Anime Milwaukee 2025

Anime Milwaukee seems to be an event everyone is super thrilled to get into, so I took my shot and applied for 2025. The applications opened June 15th, 2024 and closed sometime in July.

I feel like they actually get back to people fairly quickly for being in or out, especially for an event that takes place in March. Several of us got emails in September saying we were waitlisted or rejected. I was included in that list for rejection. I accepted my fate, removed the convention off my list entirely and forgot about it until January 7, 2025. I got off the waitlist and was offered a corner booth for the event. It was interesting since I had applied for both Exhibitor and Artist Alley, got rejected from Artist Alley then accepted for Artist Alley through the Exhibitors application. Either way, I was pretty excited.

Since I got in so late compared to everyone else, I had to pick a hotel far from the event center. This worked out okay since realistically everything close was really expensive anyways. This convention requires liability insurance. I found out some insurances only cover events up to 500 people (USAA/Markel). ACT seems to be the go to for a reason. We had until February 15th to get it submitted. This is like an extra $50 expense. Just had to edit my application with my tax ID (I already have a Wisconsin tax ID because of MadEx earlier in 2024, so I was all set.) and submit the insurance PDF. I was a little confused initially since they wanted us to add them but it wasn't something that came up until further in the application.

Before the Event & Setup
There was some confusion early on about the insurance situation from ACT. Most of us only purchased it for 3 days, meaning we could only set up on Friday morning instead of Thursday. My setup is quick so I wasn't very concerned in the end. We arrived at the hotel on Thursday evening. That was more of a disaster than anything. We stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Milwaukee West which wasn't super far away. I want to say it was about a 10-15 minute drive from the convention center and it was nearby to two Caribou Coffees (which is my favorite coffee of the moment). 

The hotel seemed okay from the outside, but the real kicker was inside the room the bathroom door just didn't close. It was one of those sliding doors where you think you're closing it and it will just slide back open. Not great haha. Thankfully I didn't share a hotel with friends this time and it was just with my family. I don't even think it ever closed fully no matter how much you tried. They also didn't ever seem to check the shampoo. It was low to begin with but was completely empty by Saturday night. There was also some sort of dance event going on at the same time, so our hotel was a mix of con-goers and dance competition guests.

Unrelated, but there seemed to be an issue with the water in the local area where it made our skin dry. Not sure if it's always like that or it was the time of the year etc. I have no clue but something I'm reflecting a lot about now that we're back home. 

People who had set up on Thursday ended up being allowed to do so regardless of the ACT insurance issue. Apparently AMKE had requested a 4 day insurance but they never made it for the event. We'll see if it's an issue next year, but I am glad they let people load in despite that. We still set up on Friday morning after coffee.

Friday's hours were 1pm-8pm, so we had plenty of time to set up. We arrived around 8:12am to the loading dock area. It was a lot easier to locate than everyone made it seem. They have a little button you have to press to contact security to be allowed in. 


Once we were buzzed in, we drove to the top of the convention center to unload. They had sprinkled it with salt because it was going to snow later, so it was a little annoying. It got all over the wheels, our shoes and the floor of the vehicle. The exhibit hall was Hall A, so we parked by the ramp and walked inside. Since I'm a small nobody vendor, it took us like two trips to bring everything in.

The rule was once you were unloaded, you needed to go move your vehicle. We got our badges then parked the rental.

We actually dropped our stuff off at the table before heading to get our badges. The registration table was on the other side of the room from where we came in. It was $69.40 to add an extra badge for my daughter. 

Parking for the event was $37.77 a day (which is a lot if you ask me). We parked at the Baird Center itself. If you're in walking distance from a hotel in the area or can park in a cheaper location within walking distance, that's probably a better bet. The parking ramp is located in this tunnel labeled Baird Center. 


The table was a corner, which I think is a premium table, but it came with 2 badges, two 6 foot tables and 2 chairs. I will say we had 4 chairs all weekend so not sure who exactly left their chairs with us. The person behind us wasn't there so we moved our tables some so we could enter and exit from the end instead of being forced to exit through the middle. Having one entrance was not the best move but we saw the two rows down from us had a middle opening so we copied that. No one said anything about it all weekend and it made all of us on that end much happier the whole weekend. 


I forgot I had a corner table and managed to completely forget anything to cover my booth with so we had to quickly figure out something else. We opted to only use my banner on what we considered the mail aisle since it didn't drape well over the corner. Without two table cloths, it was better to just set everything on the table.

I will say I quickly grew to love having a corner since it allowed me to use my Panic Puffs as a bright beacon to draw people over to my booth. I didn't have any real plans on how to set everything up. One day I may learn to prepare better, but I think it turned out pretty well considering the lack of planning. I was quite satisfied with how this turned out. We sold out of all the Murphy plush pretty quickly and I wish I had considered building more racks of pins so I had them on both sides. Notes for future me if I manage to get a corner table again in the future.




We started around 8:47am and finished around noon. We found a place about 4 minutes walking distance from the convention center and decided to give it a shot. The place was called Major Goolsby's since it had pretty good ratings. It was basically just bar food, but it was actually very good. They took our order and got to the food to us very quickly and we were able to pay quickly after we finished. We had about 20 minutes to get back to the venue and prepare for customers. 

Despite also checking before we left Thursday, my Square terminal decided to update 10 minutes before 1pm when everyone was going to be in. Thankfully we were in the back of the hall so it took people a little bit to get back to where we were.

The Event Itself
The traffic was not as slow as I had anticipated, but there were a lot of people who were browsing at my booth, squeezing the puffer fish and commenting on how cute everything was. That's nothing unusual anyways, but important to note. I didn't make tons of money on Friday, but did make back my table and daughter's added badge cost. Sometimes I wish I would always participate in stamp rallies since they do bring people to my booth. I had ribbons designed for Momocon and Detour but didn't get anything ordered in time for this event.

We were planning to meet Wisparia, her husband and her friend, Curious Nature at 3rd Street Market Hall after the event. The place was pretty packed and we were unable to find them or sit with them for food early on. Initially I thought it was pretty good. My husband and I at the BBQ place, Smokin' Jack's BBQ, while my daughter had a hot dog from Dawg City. We ran into Wisparia's husband at Dairyland when we were getting a desert and went back to hang out with them to chat for a bit. After that, we headed back to the hotel to crash.

Saturday was my best day of the weekend. We actually started it off looking for donuts since that seemed like a great unhealthy morning treat. There was a donut place with a very high rating called Grebe's Bakery that wasn't too far away. They had a line, but it was so worth it! The donuts were quite large, so we only got half a dozen to last us Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Did our usual coffee run after then headed to the event!



I doubled my sales from Friday, made most of my sales around the time we were trying to eat lunch and then again around dinner time before it finally tapered off by 6pm. It was so busy! I actually wish I had more exciting stuff to talk about but people just kept coming by rather consistently, even when I was trying to eat. I got to see a TON of corgi pictures and I appreciate all the artists, staff, customers etc who stopped by to say hi!

Lizbie stopped by during the event since it was her husband's birthday weekend to see if we could all have dinner somewhere fun as a group of 10. We tried to go to 3rd Street Market again, but it was so packed we couldn't find anywhere to sit. Since we had 3 people we left them to enjoy things together and went to a place called Doc's Smokehouse right across the street from the convention center. The owner of the restaurant actually ended up serving us and they had plenty of long tables for groups (notes for the future!). It was extremely good. We got cheese curds, brisket, ribs, baked beans and the mac & cheese. My husband wasn't thrilled with the mac & cheese, so maybe we recommend everything but that. Also had a cream soda float we shared and oreo pie. Either way, we were so full by the time we were going to head back to the convention center to actually enjoy the event some.

So the gaming room was on the same level as the exhibit/vendor hall. It was a little further down but it was in such a large space! I have been to other events where the gaming space was pretty depressing, but they did such a good job with this event. So many games were busy and taken, so we tried a few of them before heading over to the console area.



I wasn't super sure what to even play and my family didn't really have ideas or suggestions so we just sat down and played some Super Smash Bros. A few random attendees also joined us and it was great. We played a few rounds then got up and looked for other things. They had some fighting game tournament going on or something at the time as well. I don't know if you needed to check out controllers or not, but we decided to just go play crane games instead afterwards. 



My daughter is a complete pro at the crane games. Somehow she kept winning. She got around six plushies before they came around to refill it. She was ready to try and get one of the cats she finally moved enough stuff out of the way to retrieve. I asked if we could just trade two of the plush she didn't want at all for the one she wanted and they let us. Heck yeah.

I definitely was wondering how much they paid for all of these since each play was $1 and it wasn't that difficult to get the claw to latch onto them. Either way, it was super fun for all of us and worth the price of entertainment. We called it a night once she got the plush she wanted and we got our fill of pinball.

Sunday morning was nice. We got there early to walk around and scope out the wares, but since it was also daylight savings time, a lot of people showed up later than usual. We got to buy a few things before heading back to our booth at least. The people in charge of this event really curated it very nicely. There wasn't a single 3D print vendor we noticed either (which is one of my biggest gripes haha).

Sales were actually quite good on Sunday. I nearly made as much as I did on Saturday even though it felt a lot slower.

I had one weird interaction where someone came by and asked me who my plush manufacturer was, I told him and he said he may contact me but I guess he ran a promotional company. He also asked if the plush were my own design. I mentioned it to my manufacturer when I got home as well so who knows what will come of it but I didn't understand what his end game was. Asked several questions and didn't buy anything. My husband said he was shaking as he was asking me like he was nervous.

Also shout out to Cheaneulle from Remi Rose Kritters for recommending me! You're a rockstar and I appreciate you so much! Staff told me that was the whole reason I was selected from the waitlist.

They made sure we knew that in order to use the loading dock we had to have our booth mostly packed up in order to get a pass to use the loading dock. My booth has no organization outside of "everything goes in a box". So when we tear down it just goes into bags and boxes. We sold all but like 3 corgi plush which removed an entire box from being filled back up. We were able to get everything outside in one trip with the three of us. Packed the car up much more easily and left. 

I think at this point I want to do away with the wagon. It's clunky, has giant wheels and really doesn't shrink down small enough to really fit well in a vehicle. 

What Worked & What Did Not
Load-in and load-out were extremely easy. The load in was on the top floor of the convention center so you just drove up, parked near the ramp and walked into the hall. Loading out they required you to be 80% packed up before they gave you a dock pass so that vendors and artists weren't clogging it up forever. 

Not being able to bring food in was really the only terrible part. The food was overpriced as expected but also not very good. We had a burnt but also cold pizza one day. Water was easily accessible at least. There are loads of cheaper, better restaurants literally across the road from the con center and I bet they knew it. 

The number of vendors & artists felt appropriate for the size of the event.

Aisles were wide enough to navigate, which is important. There were plenty of people with canes and wheelchairs as well as the normal stop and take photos sort of groups. They also reminded people regularly NOT to stop in the aisles so the flow of traffic wouldn't be a problem.

Trash cans were accessible at every cross point.

Staff was friendly and always checked in on us throughout the weekend. 

Conclusion
The event was so well run I really hope I get invited back in 2026. I don't usually plan to reapply to things every year, but between the corner booth, the attendees, the activities at the convention and staff - I really would like to return. Artist selection was also stellar, which also means I probably won't return since ideally they probably want to have some variety.

The Details (TLDR)

Event: Anime Milwaukee (AMKE) 2025
Dates: March 7-9, 2025
Location: Baird Center,  400 W Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53203
Hours: Friday 1pm-8pm, Saturday 10am-7pm & Sunday 10am-4pm CST
Total Vendors: 273 
Attendance: 15,461
Travelworthy: Decent for the midwest area. Probably not worth flying in for unless your other expenses are low. 
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Booth Cost: $372.27 (+$69.40 for an extra badge)
Total Sales: $2,083.33 (this is before all costs are taken out)
Transaction Fees: $48.60
Taxes: $144.44
Total Profit: $1,448.62