Lolita Conventions: Frill

In the US, Lolita gatherings have been pretty much limited to local meetups, anime conventions, and the rare brand-sponsored tea party, there have been very few "official" lolita gatherings in the US. Luckily, this year we're lucky enough to have another one come along, Frill!

I regret not blogging about this convention until just now, because Frill is this upcoming weekend (June 09-10th 2012!), but I have seriously been sulking a bit about this happening at the other end of a 20 hour train/car ride for me. So, because of my sulking, pre-reg tickets are all sold out, but you can still purchase tickets at the door. This two-day convention (However, I believe this close to the con, sunday is all sold out, as it is a separate event?) features a lot of the same sort of things you would expect from any other convention, panels, shopping, contests, even a dance, only everything is catered towards the Lolita.

I actually only recently found out (last week!) that those who owned shops and couldn't attend can send in items to be sold at the boutique, so I jumped on that opportunity to, at the very least, attend in spirit by sending in some stuff from my, so rarely on Etsy, shop. If this convention sees a second year, especially a second year that is a little further north up the coast, I would really love to attend in person!

This is what I'm sending up! I sort of freaked when I realized I had no more tags printed up, so I chopped up a bunch of scrapbooking paper and decided to go back to the individually packaged route!

As Lolita grows more and more popular, I would absolutely love to see more conventions and even just one-day events catering to the Lolita the future! I think they're fantastic ways to get the Lolita community together, and an awesome excuse to put on your finest and take a day trip! One of my favorite oh-gosh-it's-so-not-fair-that-I-can't-be-there events in the Lolita world is Sweden's yearly Lolita Flea market (Sadly, I can't find working pictures from recent years, as the market seems to get bigger each year, 2011 apparently had over 1000 visitors, but here's a post from it's still-very-successful first year), which is the sort of event that I would absolutely love to see happen in the US, and preferably not nearly a whole day's drive away from me!

If you had a Lolita convention happen near you, what kind of events would you love to see? At anime conventions I am a huge fan of the, somewhat boring to most people, panels about the early years in the fandom and otaku culture, which I think extends to Lolita, as is pretty obvious from my interest in all things Old School Lolita, so these are the sorts of things I would love to see in a Lolita convention. I can imagine a panel about the early days of Lolita, including display pieces of the sorts of things Lolita brands released over a decade ago! Of course, I also am also a pretty enthusiastic shopper, so any sort of flea market, swap meet, or consignment I would be all over as well!