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No Overnight Camping, Early Morning Stampedes At This Year's Winter Comiket

Overnight camping and early morning stampedes were once a tradition for the biannual Comic Market (Comiket) dōjinshi event, but the combination of COVID-19 restrictions and the implementation of general attendance fees has resulted in a more modest turnout at this year's Winter Comiket. Anime fans based in Japan have posted photos and videos showing the venue in a much sparser condition compared to previous years.

The night before:

The ticket barrier at Tokyo's Kokusai-Tenjijō Station after the first train arrival on Thursday:

Three years ago, at Comiket 95, over a thousand fans huddled in near-freezing temperatures overnight. The Running of the Otaku (not an official name) was also a regular spectacle, with amateur videographers capturing the exact moment when the first morning train arrives at Kokusai-Tenjijō Station. This has even inspired jokes like a matador attempting to halt the bulldoze.

But times have changed. Comiket 99 is the first Comiket to be held in-person in two years, and it now has attendance tickets that come in two types: an "early access" ticket that allows attendees to enter the venue at 10:00 a.m. and costs 5,000 yen (about US$43), and a general ticket that allows attendees to enter the venue one hour later at 11:00 a.m. and costs 2,000 yen (about US$17).

The venue will also have a general attendance ticket for the cosplay area costing 3,500 yen (about US$30), while cosplayers who require changing room access can purchase a separate ticket for 1,500 yen (about US$13).

Prior to Comiket 96 in June 2019, Comiket general attendance was free. The event introduced an attendance fee for Comiket 96 due to an increase in cost for running the event across four days in two different venues, a consequence of the then-upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics using the Tokyo Big Sight event space as a media headquarters.

Comiket 99 required attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test, and offered passes by random drawing, due to restrictions in attendance numbers.

The Comic Market Committee announced in August that Comiket 99 will be an in-person event. The event will be held on December 30-31 at Tokyo Big Sight in its East, West, and South Halls. In that announcement, the committee stated that the event will likely restrict participation to several tens of thousands of people per day. The staff said it will probably implement a lottery system for passes to purchase in advance.

The event was originally planned for winter 2020, but was delayed to the Golden Week holidays in 2021 (which took place in April and May) due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation, and scheduling issues considering Tokyo Big Sight's East Exhibition hall would remain unavailable until fall 2021 due to the Olympics. However, the Comic Market Committee postponed the event again in March due to COVID-19.

The Comiket 98 event that was planned to take place from May 2-5, 2020 was canceled to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The event was planned for May 2020 instead of the normal August timeframe due to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics' original schedule in July-August 2020.

The last in-person Comic Market event was Comic Market 97 in December 2019, which attracted a record 750,000 attendees across four days.

[Via Otakomu, Hachima Kikо̄]