Conchcat, The Convention Merch Catalogue

This project is for listing convention artist vendors by what merch they sell and what fandoms they sell merch of! Primarily focusing on North American Anime Conventions, though other conventions may be covered if there's enough demand / per my discretion. Currently only run by one individual, so please be patient! Most of the time I can only work when conventions release their vendor lists.

Not affiliated with any official event or organization!

About

I've been attending conventions for half a decade, and I would always make these kinds of spreadsheets for myself to keep track of what I wanted to buy from vendors, to save both me and the vendors time. For one con, I made a spreadsheet of merch artists of a specific fandom vending there to share with my local friends in that fandom, and it went very well! So, I decided to start this project. It's not far from what I already did before, though now I cover more conventions than just the ones I attend. I do enjoy my work, but I will always work at a pace that is sustainable for myself, so please be patient! I will do my best to get catalogues out before events begin but I can't make any guarantees.

NO AI IS USED HERE. Vendors proved to use AI generated imagery or text in any way will be immediately removed from catalogues.

However, as such, any mistakes are purely personal error... I am one individual and also not very familiar with most anime / manga. I can identify some of the larger / more popular ones, but if I haven't seen it, I probably won't know what it is. Some help is appreciated of course but I can't hire more cataloguers to work with me and I wouldn't ask anyone to work on these with me for free.

How It Works

Catalogues are sorted in two pages, one by booth number, and one by alphabetical order of the vendors. I usually make the alphabetical order one first, as it is easier for me, then re-sort the finished list by booth on the second page. As said before, I list what fandoms vendors make merch for, what merch types, what main subjects / themes I see in their original work (if I can, I'm not very good at it...), as well as any notes I have on them, usually highlighting a piece of merch I particularly like or something I have bought from them before. People can search for what they want, make their own copy of the spreadsheet and convert it into a shopping list, anything that makes the often stressful and overwhelming vendor halls a little easier! Of course, since part of the fun is finding new artists, I do not and will not provide images on my spreadsheets. Also it would be too difficult to do that on such a wide scale under such time constraints anyway.

I make these catalogues based off of information I gather from the vendors websites and online shops, but most of my research is surface-level, I may miss some things and I cannot guarantee what merch vendors will or won't have at conventions. Some events have restrictions on what fan merch vendors can sell (particularly when it comes to very large IPs such as disney or nintendo), some events do not allow copyrighted names displayed on fan merch, and sometimes travelling prevents vendors from bringing certain things, and there's many other reasons vendors might not have their full catalogue of merch with them at events, so please be courteous to them!

Feedback

Is there a vendor on the list with confirmed recent incidents of scamming or other poor business practices? Let me know privately with evidence, and per my discretion, they will be removed from the catalogue. This does not apply to any fandom discourse such as proship / anti or feral, or "problematic" media*. Vendors will only be removed if they have broken laws, harmed a real person or animal, or I deem them necessary to remove*. For the sake of professionality, I will not label vendors with warnings of any sort, they will simply be removed from the catalogues. (IE, I am not certain if there could be legal repercussions to making such warning labels, and my finances are not inclined to learn.)

Vendors may request additions, corrections, or to be removed from catalogues, and I will comply, no questions asked. They can request to be removed from a specific event's catalogue, or to not be added to any catalogues in the future. They can change this at any time.

Please do not ask why a vendor is missing from a catalogue unless you yourself are that vendor and believe you were removed in error! This project is designed to support vendors, and that includes supporting their privacy.

Please do not contact my personal socials for any questions about this project! You may either message me on Bluesky or email me at incivisiinquiries@gmail.com. More general questions can be directed to Strawpage.

*Any decision I make on what to remove will most likely not be solely my decision, I will consult close friends / artists I trust (especially those with vendor experience) on it first. No specific media is blacklisted, but I strongly disavow and discourage the support of any Harry Potter content, be it official or unofficial. I feel it is unfair to blacklist an entire artist with a variety of work based on one fandom they also sell merchandise of, and for other "problematic" media I wouldn't either, but I cannot rightfully condone any support of a franchise created by someone who has significant influence against the rights of queer people like myself and I find it in poor taste to create fanwork of said media knowing the creator's influence. I also generally discourage the support of media produced under unfair or unethical working conditions, such as most modern Disney and Marvel productions and Hellaverse. This project is intended to support artists, and it is antithetical to condone media that does not fairly support the artists who helped create it.

Me, Qui

I likely won't talk about myself much, but I am a queer disabled animal from Washington State, and frequent Pacific Northwest conventions of all sorts. I intend to keep this project mostly impersonal, but if you're referring to me specifically, it/its, if you please. Do not they/them me, thank you. ΘΔ I prefer not to be addressed as human.

If you'd like to find me at a convention, it probably won't be difficult, as I'm almost always fursuiting. At anime conventions specifically I usually wear by fursuits inspired by anime / manga characters. I have more than one, but relating to this project, the Qifrey-inspired kitty will be the most recognizable as he's somewhat of a mascot for this project. I'm happy to chat a bit, and take photos, but please don't try to take pictures of me without a fursuit head on.