FANCON 2023
Launching a National Pop-culture Event Brand.
Goal: Activate an underserved demographic at Eastridge Center, increase foot traffic, sales, and fulfill Eric's lifelong dream of turning his favorite mall into a cute anime girl.
Result: Center traffic increased 16% over last year and retailers catering to this demographic saw 10% to 100% sales increase for the day. The event sold out and was fully embraced by the Bay Area cosplaying community. Eric led the team that turned this silly idea into an award-winning, national event brand that has already succeeded at other Pacific Retail properties. The event won Best of Show in the Out-of-Home Advertising category at the 2024 AAF Silicon Valley American Advertising Awards.
FANCON was designed as a national event brand.
Eric led the team that developed the initial structure and concept for FANCON, a hyper-local pop culture brand that could be adapted to the local markets of properties owned by Pacific Retail Capital Partners. He also created the event’s logo, branding materials, and partnered with an artist to create the Eastridge FANCON mascot.
What’s FANCON?
FANCON contains key elements from large conventions in a bite-sized package. Musical performances, gaming lounges, panels, and artist markets are key attractions at every FANCON event. The brand is designed to target specific audience niches; cosplay, gaming, and art. This gives marketing teams at individual properties the flexibility to cater their events to their unique demographics and leverage their specific mix of retailers. A center with popular Japanese brands, like Daiso or Round 1, would benefit more from a cosplay-centered event vs a center with a gaming cafe and Gamestop where a gaming-centered event would be more effective.
The Event was a massive hit.
Eastridge Center’s FANCON event hit its cap of 3,000 tickets and saw 1,500+ attendees. Traffic increased at the center by 16% with the overwhelming number of attendees staying through the duration of the event. Sales at numerous retailers saw generous increases, some up to 100% for the day. As predicted, food tenants and retailers popular with this demographic saw the largest increases.
Combined across all three centers that hosted a FANCON event, 117,000 guests were brought to Pacific Retail’s properties. Sales jumped an average of 119% week over week.
Partnerships
During the development of FANCON, Eric formed several key partnerships that ensured the event’s success. Most valuable of all was forming relationships with local cosplaying groups in San Jose and recruiting local community figures to better target FANCON’s target audience and create content to promote the event. He also partnered with MagFest, a popular gaming event organizer, to help manage Eastridge Center’s FANCON event. Other properties enacted similar strategies, many partnering with their exisitng tenants to promote their events.
