Tag: travel

(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

Good morning attendees and exhibitioners, welcome to Day 464 to 472 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Every part of me hurts, I feel like I have not slept properly in days and my heart is full of joy & sadness simultaneously which can only mean one thing: I spent a long weekend at the UK’s premier VTuber convention known as Vexpo – pronounced “vex-po”, not “vee-ex-po”, though given the loading screen for any panels specifically referenced pronunciations I do not think people massively give a shit.

Last year’s trip was an absolute blast for me, which you can read about here, so it was a no-brainer that I wanted to attend again this year once tickets went live in early February. The journey here was not an easy one given everything that has happened in my year thus far, but my main goal with this weekend was to have an experience away from everything that was going on in my life to embrace being the silly, bizarre, and ever so slightly cringe VTuber fan that I am.

That goal was definitely achieved, and almost all of my smaller goals were achieved as well due to the people I had the chance to meet, the events I was able to attend, and all of the wonderful art I was able to pick up. There was obviously some amount of scuff to go alongside this all – some aspects way worse than others – but we will get to that as it appears throughout my recap.

I did almost 7000 words for last year’s recap, and given there was way more on this year compared to last year I have a feeling we might go way beyond that.

With that, let us begin with:

Thursday, which this year was actually Day 0 rather than Day -1

Once more we had planned our weekend around heading off on the Thursday and leaving on the Monday, though this year there was actually an activity booked in rather than it just being a day to wander around the NEC campus and find VTuber fans. The morning was dedicated to finishing off any final preparations or packing before heading out to indulge in a particularly large meal at our favourite local cafe, The Ploughboy.

Our logic was that if we loaded up on a massive brunch before heading over, we would not need to worry about food in the evening, especially given that I would only have about a thirty minute intermission between concert screenings that evening. To this end, I ordered a bacon cheeseburger topped with an egg and hash browns, which I did admittedly struggle to finish but it achieved the objective as I was able to go the entire day without needing anything except a large Tango and an embarrassingly expensive bottle of water at the cinema later that evening.

Bags packed and bellies full, we got onto an absurdly busy Transport for Wales train that was able to take us all the way to Birmingham International where a short walk took us to our hotel, choosing again to stay at the Moxy – this time at a slightly cheaper rate than last year by about £30… though, technically I did not pay that, as a couple months prior to the convention my partner’s mother called up and asked him how much it was to stay in the hotel. He could not remember, so he said “£500” off the cuff…

…so she gave us £500 towards the hotel expenses, meaning ultimately all we paid was £78.86 out of a total of £578.86, compared to £617.08 for last year. The hotel is still the biggest expense for the entire trip, and honestly I might try shopping around for a deal when booking next year’s one considering the Hilton Metropole was actually closer than I realised, but still a good rate considering our proximity and how long we were staying for.

Also I am about 90% sure we were staying in the same room or at least very close to it given how similar my “view out the window” photo looks compared to last year.

We took some time to rest, given how stressful our train journey was, before deciding to head outside and see if we could find any nerds wandering about, eventually landing ourselves at Karaage in Resorts World to sit down with other nerds for a bit before finding out where the cinema was for my Hololive concert screening, presented by Virtual Stage Productions (VSP) rather than being a part of Vexpo itself.

Time passed, and eventually I queued up with the rest of the crowd of nerds going into the cinema screen… or rather, screens, because I only gleaned this from hearing others talk about it but the screening was split across two different screens, with a lot of the hype seeming to happen in the screen I was not in due to it having more people.

On one hand, the fact that VSP was able to secure two screens for such a momentous event is absolutely insane and shows the appetite there is for Hololive-related events in the UK. On the other hand, it definitely felt as if there was a disparity in the screens… especially given the screen I was in had a blown out speaker which made some of the songs and MC segments a little hard to listen to.

Part of me did consider going into the other screen after the interval, but the person I was sitting next to randomly had such fun energy for so many songs and I did not want to abandon them, especially considering how fun the second half ended up being. I feel so bad I was not able to get their name properly but whoever you are, I genuinely had an amazing evening being adopted by you briefly for an evening of Hololive music.

I went into this with very little expectation or knowledge of what was going to be in the setlist outside of notable moments that had been posted on Twitter from the original screening. This meant I was able to be pleasantly surprised whenever something I had wanted to hear live was put on and I could cheer along like I had always wanted to.

Admittedly, I get a little nervous whenever it comes to VTuber concerts, specifically when it comes to knowing what to do with my penlights at specific parts of the song. My rhythm is terrible at the best of times, so I tend to look around me to figure out what to do during the majority of songs. However, after a couple of songs I found myself getting into the groove of things more easily, and letting myself get carried away in whatever hype our little screening had.

Highlights of the Day 1 screening include:

•  “CCGG Madness”, the Autofister anthem that is an extremely fun listen and being in a crowd full of people all simultaneously shouting “AUTOFISTER!” at the start of the song is one hell of a way to keep hype going
• “SUPERNOVA SUPER GIRL”, Justice’s most recent original song that absolutely had me immersed in the hype from being able to shout “Justice! Just like that! Justice! Get get that!” with everyone else
• “Draw”, Raora’s original song that made me tear up when I first listened to it and made me come close to tearing up as I tried my best to sing along with it.
• “Serendipity”, the anthem of the concert itself with the calls of “One time in a lifetime!” feeling oddly appropriate given my wonderful experience with my seat neighbour

In general as well Day 1 had me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside getting to see how bouncy Shiori got on stage, especially during her MC segment with Cecilia and Zeta, watching her bounce idly as others talked was super cute and made me continue to love her even more.

During the brief intermission between screenings I went out and got a bottle of overpriced cinema water which was most definitely a mistake given I spent £4.29 on a 750ml bottle of water but my throat would have almost certainly died without it considering I was starting to cough lightly by the end of the Day 2 screening.

Additionally, I found out that I am able to sprint in my platform stompers if fully necessary. When outside of the cinema itself, enjoying my expensive water and applying a fresh coat of deodorant, I noticed my Jailbird plushie had fallen off my backpack. Panicking, I dived between people coming out of the screens to make it back to my one, not even noticing I had broken into a sprint until I made it back to my seat to recover my plushie.

Take notice of that fact for later, it makes for a funny story on Saturday.

Day 2 started with an absolutely GOATed lineup of “Rebellion” by all of Advent which immediately led into Justice stealing the show with “Above Below”. This was one of the things I knew coming in because the transition between the two groups is instant and hits so much harder seeing it person and hearing the crowd go wild alongside me. This hype was only compounded given that after this was Hakos Baelz singing “SNAKE EYES” which my seat neighbour absolutely got into the groove for, infecting me with the same energy during the chorus.

I am not sure if it was the lineup of Day 2 as a whole or the fact I had definitely found my comfort zone with cheering, but looking back on the setlist now I am sitting here in absolute awe at what a show Day 2 was. Between two MC segments we have, in order:

• Liz and Nerissa singing “Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, the opening to Neon Genesis Evangelion, an incredibly groovy number that hyped up many in the audience
• Liz then going on to sing “ChikuTaku”, Amelia Watson’s original song which I know many people were excited to see both originally and in this screening, given Wunder Riku is from the Birmingham area and was hype himself to hear this performed live
• And the final song in this lineup being “BLUE CLAPPER”, Hololive’s fifth generation anthem performed by a collection of blue people in Kronii, Nerissa, and special guest Kobo Kanaeru. Clapping along with this one was one of the highlights of the screening for me given how much of a place Shishiro Botan holds in my heart.

However, I cannot talk about Day 2 without talking about something that I was surprised actually made it into the screening, but it is an important part of the concert: Kiara and Bijou crashing the projection system by doing the 67 too hard. I knew this was coming, but I was not prepared for them leaving the impromptu intermission it caused in the screening itself.

Leaving it in did give birth to some very funny moments in our screening, as we found ourselves joining in with whatever the audience in the screening were doing. From their penlight waves reaching the end and carrying on in our universe, to finding chants to fill the time as we waited for the system to be rebooted. If I were a more confident person, I was seriously tempted to try get the crowd in our screening to chant “shrimp fried rice” in response to the chants of “USA!” from the on-screen crowd.

After this though came Shiori Novella’s solo performance, which was her performing “RED HEART” by Akai Haato, also known as Haachama… and I have to say I absolutely embarrassed myself at this part of the screening, cause I was absolutely immersed in the performance, watching Shiori dance and sing, that at the end of it as everyone else was cheering, me in my infinite wisdom decided to yell “I LOVE YOU!” at the top of my lungs…

…thankfully the awkwardness was reduced by someone in the audience shouting “I LOVE YOU TOO!” back which I felt took the heat off me a little bit, but still, a touch embarrassing all the same.

Those feelings did not last long as the song after included special guest Tsunomaki Watame with my favourite original song of hers, “What an amazing swing”, which was where I seriously found myself moving almost involuntarily with my penlights in response to certain lyrics, making up my own little dance and movements for the “Fuwa fuwa fuwaaaaaaa!” lyrics which my seat neighbour joined in with. It was an extremely liberating feeling to let myself go along with the music in a way like that.

This was where I started coughing lightly after each song due to my voice getting worn out, and where I really started to feel my lack of fitness kick in given my arms were absolutely killing me due to all the movement they had been doing. I managed to keep my energy up for this concert but I definitely think I went a bit too hard on the motions for this one which put me at a detriment to the rest of the weekend’s concert activities.

The concert finished off with a medley of Hololive English originals, including one last round of Serendipity, before we all cleared out… though not before non-VIP guests got given this lovely bookmark with the concert key art and the location printed on it. A lovely keepsake from a wonderful evening, if with a few technical issues and the split screening feeling a bit off.

Being able to go to a screening like this as part of a convention weekend was fantastic, but it was also nice to have this screening be so close locally that even if I were not attending the convention, I would still be able to travel over and travel home in the same day without incurring hotel costs like a screening in London would. I really hope that this shows there is an appetite for more screenings in non-London locations in the UK, as I would love to attend more and get the opportunity to hang out with Hololive fans outside of Vexpo related contexts.

Also have some photos I took of the Pendigo Lake at night as I came out of Resorts World, the lights of the hotels reflecting lightly in the water really caught me in a way I was not expecting and helped to amplify the feeling of relaxation I had found myself slipping in to as my weekend away from my stresses kicked off.

Let me check the word count real quick…

…almost 2500 words when I had written 1300 at this same point in last year’s piece…

…and I have not even started to talk about all the events of Friday yet…

…yeah this is going to take a while.

Friday, Day 1 – “Community Day”, but primarily “Queuecon”

Despite taking a CBD gummy shortly after I came back to the hotel the night before, I slept like absolute shit. Possibly out of anticipation of getting to return to Vexpo after a magical experience last year, or possibly because hotel beds are strange. Regardless, my partner and I were ready to go to Vexpo in earnest.

Yes I am censoring his face with a pink bunny screenshot because he was not aware I was taking these photos, and this is still my favourite image of his sona.

We arrived early before the main queue started forming, and whilst I do not want to call the fact we were wandering around finding cosplayers and cool people to talk to whilst we waited for entry to begin a “mistake” because it was an enriching experience to get to chat to people…

…it was one hell of a mistake given that Queuecon was absolutely a factor this year, much like last year.

So many attendees.

So few people on badge processing.

So little queue movement.

Everyone has their own horror story about how the queue moved, and what they experienced. For my partner and myself we were at the edge of the barriers, so we were often helping to amplify the call for water into the crowd before assisting in ferrying bottles or cups over to people in need, and at one point in time I had to go digging into my backpack for my drugs bag as someone needed to jump to the accessibility queue due to a hip problem.

Their face when I pulled out my “All my fucking drugs” pouch instead of a box of ibuprofen was rather entertaining in the midst of it all.

There is not much I can say that has not already been said by others: it was absolutely unacceptable, and it also showed one of the many times this weekend where Akasupas (VIPs) were not given preferential treatment, as they all had to queue up with general entry and funnel into the same set of tables as everyone else.

I was not an Akasupa, but even I think this is a shitty situation for them. You cannot be paying £200, a £135 increase over a standard weekend ticket, and not receiving dedicated queues/advanced access as part of badge pickup – especially as it took a majority of people 4+ hours to get in, wasting approximately half of the convention opening hours for Friday.

The queue times definitely made me miss a few things I wanted to, primarily the screening of the third Hololive English concert “All For One”, which I wanted to go to with my partner to see how he would feel given he is not usually a concert person. Arriving halfway through the screening made it hard for me to immerse myself in it the same way as I did the Serendipity screening the night before, which eventually led us to deciding to call it off.

Fun little detail though, we got our badges, walked into the screening, and I picked a random place for us to sit down…

…only for the person in front of us to be a friend I made last year in a Wetherspoons who recognised our voice from coming to sit down. Admittedly did not cover myself in glory again by introducing myself as “the weirdo who messaged you on Discord”, given I had DMed them prior to the convention asking if they were coming along, but it was nice to sit and talk to them briefly, even if that was the only real chance I got to talk to them.

We initially floated walking around the rest of “Community Day”, but given we had both been standing in line for four hours and we did not fancy queueing up to get our other event tickets for the weekend, we decided to cut our losses for the day and go back to the hotel so I could recover for the opening concert.

It was a nice idea on Vexpo’s part to open up the hall on Friday for people to come together and hang out, but the logistics of the queues made that extremely difficult given how many people ended up spending half of the day standing around and waiting. I heard several anecdotes from people of meetups scheduled for the day not going ahead due to lack of people or the organisers themselves being stuck in the queue, which is seriously shitty considering the focus of the day was supposed to be interacting with other community members.

If Vexpo continues to scale, then ticket operations need to scale alongside this, because there is no way the convention can continue to grow if ticketing issues like this persist into even larger venues. 

Stepping out was the right idea for myself and my partner, as we had started to get hungry near to the end of our experience, and what better way to cap off a day where our expectations were played with than food which carries no expectation whatsoever.

Yup, it is Five Guys. The most overpriced basic burgers you can ask for, but ones that most definitely hit the spot when plans go awry… at least for me. My usual order is bacon cheeseburger with mushrooms, lettuce, grilled onion, jalapenos, mayo, and mustard, with a little fries to go along with it. No drink, as I did not particularly feel like going overboard on the Coke Freestyle machines, leaving me with a somewhat reasonable total of £18.10 – still not exactly cheap, but enough to fill me back up for the opening concert.

Time passed, and it was soon time for me to go out again to queue up for the opening concert, which…

…I am sorry I am going to get a bit venty here.

The fact we had to queue up to enter the hall which then led us to queueing at the barrier which then led us to queueing at the stage entrance was way more annoying than it had any right to be and felt so incredibly disorganised.

This is not to mention that last year Akasupa’s got priority concert entry which seemed to be a nonexistent perk this year around when this is supposed to be the event that kicks off the entire convention. 

Persistent issues around queueing aside, we all eventually funneled into the Monarch Stage for the opening concert to start, where we got a brief message from the CEO of this year’s convention, Yiru, who shared some… interesting tea on the background behind the convention this year, in that Vexpo 2026 almost did not happen.

There was a transition in management teams from last year and this year, and whilst gory details were not shared, Yiru’s message was definitely one of “this show very nearly did not come together, but we hope you enjoy anyway”, which helped shine a bit of light on just why the queue debacle took place. Part of me wishes this story will be shared as part of a post-mortem, but I also understand that certain conversations would need to be kept private. 

After Yiru finished her message, the concert started with a playing of “World Wide Wonder”, the official anthem for Vexpo 2026, which I have talked about previously here. It is a song I absolutely loved, and being able to be part of a penlight sea of orange as it played was a magical experience.

The opening act was Rachie, most known for her English covers of Vocaloid songs, starting her set with a song that would get any weeb worth their salt cheering along with “World Is Mine” before launching into an assortment of Vocaloid covers in a mix of Japanese and English – special mention going to her cover of “My R”, a song I had never heard before but found myself getting emotional at with a surprisingly catchy beat to it. Her set finished off with her original song “Part-Time Idol Declaration”, a song written about her experience balancing her day job with her idol work, especially poignant given her declaration at the beginning of her set that she wants to make VTubing her full time job.

I knew Rachie primarily through the fact that everyone uses her lyrics for English Rabbit Hole covers, so it was actually really nice to see a live performance of hers and be introduced to new songs I had not listened to before.

After her was Lilith O’Leerie, a talent I was interested in seeing live given her demon aesthetic made me curious as to what her set was going to be, with my anticipating a very emo rock/metal set… 

…so colour me absolutely surprised when she opened up with “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga. Not that I am complaining, but it was most definitely a subversion of my expectations. Either that or I am the world’s oldest Gen Z who has music taste firmly stuck in Guitar Hero 3.

Regardless, her set was absolutely fantastic to bear witness to, especially with her two original songs performed of “PETTY” and “Final Girl”. I could tell she was a little nervous to perform her originals but the vibes were immaculate throughout the entire set. Plus I absolutely adore how well her intro rolls off the tongue:

“I am Lilith O’Leerie, your guiding light in the eerie night.”

Up next was Linvy, someone who I had zero previous exposure to unlike the two acts before her… but when you open your set with Hoshimachi Suisei’s “Stellar Stellar”, you instantly win my heart, cheers, and enthusiasm for the rest of the set. You then win me over completely by closing your set with fucking “Lumière” from Expedition 33 – a completely surreal experience to have in a VTuber concert as we all did penlight waves to it, and as myself and many others around me sang along best we could.

Linvy seems like an extremely small channel currently, but her voice and performance were extremely mesmerising, to the point I want to hear her perform more. That is the beauty of concerts like this at VTuber events, you go in for a few people you like, and come out absolutely loving people who have never been on your radar before.

Following Linvy was Akugaki Koa from ChromaSHIFT, someone who I have a button of for some… unknown reason, but is again someone I have not had much exposure to. Her toggles for her model through her set were extremely cool to see and whilst I did not really recognise the majority of the songs she sang, getting to be part of a crowd for Shigure Ui’s “Loli God Requiem” with all of the call-and-response in that song was another highlight for me.

The set after this was what I was really curious about, given that I had the most familiarity with both Doki and Dooby, alongside the hints Doki had given online about how it was originally supposed to be a 2D set before Doki upped it to 3D motion capture exceeding what she had been paid in appearance fees, and that she had tailored it to the European audience…

…opening with “We Will Rock You” by Queen was one hell of a way for my energy to recover, especially because at this point my arms had started to fail once more through repeated cheers. Following that up with Doki performing “Europapa” by Joost Klein kept the energy going which helped lead into Dooby performing “Popipo” by LamazeP.

That said, I do not think anyone was anticipating the last song of the set being “Baby” by Justin Bieber.

I am not ashamed to say I was still singing along.

I really do not know why I was singing along by that point, but I was enjoying the energy a lot.

That said, my energy definitely started to dip from this point onwards, which is a shame because Skye Senfort has a really beautiful voice even if I was not really able to cheer and dance along like I had done for other acts. It was still lovely to hear her sing, but if I were not working from a VOD concert ticket, I would have struggled to recall her set.

Also yes I am working from a VOD right now. I took photos and have vague recollections of the concert, but considering I did not take notes, I would have struggled to put together anything resembling coherent for this segment outside of my scuffed photos.

I guess this is a good time to talk about my approach to concert coverage. I am very much someone who will try to take a photo at the start of the set so I have an example of what the talent looks like, but then I will primarily be focusing on enjoying the concert and being immersed in the experience. This helps for my own enjoyment of the concert but also means whatever recap I write after is solely going to be based on memory rather than notes. Thankfully the VOD tickets being available on MiruV are helping me out here, but the scuffed photos will remain over screenshots for the true experience of being an attendee.

My energy levels continued to fluctuate when the lovely ladies of the Aerunia unit from Glitch Stars took the stage containing Amaya Whisper, Limina Alteri, Kanna Yanagi, and Hiyori Mokami. A medley of anime openings and endings kept the crowd’s energy up which continued to be amazing to be a part of, and when my body was able to cheer along to certain songs I felt that energy as well, but I was most definitely starting to flag by this point…

…fully unaware of what was coming as the final act.

The final act for the evening was Kai Kuroyomi, falling once more into the category of “I do not know this person, but am curious to see what they have on offer”.

What I was not prepared for was a set with extremely high production values, several special guests, and opening up with fucking “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down. My body might have been failing hard by that point, but there was no way I was going to let this song pass without putting my all into cheering. 

I tried by best through the rest of the set, but I was most definitely starting to die and wondering how the hell I would make it through the rest of the weekend. Seeing Kai on stage though near to the end made me cheer loudly even through the pain my arms were in, and I really look forward to seeing him at events in the future.

Also shout out to the guy sitting next to me by the name of “Mimo”. Was an absolute pleasure to have your energy carry me through my arms starting to fall apart and to cheer alongside you.

Another word count check in… 5000 plus words huh… and I have not even got to the main meat of the convention… even after working on this for four days now…

I somewhat regret starting this, but I have to finish telling this story.

Saturday, an actual full convention day with things going on in it.

Again you would think that having a full day of standing around in queues and a full concert would make it so I conk out almost instantly and sleep like a log but a proper night’s sleep continued to elude me going into Saturday morning. A pot of instant porridge and a disappointing hotel kettle mocha later, I was ready to roll once more.

Convention entry for general tickets was due to start at 11am, but my partner and I wanted to be active and out of the hotel, so we went over to Hall 9 somewhat early on, eventually arriving outside at just before 10.

This was great news for us, as we got let in at 10… even though we really should not have. I am still not sure why, but for Akasupas to have one of their main Saturday benefits cut in half was extremely shitty. As I was resting on a bench as my partner went to their Meet & Greet for the morning someone I had chatted with the day prior came to sit with me to sort out their bag, and they were surprised I had made it in. To quote:

“I’m not annoyed at you cause you get more convention time, but it really sucks you got let in early.”

Again. Akasupas are £200. Their benefits should be absolute considering how much they pay.

But, I was in, though my lack of sleep and general disposition meant I had a quieter start to the day, primarily focused on wandering around Artist Alley and seeing what I could find.

Part of that included seeing this beautiful Baulatro (with Fuwamoco) flag some attendees were carrying. Flag culture in the VTuber community never fails to make me smile with what unique flag combinations are on display.

Prints and charms gathered, I reconvened with my partner to do a loop of the convention hall, specifically as we were on the lookout for Densetsu.EXE manager Steiner to have a short conversation with him. In attempting to do so though, we ran into Merryweather doing his own walk around the convention.

For context, my partner is featured right at the start of Merry’s Vexpo 2025 video, being completely scatterbrained over who he was meeting. We brought this up again at our second meeting with Merry’s handler recognising him from the video as well… only for my partner’s scatterbrain to kick in once again as Merry was left hanging for a handshake for some amount of time before I had to lean in to point this fact out to my partner.

If this exchange makes it into a video again, I am going to wet myself laughing over this happening two years in a row. 

We did a few more loops looking for Steiner, but did not manage to find him, so we eventually decided to queue up early for the Hololive English Justice panel instead, knowing it was going to be extremely popular. This was the right move, as the disorganised queue structure gave us a decent spot near to the front.

Sadly there will be no photos from this panel, specifically because it was prohibited as part of the panel rules itself, but I can say it was an absolutely magical experience being a part of it. The drawing challenge was extremely entertaining, with Liz’s interpretation of “Gigi in the UK” being perfectly spot on with her Greggs sausage roll and Tesco meal deal, but it was also impressive to see Raora’s art in motion, seeing the talent of a proper artist at work in such a short timeframe.

The initial pub quiz section was entertaining if just to see the variety of batsu games done whenever anyone got a question wrong… which was everyone, to the point that rather than a pub quiz it became a regular Q&A session which I so desperately wanted to be a part of to ask Raora a Monster Hunter question, but maybe in the future if I win a meet & greet with her. In hindsight I probably should have brought out my Raora plushie to the panel rather than my Shiori one, but I was not about to leave her behind.

There was a group photo taken at the end that I do not think has been posted yet, but I am curious to see if I made it in. Admittedly I was a little self-conscious about my height and wanted to make sure people behind me could make it in, but it would still be so cool to see if I did.

Post-panel involved more wandering around artist alley, but was also my opportunity for meeting several people I had on my list for wanting to have a conversation with.

The first of these was a cosplayer called Remy/@voymay, someone who has made gorgeous 3D modelled Shiori accessories that I have printed off in the past and in general makes amazing looking genderbent cosplays of Hololive members. It was great getting to talk to you and tell you my horror story from last year, and thank you for taking a picture with me.

Some more wandering later, and I noticed a blue-haired individual near the entrance of artist alley. Figuring who it was, I approached extremely nervously and asked the question.

“Excuse me, sorry, are you Wunder Riku?”

“Yes I am.”

Cue my English starting to fail me as I try to explain who I was, why I approached him, and what stuff of his I loved. I am not entirely sure if I got my point across of everything I wanted to say, but I still appreciate the fact you took time out from your filming plan to talk to me for a bit and take a photo.

That said, I am also going to call him a bastard as affectionately as possible here because I spent time in that conversation gushing about how much I love the song Astrogirl he wrote to the point I have a custom Beat Saber map of it and that sly fucker said nothing about the fact that he was going to be playing that song in the closing concert.

Which y’know, did preserve the surprise of what I would bear witness to, but also, god damn you to hell you talented bastard.

He was with Starlight Daryl at the time too, and I felt really bad that I did not have much to say to her that was not just knowing her from Music Box of Fate… which constituted karma biting me in the arse because her performance at the closing concert was actually the first thing to bring me to tears, but more on that when we get to it.

We started heading back over to the community area after this to get ready for the HUKEC meetup shortly after, and we finally ended up running into the person we had been searching for the majority of Saturday: Steiner. We met him last year at Phoebe-chan’s IRL meet and greet table, and given the confidence boost my partner got from his interactions with Phoebe, we wanted to pass on our thanks through him, alongside talking to him a bit about his adventures in an abandoned tunnel before Skyline Serenade.

One thing that stood out to me as we talked to him was my partner saying something to the effect of “I’m sure Phoebe doesn’t really remember me but I do appreciate what she’s done for me”, which was responded to with one of the most wholesome reads of Phoebe’s character I think I have ever heard from Steiner:

“Phoebe doesn’t usually forget.”

She’s such an inspiring figure to me and my partner, and it would have been great to have an opportunity to meet her again this year, but I also appreciate that she is taking a very well deserved holiday in Japan right now.

I forgot to take a picture with her, but shortly after this I managed to see the wandering iPad of Lilith O’Leerie, so I went up to her and expressed how much I enjoyed seeing her perform at the opening concert and how awesome her aesthetic is. She was very flattered and we had a fun moment where my partner was on the edge of the frame and she demanded he come in, especially calling out the fact we were both wearing red before he had a conversation with her about the quality of velvet in clothes.

Finally making it over to the community area, my partner’s social energy started to dip which made him disappear after a certain period of time, but not before I managed to completely embarrass myself again in a random interaction. We were talking to a cosplayer and discussing shoes, as they were wearing some mighty impressive platform heels as part of their cosplay. I mentioned I had been wearing my boots for such a long time, to which they asked how I was able to walk in them.

Now, do you remember about 5000 words ago I mentioned I discovered I was able to sprint in my platform stompers?

I boasted this fact to this cosplayer, and asked if they wanted to see it.

My partner was pleading with me not to do anything stupid.

High on social energy, I decided to do it anyway, and I made a very good attempt at sprinting towards the back wall of the NEC hall we were in, not tripping at all…

…however I did forget that momentum was a thing and that me as someone very tall and heavy would carry a lot of excess momentum, leading to me not slowing down in time and hitting the wall with a decent amount of speed left in me. Thankfully my shoulder took most of the brunt meaning I was just a bit achey, but it also led to a very fun interaction when I got back to the main meetup area and saw someone looking at me for what I had just done:

“You saw nothing.”

“I didn’t see anything… definitely heard something though.”

It says something about my social character development that I am able to embarrass myself frequently over the course of a weekend and not only want to do it all again, but feel no regrets over the incidents that caused the embarrassment. 

My partner disappeared back to the hotel, and the HUKEC meetup started. I did not get the opportunity to take too many photos this year, but unlike the last year where I was obscured in the group photo, this year I was taking no chances whatsoever of having a chance to find me, as I put my penlight on as a beacon of sorts.

No such worries this time, this pillar of awkwardness stands out like a sore thumb.

Possibly because of exhaustion, and possibly because of not having my social muse around, I did not get the opportunity to talk to as many people as I wanted to, though that did not matter much as I got to achieve one of my other goals for this convention as well.

For those unaware, this is a type of cosplay called “kigurumi”, the process of wearing a big-ass anime bobblehead and a bodysuit to make yourself look as if an anime character directly came out of the screen to rapidly approach your location. I have had a fascination with this type of cosplay for many years, and being able to finally see it up close and personal was a major highlight for me – more so given the fact that I have been following the one cosplaying as Shiori for several years at this point, so getting to see their cosplay of one of my oshis up close was an amazing highlight. For credits, the Shiori is @mercer_kig, the Gigi is @freia_000 (who gave me a lovely sticker of some Gundam-inspired Shiori art after I took that photo with them), and the Raora is @kigpotato, someone who I did a little dance with to the short section of “GachaxGacha ADVENTURE!” during the random dance segment of the meetup. It was incredibly cute to do so, and thank you to all three of you for taking a photo with me.

The bobbleheads were not the only cosplayers I took a photo with, as I recognised someone called Kat/@katmaracleexe from last year’s meet in a new Nakiri Ayame cosplay, so I asked to take a selfie with her which she very kindly obliged, which also included a free sticker with commissioned art by her friend Bri, link to their DeviantArt account included.

I sat down after these interactions and almost found myself tearing up. Even when I did not really engage with as many people as I had wanted to, HUKEC continues to be a place where I feel oddly at home. A chaotic group of people all coming together to celebrate our weird little interests, wherever that may be. It feels nice to belong, especially in a group of people where there are so many other LGBT folk like myself.

I was most definitely starting to die by this point, but I still had one final task to complete for the day. Merryweather and Lumi had a dedicated photo-taking hour from 6pm-7pm (yes we did do the hand motions with Merry when we met him earlier), and I wanted to make a polaroid with the both of them my final prize for the day. It was actually a very reasonable queue with an equally reasonable price of £10 for the polaroid photo, with no extra charge to get Lumi to sign it for me. I definitely need to find the right frame/holder for this, but it is a lovely picture I will treasure forever.

Energy depleted, and having worn platform stompers for probably about ten hours by that point, I limped back to the hotel to begin recovery for the premium concert that evening. One thing was on my mind, the same thing that is on my mind a disturbing amount of the time: pizza. Specifically, a big greasy Papa John’s pizza.

Delivery was actually remarkably smooth to the NEC campus, which is impressive considering I usually hold off doing delivery when at home because of the difficulties I have getting delivery people to find my flat. I absolutely devoured my portion of the sides before eating over two-thirds of the pizza in no time flat, given I had not actually eaten anything since the morning by that point.

I tried my best to recover what little energy I could before turning back around to head to the premium concert… but it was a short lived experience.

My goal with the premium concert was to focus solely on cheering, especially given the fact I was mainly excited to see Densetsu.exe perform live and was super excited to hear Hot-Blooded Heroine live for the first time.

That did not happen though, as the events of the past three days finally caught up with me and I felt my body completely slow down under the weight of every activity I had done up until that point. I found myself hit the floor partway through Matara Kan’s opening set, and I was not able to bring myself off the floor for Oshiriko’s set despite it containing both “Everytime We Touch” and “Night of Fire”. If some of my favourite performers and favourite songs were not enough to bring my spark back, then it was the right move to get out of there and go to bed.

Of course as I went to leave I heard V4Mirai get on stage with “In The End” and I felt myself hesitate however briefly, but given I was walking with a full on limp by that point, there was an overwhelming desire to rest so I could be at a reasonable strength for the day after.

I do feel bad, both for not being able to persevere through the exhaustion to cheer for the people I wanted to, and for the fact a ticket that could have gone to someone more energetic than I essentially went to waste. I know I should not regret giving it a try all the same, but part of me wishes I could have stuck around a bit more, though I know it would have derailed my Sunday entirely which was its own day of fun and excitement.

Checking in with the word count and we are at 7800ish words which means I have already got 1000 words over last year’s piece and there is still so much to talk about.

Sunday, the last day and still somehow so full of things to do.

Waking up on Sunday confirmed to me that resting was the right call, as even just the events of the days prior were enough to have me feeling slow and sluggish in the morning, with not even a refreshing breakfast Relentless enough to bring me out of my daze.

That said, I had a very specific goal in mind, and at risk of sounding like a pervert, it meant beelining it towards the 18+ area of the convention, titled “Vexpo Underground”, right as it opened. Whilst I was severely tempted by some of the lewd art on display, and as I discovered later one of the booths in there were selling playmats with Matara Kan leading a Tyranid horde which is a mighty need now that I know it exists, my main goal was to meet a cosplayer I had been following for over a decade at this point.

Danisaurz/@dani_saurz initially came on my radar during 2015/2016 in the preamble to Overwatch coming out, when she was one of the first people I saw cosplaying D.Va in her own style with full on MEKA shoulder pads which was so rad, so seeing her as an official guest of Vexpo was super exciting to me. It was an extremely pleasant chat, alongside getting both a cheki and a signed print from her for an extremely reasonable £40.

I also have to point out an extremely fun moment when we were getting ready to take the cheki.

“Do you want to make a heart?”

“Oh my god can we do the thing?!”

The thing in question being one side doing the heart, with the other doing a thumbs up in response, with us swapping sides for the cheki versus the photo taken on my phone. I was unreasonably excited to do that and whilst it would have been cute to have the heart, you can tell in my cheesy grin I was over the top excited for this moment. It was so super sweet to talk to you Dani, and I hope to see you again at a future convention!

After that I did a bit more shopping around artist alley, mainly picking up a shikishi board and some small charms to either put on my back or strap to my dress, but then I went to go crash in the nearby hall cafe for a small but somehow still expensive extra caffeine hit in the form of a latte… cause they did not do mocha which is very disappointing to me.

My energy was at near-zero, and the frequent caffeine doses I was taking throughout the day were basically just stopgaps to keep me alive and not falling asleep, vitally important considering I had two meet and greets and a concert to get to.

I sat in that cafe for an unreasonable amount of time, contemplating and reflecting on my experience over the weekend, and that even though I was slowly losing every bit of energy, I held no regrets whatsoever about everything I had done to that point. There was no yearning to have done more in the time given to me, sure I had managed to make a fool out of myself in a few interactions, but not to the degree where I was sitting there wondering what I could have done differently. My interactions were positive, and whilst I was exhausted, I found myself being oddly at peace with that feeling.

Rest time soon came to an end as the time for my meet and greets arrived, last year on Sunday I managed to double book myself for both Rin Penrose and Elia Stellaria, so this year the fact I won very little in the raffle means I should have avoided-

-well shit.

I had indeed double booked myself once more. I decided to go to Dr. NOVA(e) first, on the logic that the queue for Ironmouse would probably be rammed because it was fucking Ironmouse and hopefully I should be able to move along quickly to double back.

Now, small bit of criticism, I had to look on ConCat to figure out what booth which meet was in. When you have both signs out front of the booths and a dedicated Vexpo app with a map, was a little annoying but nothing deal-breaking, especially when the queueing experience for meets this year was so much nicer than last year.

Last year queues tended to snake amongst one another, which led to issues of overcrowding when queuing for a meet and the queues exceeding the space given. This year was a lot better, when a queue started to exceed the boundaries of the meet area a volunteer came over and split us into two queues – a far more elegant solution that made the Dr. NOVA(e) queue a very pleasant experience.

Getting to meet the mad doctor was one of my highlights, especially as it continued a “tradition” for me in having a VTuber compliment my outfit when I walk into a meet booth. Whilst Matara was more restrained with “Ooo, you’re stylish”, Dr. NOVA(e) went a bit more… excited.

“OH MY GOD YOUR OUTFIT IS SO AWESOME!”

I unclipped my plushie of her off of my dress and presented it to her, addressing it as “the child”, where she told me to punt it into the distance only to have it return to me as a cursed object when I go to sleep at night… hey it makes sense, this thing looks creepy.

After that we talked about the Portuguese beer Super Bock for a bit before I shared with her the trick my family uses with the beer, a shot of it in a glass of sangria, which she seemed very concerned about but curious to try. We finished with the photo together and I wished her well, coming out feeling extremely good about what had just gone on, but I had no time to wait as I needed to hop over a booth or two to get to Ironmouse.

You only got one minute with Mousey, and even though the lovely staff member handling the entrance asked me if I had a question ready, there was nothing really in my mind that came out other than introducing myself, complimenting her, and mentioning a cute as hell Cinnamaroll jacket I was supposed to bring.

It is kind of obvious in the photo too, but I actually teared up at one point. I was properly starstruck at getting to meet the Ironmouse, one of the most amazing VTubers of our time and I got one amazing minute with her where I stumbled over my words and then took a photo with her.

Even looking back on this now, I do not consider this as time wasted. I might not have been able to speak properly for my minute, but I still used that time in a good way, and the photo is a beautiful memory as well.

My partner and I had a nice conversation with some cosplayers before disappearing out of the hall for a bit to discuss plans for the evening. He initially asked me if I wanted to shack off the concert for tonight and just relax, but I wanted to see things through to the end. He disappeared back to the hotel as his energy was thoroughly spent after tracking down every iPad and wandering VTuber he could find over the course of the weekend, which left me about three hours to explore what little remained at Vexpo for me.

This led me to going to the “Jubilee Stage” to attend Cakejumper’s panel, “I VTube & Facecam and You Can Too!”. Upfront, I pretty much only knew of Cakejumper from passing conversations with friends, so I had very little idea of what to expect of her.

And I walked away a massive fan due to her energy, stage presence, and overall dry sense of humour. Special mention to her highlighting her first model as one of her PowerPoint slides with the following:

“Here’s my first model. Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she pretty? She’s dead now.”

Caught me so off guard in the best possible way, and then her actual presentation was incredibly informative on any worries about getting into VTubing, stressing that you do not need to spend stupid money on getting started with an expensive model and revealing how much her current model actually cost her – a discussion I think is very needed in the VTuber space especially at a convention where several people (myself included) might be thinking of dabbling in the hobby, so to see a somewhat established name extoll the virtues of PNGTubers was actually very refreshing.

Afterwards I ran into someone who I had been encountering somewhat frequently through the weekend, who gave me their card with a very quick but still lovely doodle of Miku on it. Shoutout to @GreenMage39 for keeping me company at random intervals throughout the convention weekend, and I hope you had safe travels back home.

Finally, it came time for the closing concert, To Hell and Back presented by Starlight and Wonder with a full live band… buuuut not before Queuecon reared its head one last time as it took about thirty minutes past the advertised start time for us to actually get in. From what I could tell this was due to needing to perform more sound check tests to ensure everything was working correctly, but this was still pretty annoying to encounter especially because it cut into the concert runtime itself due to strict NEC curfew rules.

Even though it was cut short though, this was an absolutely perfect way to close out a weekend where I had fully taken advantage of everything offered to me, and I am so extremely glad I did not miss this.

Somehow I did not put two and two together that the show would mostly be a showcase of the talents of Starlight and Wonder so I went into it not really anticipating hearing that much. Proceedings opened with Matara Kan performing her original song “Stars Will Never Die” written by the duo, an extremely smooth and jazzy number that I enjoyed getting to hear performed live, especially with Matara performing in the background.

Following this was Wunder Riku explaining a little about himself and saying how great it was to be in Birmingham, asking if anyone was from around here or in the Black Country which I cheered loudly for to be greeted with “Wow, all three of you” which made me laugh – Shrewsbury may be my adopted home, but I will not forget my roots as a Wolverhamptoner. He then went on to perform a medley of his songs that he had written for Hololive, which opened with ChikuTaku with his own custom opening:

“That’s right, I’m not just a songwriter, I’m an idol too!”

That opening made me smile so much and got me as hype as I could be for the medley, even if my arms were definitely still not working to the point I wanted them to be for something like this… though one song was missing from the medley, and we will get back to that one.

Afterwards Starlight Daryl took centre stage to perform a recent original song she produced called “Space and Time”… and this is where karma bit me hard for not really knowing much of Daryl’s work before coming to this concert, because it made me weep uncontrollably with how beautiful the lyrics were. The description on the video describes it as “a bittersweet yet whimsical song about love, the cosmos, and the pain of longing for someone who feels lightyears away”… and as someone who was in a long-distance relationship for two years and still has vivid memories of how it feels to be apart from your partner, I found every bit of emotion that had wanted to come out over the weekend and let the tears flow. For my first proper exposure to Daryl’s work to make me bawl my eyes out while surrounded by other VTuber fans, I am now certainly a fan. 

Daryl’s stage presence is beautiful as well, and I could tell how much this show meant to her during the performance of an excerpt of Starlight Phantasia, her own symphonic story that continued to move me to tears even though there were no lyrics at all, the music was just that amazing. I really hope both her and Riku get invited back next year, so I can express my thanks to both of them in person and tell Daryl I am sorry for not realising her talent sooner.

Though the tears kept flowing for me, as Wunder Riku performed two of his fan songs that he wrote for Amelia Watson and Gawr Gura’s graduation respectively, with some minor scuff beforehand as his ukulele was causing some feedback issues with the sound setup. The songs were titled “Under the stars” and “The world outside”, and even though I am someone who will say that the graduations of both Ame and Gura did not massively affect me that much, and maybe it was because of my already impacted emotional state, but I found myself crying once more at the beauty of the lyrics and the story they told… in general this entire concert brought me to tears for various different reasons and even though I was crying alone, I never felt more as if I belonged somewhere.

After this Wunder Riku performed one of his Honkai Star Rail fansongs called “METHOD”, which was a welcome break from having music make me want to cry, and it was also fun to see him worry about playing a bassline that he wrote. It was a jazzy number that helped to let my eyes recover…

…yeah that break did not last long cause the song after that was called “Shine On”, composed by Starlight Daryl and written & performed by Kou Mariya. Again, not someone I had a lot of familiarity with outside of hearing her perform in last year’s opening concert, and I felt myself being brought to tears once more with the beauty of the lyrics. VTuber music has this way of getting into my heart and mind and making me feel so in the moment.

But the heaviest tears were yet to come.

After this song ended I saw Wunder Riku looking off stage and doing hand signs to a staff member off-stage, clearly seeing him hold up two fingers which was then explained as having time for two more songs because the NEC was very strict on making sure we were out by 6pm.

“So you may have noticed that one song was missing from my Hololive medley earlier. The next song is Astrogirl.”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I was already in an emotionally compromised state, and now I was about to hear one of my all-time favourite Hololive original songs played live, a song that can bring me to tears at the best of times. My arms were not able to cheer like I wanted to, there was nothing more that my mind wanted to do than twirl my penlights in bright orange to a chorus so beautiful, but there was no energy left.

All I could do was sing along as much as possible, even with tears streaming down my face, even as my voice was starting to give out, I wanted to make my voice part of a live performance of Astrogirl.

Heck I am so caught up in the emotions of reliving this moment that I completely forgot to mention that this song had special guest performances from Bonnie Barkswell and Emiliya Fell, adding their beautiful vocals to an already beautiful song, and I know being able to perform this song live meant the world to Bonnie as well. I know I was not alone in having the tears flow, I just wish my body could have cooperated a bit more to actually cheer along.

It came time for the final song, and true to the name of the concert “To Hell and Back”, the final performance was Ironmouse’s original opera song, “Music Box of Fate”, composed by Starlight Daryl and written by Wunder Riku. There is very little I can say other than “perfection” to sum up everything I felt with that final performance.

The band was perfect.

The guests were perfect.

The show was perfect.

The entire weekend was perfect.

And hearing everyone sing along to the swan song of Vexpo 2026 was a magical experience I am not forgetting any time soon. I really hope Starlight and Wonder can do something like this again, as I want to experience the magic of a performance like this many more times in the future.

With that, Vexpo 2026 came to an end, and with the dates announced for next year in an even bigger set of halls (yet to be confirmed officially on socials), there was now a countdown to when I got to experience a weekend like this again.

But Sunday was not over just yet. Even though I was teary-eyed, exhausted, and probably should have changed out of my boots, I was committed to having a lovely date with my partner to act as a finale to the weekend as a whole, and considering we had such a lovely experience last year, we went once more to TGIFridays in Resorts World.

What is the most effective cure to an emotional heart and an exhausted body?

Cheese.

Excessive amounts of cheese. In the form of nachos, a cheeseburger with cheese fries on top, and a delicate New York cheesecake.

Admittedly it was the weirdest plate of nachos I have ever eaten being massive tortilla chips covered in melted cheese and bizarrely served with shredded lettuce for some reason, but it absolutely hit the spot. The burger hit that same spot as well, with my first words upon taking my first bite being:

“This is disgusting and horrible in every way I want it to be.”

It says something that I can call a plate of food such derogatory terms and be in love with it the entire time.

A date night between the two of us was definitely needed, and having it be the capstone to a weekend where we both cut loose and let ourselves be authentic through and through was equally as magical. We retired to the hotel after this, buying a stupidly expensive low-alco cider from the bar to take back to our rooms, content in the things we had accomplished.

Feedback, in one neat section for any Vexpo staff who read this

It is kind of funny, in that a lot of people might have seen the Queuecon on the Friday as an omen for what was to come during the main weekend itself. Of course there was scuff and technical issues as there would be at any virtual entertainment experience, but outside of that there was nothing as bad as the badge collection queue experience the entire weekend. If anything, considering Yiru’s admission that there was only six months of planning involved, this was a show that should have been an impossibility when taking into account the talent lineup that was involved, but it all went ahead beautifully to create an unforgettable weekend for many.

That said, there is going to be one main bit of feedback that applies to what I noticed as an issue throughout the entire weekend:

Communication.

If you ask me, there was disturbingly little communication throughout official channels across the whole weekend. This was no more apparent during Queuecon when we got two announcements apologising for the speed of the queue and then nothing else, with very few announcements in the Discord server in general across the whole weekend, which is a drastic contrast to how many announcements there were last year highlighting different stalls and events going on over the course of the convention. The wording I am going to use is harsh, but the communication effort felt borderline lazy compared to last year’s effort, especially when there was so much more going on.

This extends to communication about meetups in the community area, which were relegated to a page on the website rather than being embedded in the Vexpo app itself. As far as I can tell scrolling back on the announcements channel in the Discord there was no direct link to this page either, leaving information about the community area very lacking in some areas.

The Discord is likely going to be the main area where any and all attendees get their information from, either first-hand through announcements or by asking someone nearby who will have the information to hand. Next year there should be way more announcements throughout the course of the weekend to keep people informed, and dedicated volunteers or staff members available in the questions-and-support channel considering the amount of time sensitive questions that got asked there and were left unanswered for a long period of time.

Outside of the main issues with Queuecon, there also needed to be a dedicated queueing space for the Monarch Stage in my opinion. This was something the Jubilee Stage had outside and I think a space like that would have benefited Monarch, especially as several popular events had to have their queues wrangled in order to keep traffic flow clear, which led to me and my partner getting seats for the Hololive Justice panel that were far above what we expected just due to being in the right place to be wrangled near to the front of the queue. This might be down to Monarch having four entrances rather than just one, but for the Starlight and Wonder concert we all used one entrance and just fanned out anyway so the logistics can work with one entrance and a whole lot of NEC security wrangling to make an organised queue.

The layout of artist alley was better this year, though I found myself struggling with how busy some booths were and how it caused queues to form in the middle of already busy areas, leading to me avoiding that area until things had quietened down to actually do shopping with specific artists I wanted to visit. This has already been discussed in the Discord about spacing between booths next year, but it will be interesting to see if they can keep the layout logical whilst reducing these issues.

This next one has also been mentioned in the Discord but it would be nice to see dedicated gaming areas return. I know Fireshine Games had two laptops which you could play Denshattack on, and there were dedicated play areas for both OshiPush and Hololive OCG (the latter of which I realise now I should have used more especially to ask questions about card purchasing), but I know a lot of people are hankering for dedicated video game spaces as there were in years prior, and I feel “attendee versus VTuber” events would be super popular with the right games. For me at least it would act as a nice area to zone out whilst still having the ability to interact with others at the convention outside of the dedicated bench areas.

Also add more bench and rest areas next year if possible please. They always seem to fill up so fast and whilst there is plenty of space outside the convention hall to sit, being able to stay inside the hall and sit amongst the nerds is definitely a plus.

This next one is a semi-serious suggestion but given the amount of cheering and arm movement that goes on alongside people walking around in shoes of various quality for hours at a time, any chance of a massage booth being included? I know I would have shelled out for an arm massage the state mine were in by the end of it all, and I cannot be the only one who would feel the same way.

Honestly though, the fact my complaints this time around boil down to queue logistics and wanting a touch more variety in activities shows how much of a fun time I had at this convention. The subtitle for this piece is “a failing body with a full heart”, and I hope that vibe comes across in how I speak about my time over this weekend.

GRATUTIOUS HAUL PHOTOS, BABY!

I cannot do a Vexpo reflection and recap post without trying my best to highlight all of the amazing art and merchandise I picked up.

First off we have this gorgeous set of prints from Snip Snip Studio. Initially I had only planned to buy Nerissa and Matara but then they pointed out they had a 4 for 3 deal on, and encouraged me to buy Liz because “Nerissa can’t be without her girlfriend”… and then I added Raora cause I love her so much.

After that we have this gorgeous Matara Kan charm that will either go on my backpack or my dress next year from the wonderful Doodlenab.

We have my haul from the Hololive stand up next, having grabbed a Shiori Novella LED bracelet from the Serendipity merch with a match penlight strap from the All For One merch… can you tell I like Shiori? Do not know how much it comes across in other photos.

Up next we have the stuff I grabbed from Moog, considering how busy she was I was glad she was not sold out of the Liz Tree standees, and I just had to grab Tako Takover Ina as well.

Considering how much I loved the anthem, I could not walk away from this year’s Vexpo without grabbing a physical copy of World Wide Wonder… the real play would have been to get it before I met Wunder Riku and Starlight Daryl on random chance to try get it signed but I was not working that many moves ahead.

Whilst in the 18+ area I was told to go over to HonekoAo’s booth for amazing art, and it turned out I had actually bought from her last year for a sticker, so this year I came away with an Ina and Matara card.

I wanted to get more merch of Densetsu.EXE this time around, and this gorgeous glitter shikishi board from Mori definitely fit the bill of what I was looking for. Plus this was another returning purchase as I had bought an Advent shikishi board the year prior.

The Densetsu.EXE theme continues on with my purchase from rorobun, with this gorgeous acrylic standee of all of the girls jumping out from an explosion in the same vein as the Hot-Blooded Heroine music video.

Finally, these were not bought but given to me as part of the Serendipity screening, but these are from an artist called Kiosko who did work for Studio Inkcraft, an independent game studio making a mystery-themed visual novel Hololive fangame.

Reflection

I have been talking far too long at this point considering I am about to hit the 12000 word mark and this has taken me almost the entire week to write when I was able to crank out last year’s post in around four hours so I will try, possibly in vain, to keep this brief.

Vexpo 2026 restarted my heart in ways I did not think were possible. I had most definitely been atrophying a fair bit since my layoff at the end of May and I still do not really know how to bring myself out of that hole.

This convention has reminded me why I desperately need to get out of that hole by any means necessary.

The weekend was absolutely magical, in ways I have described and ways I feel I cannot describe. A rare occurrence where I can so thoroughly destroy my body in the most positive way and come out smiling on the other end even if everything aches from head to toe.

VTuber fans are some of the coolest people to hang around, and the fact Vexpo attracts people from all over the UK, all over Europe, and even further afield than that shows how special an event this is to the VTuber world as a whole. I hope Hololive comes back next year to give me another chance of meeting my oshis, I hope guests from the past are able to return with how much space next year’s convention is supposed to have, and I hope that anyone that was inspired by the events of this year comes back next year with a new perspective or maybe even a new persona.

Heck this article is pretty much just my own personal experience, there were several adventures and encounters on my partner’s side that I could talk about as well.

But I want to get this out there, and I want to put these reflections to bed so I can actually work on other writing projects now.

Thank you Vexpo 2026. For all of your scuff issues when it comes to communication and queueing, there is literally no other place I would have rather been over the course of the weekend than the halls of the NEC. I will be back, and I will keep working to make sure I can experience a weekend like this next year, and in all the years to come.

This took far too fucking long to write and cover everything in detail but I fucking did it.

Thank you for reading this multiple days worth of Redundancy Review that took multiple days to write. My initial plan was to work on this Monday and Tuesday with the goal of getting it out to coincide with VTuesday but that went completely out the window. Hopefully now I can get back to work on your regularly scheduled content that is six times smaller than this.

Wherever you are, I hope you are doing well. If I met you at Vexpo, thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

I am so dead.

I cannot even say “send caffeine” cause I do not think it will help right now.

Help.