Overview

We were selected for the first time to sell at Kitsune Kon in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This blog covers our experiences with setup, expenses for the event and opinions about the event itself.

Applications, Payments & Planning

I don't remember when applications for Kitsune Kon opened, but I applied on September 1, 2024 alongside several others. People were saying how good of an event it was in 2024, so figured I would try my shot at it. I did not get anything letting me know that my application went through.

On November 6, 2024 I got an email saying I had been accepted. The invoice was sent the same day and I paid it. Wisconsin state law requires people to fill out the form S-240. They did attach it in the email so we didn't have to hunt it down. I printed it out and sent in a photo of it. The invoice had to be paid within 30 days, so if you apply but can't pay immediately you do have some time. I just like to pay quickly so I don't forget. I believe you had to also submit the S-240 or you would still lose your spot. I printed my form but forgot to email it until November 20. We had until December 6, 2024 to get it submitted, so I was cutting it pretty close. I also already have a Wisconsin tax account and just make payments after the events so I don't forget.

On December 24, 2024, they announced on their Facebook page that they were expanding their vendor and artist hall. People who didn't get in were pretty happy with this but people who had gone in 2024 were concerned. Expanding any area with vendors and not a huge increase in attendance means reduced sales most of the time.

After that, there weren't any emails again until June 22, 2025. We received one with information for setup. They were formatting poorly but contained a lot of information at least. Badge pickup was located right outside of the exhibit hall, so it was nicely located at least.

I also liked that they included a map of the parking areas which I didn't notice when I was initially looking things over. The parking to the left and right of the convention center were mainly for the hotels that were connected.

My table assignment was M1, so I was right by the entrance. Wisparia was across from me at A7. I knew so many people who got accepted into this event. Radiant Grey was at A8, Nakama Nerd-op at A9. TomoCreations was at A11. I didn't know Claire Doolittle Illustration until later on Friday at the event, but she was at W8. Rsenic Rin and Enrique Draws ended up on the other side of the room in W9 and W11 respectively. Enrique actually was asked to move before the actual event so ended up in F4 instead. Apparently the vendor that was supposed to be there wasn't going to make it.

I guess it is worth noting that spots on this map did not stick for everyone for a variety of reasons. Enrique Draws was hosting a stamp rally but people were unaffected by the change of his spot.

Other people I knew at the event even if I didn't really talk to them much/at all: Bluuuo Art who was E9 but ended up more isolated from the rest of the tables in the end, Amanda Nelson Design Co at M14 who was rooming with us but we didn't really see as much as I thought we would all weekend, Mizorey Ren at A3, TrashieArt at M13 and CatBat Art at E14 which was a really nice sort of corner spot. I also saw Purple Kitten Studios next to CatBat at S11.

If I forgot you, I am super sorry! I tried to get everyone I could remember.

Before the Event & Setup

Somehow Hertz messed up our car rental, so we had to pivot and plan to bring our WRX instead of having an SUV. Guess we saved on rental fees at least. We drove to the event on Thursday afternoon. I think we left around 2/2:30pm since it's only a 4 and a half-hour drive for us. Originally I was planning to leave later, like 4pm or so, but decided to leave sooner and try to set up on Thursday night instead of waiting until Friday morning. We arrived around 7:30pm and I tried to check into the wrong hotel. If you input the convention center, it takes you to the Hyatt technically? For anyone unfamiliar, like myself, the convention center is connected to a Hampton Inn and a Hyatt Regency hotel. It's a pretty interesting setup I guess. Either way, I guess it was a common problem since they couldn't find me in the system then asked if I was actually at the other hotel. I guess after a long day of packing things then driving, my brain didn't immediately register that I didn't plug Hyatt into the GPS nor is Hyatt part of Hilton which is where I reserve so I can get points. Either way, I apologized and went back to the vehicle where we drove like one entrance down to the Hampton Inn.

I won't be doing this for most of my blogs, but since people have decided blogs are useless without numbers, here ya go! My hotel was Hampton Inn Downtown Green Bay. We checked in Thursday evening and we left on Sunday, but Amanda Nelson Design Co and her husband were checking out Monday morning. The total came to $873.18 which we split. So our cost was about $436.59 each. I know some people divide the room by people. I do it by beds because I'm not exactly going to be packing any room we're in to the brim and we've only roomed with couples. We brought an air mattress for our daughter to sleep on. I do want to note while this mostly worked, this room was really too small for the size of air mattress we brought.

Anyways, we finally got checked into the correct hotel. I guess they have some sort of parking system you are supposed to scan but when I checked in they were like oh just bring the this tag they will be putting on your vehicle in the morning to the counter and don't worry about it. I have no idea what they did on their end but our car didn't get towed, so that's a win in my book.

Hyatt was nicer, but I think staying at Hampton Inn worked better in our favor as artists loading in. The hotel door was literally right across the street from the load in and registration check in for the event. I took a photo the next morning from the car so I could show how close it was. I also didn't have to move my car all weekend because everything you could want was in walking distance.

I also want to note that there was a really big parking garage across from the convention center. I don't usually stay at whatever hotel is connected to the convention centers if any even are, so for those people who are more like me, this is worth probably taking note of. I wasn't nice enough to think ahead and see how much it was to park unfortunately.

Either way, we walked our whole 3 boxes from the vehicle into the convention center to try and do a quick basic setup. I ran into a few problems pretty quickly. First off, always check what you paid for before you check in. I didn't until I started writing my blog this morning. People kept telling me all weekend that their table was only $150 so that was cheap, which it is. I knew I paid $170 since I noted it on my spreadsheet but I guess it didn't click until I was writing this that I did in fact already pay for an extra badge for my daughter. So I went to registration and my envelope only had 2 badges in it, so my mind went oh okay I guess I didn't pay for a badge for my kid after all. I paid the $20 in cash, which now sucks because I didn't get a receipt or any proof at all that I paid for it. I actually hate paying in cash because there is no paper trail. I basically paid for 2 extra badges, so total my table cost me $190 since I didn't double check before just handing them cash. Never had this happen before, but worth noting.

We also got to pick a random dinosaur from the bucket. I picked the one that glows in the dark apparently. The coolest one of course.

Anyways, got the badges then went to bring everything inside. I knew my table was by the door based on the map, making this the easiest load in I have ever had. Except they apparently set it up backwards. So M1 was swapped with M10. Now imagine if I had not come and set up on Thursday and waited until Friday. I would have been at the back instead of the front. I went to ask the staff if I could set up where the map stated I was setting up and they let us, we just had to go swap the tag that was on the table with the other one.

So after all that it was getting late, so we just set up some of the grids and went to go grab some food. A lot of places closed around 10pm and it was nearly 9pm by the time we finished setting up what we did set up. Since we didn't get checked into the correct hotel until 8pm, we didn't have a ton of time to set up and eat.

I really didn't think much about it being a Thursday, but Kenny found this cool looking restaurant with an arcade called Player 2. It reminded me a lot of Starcade in St Paul except it had fewer games and a lot more alcohol. It was in walking distance and open pretty late. I didn't really appreciate this much at the time, but Green Bay has a lot in walking distance. I am going to just go ahead and acknowledge the issue we definitely caused by going to eat at this place at almost 9pm, but we were hungry and just kind of assumed it would be fast. We ordered at like 9pm and got our food around 9:30 give or take.

It took a bit longer than expected, but I think maybe they didn't realize that a convention was going to be happening so it was really busy. They had one bartender and one person cooking all the food. I know I was impatient at the time, but looking back that made a lot more sense. Either way, we were also kind of in a hurry because we just wanted food and everything in the area was a bar. It kind of sucks that a place with arcade games would be 21+ after 7pm, but it was more a bar than a restaurant anyways but we didn't know that initially. I also noticed it had good ratings so maybe their food is normally better or people who are drunk are rating it, but just.. keep in mind that I would not really classify this as good. It was okay. We just had burgers and they weren't too bad, just very ... drippy.

We didn't get to play any games since you needed to go to the bartender who was too busy to even let us get drinks of any sort, so we also couldn't get coins. Not sure why they didn't just have some sort of token dispenser, but it is what it is. I got some photos of some of the games they had. The pin ball games had people at them the whole time we were there, so I never got photos of them.

Rsenic Rin and Enrique Draws ate at their hotel in Northland called Poke the Bear. They got a pizza and rated it a 0/10. I guess maybe do not eat there haha.

The walk back to the hotel was mostly nice even though there were a ton of gnats. Amanda and Ray arrived at the same time we did.

Anyways, time for a Thursday night photo dump. Also, while the food was okay, I would recommend other places over this one.

We woke up early on Friday morning but since we couldn't set up until 9am anyways, we decided to look for coffee. Caribou Coffee and Starbucks were both too far for us to want to walk so we decided to try some of the more local places. We went to a place called The Creamery and got coffee. Apparently Enrique was there too but I don't know if it was before we got there or after we left. Either way, he agreed that it was very good. I got a S'mores iced latte and my daughter just got some chocolate milk. We walked back to the hotel to kill some time since it wasn't 9am yet.

I want to also note that the water in Green Bay actually has what looked like algae blooms in it. Either way it's gross. People were even fishing there... yeah.

Something I forgot to note about our hotel when we checked in was that they gave us green bands and told us that is how we were supposed to get breakfast. I didn't think we'd be using our bands so I just told them we needed 3 and left it at that. I don't like breakfast food and figured if it was anyone, it would be my husband or daughter and Amanda and her husband eating. Since my daughter wasn't interested in anything, my husband decided he wanted a waffle, which my daughter confidently decided to make him. It was very amusing. We didn't have green bands with us and they didn't check or seem to care. I'm not even sure what the point was since you couldn't get into the hotel before a certain time without a card anyways. Amanda said that they never cared when they were eating so not sure what the point was in the end.

We went to setup around 9am. My husband was working remotely so he was busy, my kid was drawing and I was getting my pins put up until it was nearly lunch time. I liked that the bathroom, well for women anyways, was immediately out the door to the right from where we were located.

I also really liked that the water was directly across from us. They randomly replaced it throughout the weekend which was also nice. Since I was across from this, I didn't bother to take note if there were water fountains anywhere. I know there was one more of these in the back near Bluuuo Art.

I think I sort of regret my table set up some. With people coming in from the entrance but my booth side facing the door, I opted to just put the banner facing the door instead of forward. I definitely need to design a table cloth that covers all four sides at some point since my gray one is boring. Everything costs so much money! People have really been upping their booth games and I still can't even decide what prices to set for in person events because people just scoff at what I charge. I did have more stuff out than what the photos show, but I guess I never bothered to take anymore photos of my table throughout the event.

I think a full color backdrop or something would help draw more attention to my booth if I can't eventually just have shelves full of plush and a rack of pins. We also discussed making a new table cloth where I had information on all four sides in case I end up in a table situation like this again. I have no idea what I'll eventually do, but when I do finally get all my plush in, I will need both a larger vehicle and a lot more grid cubes. Premium artist booths should be more common at events. I would much rather see those than more vendors.

Around 11:40am we decided to go find food. My husband kept wanting to go to a place called Mad Chicken since they have one in .. St Paul or Minneapolis.. I think. Somewhere in Minnesota. Either way, there was one on the way to Player 2, so we said we would eat there for lunch on Friday before the event.

I want to apologize to the Mad Chicken lovers, but I don't find it to be very good. My daughter had the chicken and waffles and said it was pretty good with the syrup, but the waffle was pretty dry. It's like it had been heated up from being frozen instead of made fresh. The chicken made me think they are intended to compete with Dave's Hot Chicken. I actually didn't hate this the way I did Dave's Hot Chicken (I wasted money there and tossed that it was so bad lol). It was a decent lunch but not somewhere I'd want to eat again. My husband and I both got the same thing, the Mad Classic chicken sandwich. Nothing crazy and I think the only saving grace was the sauce. The chicken was pretty flavorless and dry.

We made it back with some time before opening. I decided last minute to write up a price list for the event and tape it to the side facing the entrance.

The Event Itself

It opened and one and there was a nice rush of people coming in. They don't have VIP at Kitsune, they have Premium which is really the same thing. The premium badge holders came in at 1pm. I want to say that Friday was probably the busiest day of all, which is not usually my experience with conventions.

I didn't really take many photos during this whole event since I was always leaving my phone at the table since it was my hot spot. I did take this person's cosplay photo though because it was my favorite.

Friday was the busiest of the days the whole weekend. My sales aren't really the best metric to share, but figured I would since I felt like overall this event was pretty slow the whole weekend. Which, I guess if I think Friday was the busiest, that says a lot. Most people had Friday badges instead of weekend badges as well. My husband and daughter ran off to find some coffee around 3pm or so. There is a closer coffee place that also had gelato, so they went there. It's called Rise & Grind. I guess it's so new they really don't have any sort of website yet. It was really good though.

I also want to note these are net sales not gross sales. Why net sales? Net sales account for all the costs incurred during the sales process (in my case, taxes and fees) and thus I feel like they are a more accurate representation of how much I actually made. Friday was a short day too, so it's a little sad that it was really the best day for the amount of time we did spend selling things.

We decided to try somewhere else for dinner. Brittany had organized a group dinner with everyone for pizza from Rosati's Chicago Pizza, which I had initially considered, but I can't really eat pizza. I think it was also like a 45 minute wait for delivery. Either way, it does make me sick and I left my medication at home so I just opted to eat other stuff instead so I wouldn't spend the weekend miserable.

We went to Heights Pub & Parlor right next to Player 2. Honestly, kinda wish we had gone there on Thursday night instead. It was really good. I ordered some mozzarella sticks which were actually like eggroll looking things. I was a little skeptical but boy were they delicious! The sauce was actually spicy marinara so I guess I didn't pay attention to the menu and just powered through it. My husband and I split the Vodka Chicken and my daughter got a cheeseburger. She bit into it before I could take a photo, but the fries were so good. They were like not greasy and I don't know how to explain it - cooked just right? Not crispy or soggy. It was a lot of delicious food either way and we decided at that point we would also have it for lunch on Saturday.

Oh and they gave a discount for veterans, so that was nice. I feel like people should eat here so they stay in business in case we come back to Green Bay. It was also priced better than some of the other places we had eaten at throughout the weekend as well.

After dinner we met up with Jess, Rsenic Rin, Enrique Draws, Claire Doolittle, Brittany & her husband who had already eaten as well, and just sat around and chatted for a bit. The walk to the Hyatt where they were was interesting at least. I will say the way the Hampton Inn connects is really silly and it's better to just walk across the parking lot since it's faster. There were a lot of people sitting around playing games in the hallway, photoshoots, and a rave going on.

There was a random attendee who came over and asked about a chair which I thought they were going to take but instead sat down. They sat with us for a long while. I believe they said they had been at the rave and had been drinking but were feeling sick. I got them water as well as Rin since I had offered to grab some for anyone interested. Felt like I went on a wild goose chase since there wasn't a water fountain by the bathrooms. I went to the bar to ask, but they were so busy I just asked some random drunk people and they gladly told me where to go. It was on the opposite side of where the bathrooms were apparently. Either way, I found the water and everyone drank up.

The random person seemed to be very local though since they were talking about all sorts of parks and that they also went to Minneapolis for VGM Con, which is a music focused convention. I know VGM con is not great for sales, so never expect me to blog about it unless I am just doing the event to write a blog about it I guess. Eventually they wandered off after telling us about instruments and their rare cosplay. I worried about them being okay for a bit.

Think we just chattered about different things before we decided to head off. I think most of the others went to hang out, but man, my old ass can not stay up late. Amanda and Ray were already back in the room. I also noticed we could see into the tabletop room from our hotel window. We be creeping.

Saturday we woke up later than usual, so around 8:30am. Showered then walked over to Rise and Grind for coffee. One thing about teenagers is they just like to sleep in. She basically waited til last minute to finally get up and get ready to go. We got to the event just in time to open. Saturday was pretty slow for us. We made slightly more than Friday, but there seemed to be a lot fewer people.

One of the voice actors people were there to see had canceled. Not sure how much this impacted people's interest in sticking around. I should note that Friday we looked to see if there was anything of interest going on throughout the weekend. Normally you have a lot of panels and activities you have to flip through and this event really lacked that. According to attendees, the gaming room was much better and there were a lot more panels. Maybe people are aging out of running panels and people just aren't stepping into replace those people. I have no idea, but something happened between 2024 and 2025 for it to fall so short.

Lunch was Heights Pub again, but this time we split a burger and fries. Pretty sure my daughter just had the same exact thing she had the night before, so a cheeseburger but she remembered to get bacon this time. I am realizing it may sound weird but like I will eat too much if I don't split food. I really like to eat and I have a big issue with managing food since I like to eat when I am bored, so our solution was to sort of split things. Anyways, enough of my weird food issues. I don't always split everything, but when I mention it, that's why mainly.

People were asking about dinner plans and I had wanted to eat at a place that we walked by on Thursday night - Hagemeister Park. I mentioned the place and everyone was like sure, let's go! They had plenty of seating inside. Outside they had a cover band or something playing very loudly. It was entertaining, but there was no way we could have any conversation while that was going on. [list everyone who came and link socials].

Sunday was very, very slow. I think it was so slow I started questioning all of my choices about running my business and doing conventions. I wanted to just pack up and head home in defeat. I was obviously not going to do that, but it was really getting to me. I made a bad choice with my Piles of Plush project where I was like hey, I can just make all the designs even though we didn't raise enough money. I was pretty overconfident in my assumption that my sales would be as good as they were in 2024. Either way, my sales are currently being saved for the Kitsune plush production and I fell a lot shorter at this event than I was expecting to.

I wanted a Caesar Salad from Fox Harbor Pub & Grill while my husband and daughter split a pizza from Glass Nickel Pizza. Mine was delicious and I snuck a pepperoni cup from the pizza. They devoured it though, so it must have been really good.

I spent most of my time Sunday randomly walking around and chatting while my husband so kindly watched my booth.

Some people packed up a lot earlier than 4pm since the hall was basically dead. I don't blame them. We started packing away some things that we could, like ornaments and extra pins that I had behind my display. I modified the top of my display some and removed parts of the grid cubes that could be packed away without actually breaking the rest down.

Despite selling one pillow, I managed to not condense everything down nearly enough to only have two boxes. We arrived with three and left with three.

The drive home from Green Bay was chill af.

What Worked & What Did Not

Increasing the vendor hall size was probably not the best move. Based on what people were saying as they walked in, they were saying it was so different and huge.

There was not much keeping the attendees busy at the event. Panels really lacked compared to prior years from what attendees said and the arcade was lackluster. Apparently it was normally a big draw.

Table sizes and spacing were very good, at least on my side. We had a 10x6 space with an 8 foot table. I was on an end cap, so I really liked my location.

I paid for my table and 3 badges but until I got around to writing this blog I didn't realize I never double checked. I had been pretty confused when people were saying it was a $150 table when I paid $170. Well I did pay for a 3rd badge they didn't give me then paid for it again so I technically paid $190 for my table + 4 badges in the end lol.

I really loved the location of the convention and the fact it had two hotels attached plus a parking garage across the street. So much food in walking distance!

Food trucks. I appreciate that even though I didn't eat anything from the food trucks, they did have them.

Conclusion

While I did like the con location and exploring the local eateries, I don't have any plans to reapply to Kitsune Kon in the near future. I do not think that my products really fit the crowd at all and probably need to spend a lot more time reworking my booth before I revisit applying to out of state events in 2027.

Staff was extremely nice and checked on us frequently, so I do appreciate that, but overall, I didn't make enough money to justify returning. Was it the event? Was it my products? Was it my setup? I have no idea. Probably a combination of all the things. I have time to figure out what I can do better and maybe consider it in the future.

The Details (TLDR)

Event	Kitsune Kon 2025
Date	July 11-13, 2025
Location	KI Convention Center, 333 Main Street, Green Bay, WI 54301
Hours	Friday 1pm-8pm, Saturday 10am-7pm & Sunday 10am-4pm CST
Total Vendors	50 vendors & 71 artists
Attendance	3,661
Travelworthy	Good for locals within a 30 minute drive, not worth for anyone out of state.
Booth Cost	$190 (bc I double paid $20 for the extra badge twice)
Total Sales	$1,267.40 (this is before all costs are taken out)
Transaction Fees	$22.56
Taxes	$63.99
Total Profit	$990.85