

“It depends on the title because a lot of content for example, it may start its life as a manga then it becomes an anime, then becomes a game. Or nowadays, a lot of games, it starts off as a game then becomes [an] anime.”

Shawn mentions that in order to curate, they try to do more than just selling merchandise or just having a guest. Instead, they try to provide a more 360 approach for the content that they want to focus on.

Challenges of Organising an Event

Convention logistics can be quite complex, especially when there’s a large crowd with numerous activities. We asked Shawn what were some of the biggest challenges that he had faced when organising an event like AFA CSF23.

“Crowd control is always challenging, definitely. Especially I think after covid, you see that the attendees are coming back even more. So, a lot of shows especially after covid starting from end of last year till this year, most of them are getting record numbers. That continues to [be] one focus for us on how to manage the queue. How to provide a good experience for the attendees when they come to our show.”

Shawn also mentions that they try not to oversell tickets, on top trying not to over-plan things and only do things as much as they can do.

One example that he brought up was them organising events at Suntec every year to see how they’re able to improve the experience. He also mentions that AFA CSF23 was a big learning curve considering it’s different from the usual AFA events as it focuses on the community.

Providing a Safe Environment

Cosplayers and Artists are a significant part of ACG events. We asked Shawn how they support all these creators to ensure they have a safe an enjoyable environment during the event.

To which Shawn Chin replied with maintaining safety is their top priority. One example he brought up was with the Cosplay Hub and how they would position their booths in a way that there’s both a buffer space and queuing space so that the lines wouldn’t get too overwhelmed and hectic.

Maintaining a Connection with the Community

The final question we asked Shawn was that given how important community engagement is with events, what were the efforts taken to foster and maintain the sense of community among the attendees.

Shawn said that they try to identify what’s trending and what’s popular within the community in terms of content titles or activities and try to curate them. He mentions that a lot of events would just do it based on commercial dealings.

“Of course we need money so we get sponsors but we try to balance it to what sponsors pay for, and at the same time what we try to curate and invest for our customers and the community.”

When talking about community, Shawn mentions that AFA CSF23 was organised with the community in mind. That’s because AFA, the event that they do in November at Suntec has a limit for the community element, given that they have huge commercial elements in there; with big brands, booths and the like.

Shawn says that the creation of AFA CSF23 was from the idea of taking the community part from AFA and making an entire event from that. He continues by saying that AFA will continue to be the place where brands or the industry showcase their stuff, and hopefully they would also be able to continue the trend of having this event every year to focus more on the community side.

“We try to give a platform for creators to showcase themselves and try to showcase their works, which may or may not be able to fit in AFA.”