KOTA KINABALU: Organizing chairman of Youth, Hobby and Lifestyle Convention (HobbyCon), Johan Julian Lee Abdullah is aiming to upgrade the event to world class standard.
Johan said he wanted to provide a proper venue of air-conditioned place for each community that was taking part in the event (HobbyCon) with a specific room or hall for their own competition and the current practice was that all of the communities were placed together in the sports complex hall.
“If possible, we want the event to be a tourism package. This event is actually also sponsored by Sabah Tourism. I think they also understand that we are able to bring people from outside of Sabah to come over,” Johan said an interview during the 9th Instalment of HobbyCon at the Likas Sports Complex here yesterday.
“Hobbycon is not tied specifically to a culture. We are talking about hobby. So anyone, who likes pop culture, animation, movies and cartoons, will find it easy to take part in it. So, what we need to do is to provide them with a proper venue space and entertainment to keep them coming,” he said.
Those who came from outside of Sabah were from Labuan, Sarawak, Brunei as well as from Korea.
He also highlighted that HobbyCon had always been counting on the Sabah Tourism calendar since its first year on 2007 which was held at Asia City Complex here.
Johan emphasized that there was a very big increase in terms of people coming in as well as increasing numbers of each of the communities.
“Maybe last time when we organized the first community started with cosplaying, we had maybe about 50 participants in the whole of Kota Kinabalu. However, now we have more than 120 participants for All-Star March. That is not including the ones who are not participating in the march,” he explained.
He also said that in the first year of the event there were only 12 booths as compared to 60 booths now.
In terms of the number of participants, there were only 200 people when compared to last year’s 2,000 participants and more participants were expected in this year’s HobbyCon.
Asked about the proceeds from the sale of tickets, Johan explained that it would be used for the upcoming event as well as to hire coming guests for logistics and providing accommodation for the guests.
“This year’s guests, who came from Taiwan and the Philippines, are not just coming for this two-day event but they will also be brought to islands here.”
“We want to give them a chance to visit Sabah. This is actually good because when they go back, they can tell people and other future guests on the event and it will roll that way.”
Continue reading (Incl. Pic) at: Organiser eyes tourism package for HobbyCon KK
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