When we decided to open a booth at this Comic World, we set ourselves a single premise. No selling booth. Not because stacking merchandise and selling it is wrong, but because we judged it was time to put our energy into making the Mystic Muse name known. To do that, we began planning from one question: how do we let cosplayers interact with fans inside a space called a booth?
The nine exclusives, together for the first time
One reason this booth was special: it was the first time the cosplayers formally signed to Mystic Muse gathered in one place. Beatberry, Jeong Jenny, Jeong Dabyeol, Kim Yeonji, Mio, Jamong, On Yanggaeng, Min Hanna, Habin. Nine people with different styles and personalities in a single booth was, frankly, a milestone for us too.
An exclusive contract means more than appearing at events together. It is also a promise that we build their careers alongside them. Comic World 330 was the first official occasion for that, and we worked to fit all nine into the booth.
Preparation began with a photo shoot
Before the booth opened, we prepared a shoot with the exclusive cosplayers. Something had to be decided first, though: the cosplay concept. After some thought, the keyword we chose was "cat." There is already a cat in the Mystic Muse logo, and cats have long been loved in the subculture scene. We judged that making every cosplayer at the booth a cat character would read as a single world to people meeting Mystic Muse for the first time.
Once the concept was set, the studio shoot found its direction naturally. All nine gathered in one space to shoot the cat concept, and from those photos we produced and designed Mystic Muse merchandise including photo cards and a photo book.
One more thing came out of this process. Aiming to tie the cosplayers together and make Mystic Muse known, we created the cat character "Misuki" — planned as a mascot to serve as the face of our exclusive cosplayers and as a symbol of the team itself.
What happened on site
Comic World 330 ran for two days, and more than 1,100 visitors came to the Mystic Muse booth over that time. Given the nature of a cosplay event there were people everywhere inside and outside the booth, and it wasn't easy to notice at a glance that every cosplayer was a cat character. Even so, sharp-eyed fans spotted that the whole lineup shared the cat concept and responded to it.
The life-size stand of "Misuki," now established as our mascot, and the merchandise also drew attention. Many people stopped as they passed to take a look, and the warmest response of all went to the so-called "muscle cat" keyring — a cat face grafted onto a bodybuilder image. "Coveted" is exactly the word: nearly everyone who saw it reached out at least once.
Where we go from here
Comic World 330 was where Mystic Muse first built its own booth with an exclusive lineup in place. We got to see directly how a direction of participation over sales, experience over merchandise, actually works on site. It also became a reference point for how we build event booths from now on.