Marking 20 years of continuous excitement and engagement from the community of fandoms, ToyCon 2023 is a testament to Filipinos’ enduring and timeless love for toys, pop culture and entertainment. It is a phenomenal achievement for an event that started out with a gathering of toy enthusiasts that has now becoming the annual spectacle in the Philippine events scene, merrily engaging fans July 7-9 at the SMX Convention Center Manila with lots of exhibits, attractions, booths, contests, special guests and a whole lot more.
Through its many years of existence, ToyCon is well recognized as the biggest pop culture convention in the country. With even special significance is that TOYCON PH celebrates its milestone 20th year as a destination event and one of the longest-running pop culture events in the region. This year, attendees definitely knew where to get their fix for their cravings of toys, pop culture, cosplay, and many other fandoms.
With toys and collectibles which has always been at the heart of its ToyCon, almost a hundred toy exclusives from partner exhibitors were presented and featured to the public, with top toy brands like Funko, Lego, Bandai, Hot Toys, Pop Mart, JoyToy and many others, as well as world-renowned toy designers which included Quiccs, Wetworks, Creon Chknhead, Arman Kendrick, showing off their limited edition ToyCon releases. ToyCon also got to partner with international brand MINDstyle to bring FanXperience, where attendees got to see the latest trends in upcoming art toys and purchase Pop Asia exclusives, as well as ToyCon’s brand mascot, TC-02, as an official Funko Pop collectible.
Something that cannot be missed of course was the extensive ToyCon Collectors Gallery where around 80 toy collector groups got to display their collections with exciting panel discussions and competitions for Custom Toys, Toy Photography, Best Display and Awards for the Best Toy Collectors Group sponsored by the Philippine Toy Groups Association. ToyCon 2023 can’t be beat with the bewildering array and number of toys, comics, and collectibles at the more than 250 vendor booths.
ToyCon also proved to be the the pop culture and entertainment extravaganza with extremely outstanding guests gracing the event. The cast of Voltes V Legacy and its show-runner, Director Mark A. Reyes had fan interactions on the TOYCON stage. Veritable legends from Japanese Tokusatsu, Tetsuo Kurata of Masked Rider Black and Black RX, and Ryosuke Kaizu, who played Red Mask in Hikari Sentai Maskman, got to thrill their local fans with stage appearances and had their props and vehicles at the Toku Spirits booth. Michael V, Alodia, plus many exciting performers and celebrities from here and abroad also made spectacular appearances at ToyCon 2023.
With public interest and demand particularly high, cosplay makes a comeback to TOYCON with Cosplay KO, giving away huge cash prizes a P20,000 cash prize for the best anime and the Anime S Cosplay World Stars local qualifiers in the Duo Category and the Cosplay Pop Duo Contest. And as always, cosplayers were there in full force at ToyCon, sharing their love and passion for pop culture.
We are glad to have seen that ToyCon 2023 was an enjoyable and orderly event that was appreciated by a wide spectrum of the public, and we commend everyone behind the event for another rousing success, and we look forward to more great things from them in the future.
arkadymac.com has been a media partner for ToyCon since 2014, and we thank all our correspondents and photographers for helping cover this event.
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