Whether you're new to collecting figures or a veteran, Wonder Festival is the premier event in the figure community for seeing the newest figures debuting for the year. I attended Wonder Festival 2025 Winter on February 9th with Tokyo Otaku Mode, and I’d like to share 5 simple tips to help guide you on your first-time experience at Wonder Fest!
Tip #1: Get Your Ticket Early, Arrive Early
The event is held at Makuhari Messe, and while the venue is very spacious, it can become crowded. Instead of waiting in line for tickets outside the entrance gates, I recommend purchasing your ticket online or at the convenient store weeks before the event. I’m happy to report that tickets can also be purchased online if you’re living overseas and planning to attend!
Wonder Festival opens at 10 AM and closes at 5 PM, and most people will arrive in the afternoon following lunch. So if you want to move and shop a bit more freely throughout the individual dealer section, arriving before lunch is a great way to enjoy the event. Which leads me to the next tip.
Tip #2: Plan Your Route, Pack Light
If you’ve been to any large event, then you know how important it is to check a map of the convention floor. The map can be downloaded and viewed online from Wonder Festival’s website, and I believe learning beforehand what you want to see and where it is helps provide a smooth event experience. One extra pro tip is to mark where the food area, rest areas, and exits are so you can plan breaks around them.
I also recommend packing light and wearing good walking shoes since you’ll be standing and walking all day. A pair of comfortable shoes and a medium tote bag is a good way to avoid getting exhausted from weight on your shoulders. If you need more space for purchases, consider a small suitcase with wheels.
All of this, combined with arriving early, will increase your chances to see or purchase something at a booth! So what’s next?
Tip #3: Be Courteous While Taking Pictures
I can sum up my experience at Wonder Festival in the almost 300+ pictures I took! Between figures, stage shows, and cosplayers, it’s an amazing event for pictures. Each booth, whether a large manufacturer or individual dealer will have multiple figures to view. The figures are displayed wrapping around the booths or tables, and you’ll notice the line moving a bit slowly since many fans are taking pictures.
My tip is to be mindful of people taking pictures, and if you’re taking pictures, please look at any signs in front of the figures that indicate if it’s ok to take pictures or videos of that specific figure. When it comes to the cosplay area, there can also be a crowd of people around one cosplayer. Please ask each cosplayer if they’re ok with you taking their picture, even if you have to wait a few minutes to do so.
Tip #4: Cash Still Has Its Place
Japan is still changing and growing, and while cashless payment methods like Apple Pay, PayPal, and others are popular transactions methods in the west, I recommend carrying spare cash for easy transactions with most individual dealers at Wonder Festival. There have been times I’ve seen something I wanted, but then I realized it was cash only or a Japan specific payment method. While some international cards can be used, it's safer to have cash on hand along with a Japanese cashless app like PayPay.
Tip #5: Enjoy the Full Experience
My last tip is to just have fun and explore! I can’t stress enough how many unique figures are available in the individual dealer area. From normal scale figures of popular anime/game characters to original characters, animals, mechs and more, there’s a variety of merchandise on display! You can easily spend an hour or two just walking in this area.
You can also check out some of the activity stations set up around the venue. This year’s Wonder Festival 2025 Winter event had an area where you could experience making your own garage kit and understand first-hand what it’s like to piece a figure together, paint it with different brush techniques, or even how to create special effects with different materials!
Another part of the event I really enjoyed was the cosplay prop area. I’ve always wondered about the weight and feel of different weapons that cosplayers create, and I was amazed at the scale of a giant sword from the “NeiR” series!
Finally, you can check out the live stage areas featuring interviews of industry producers, sculptors, and other photo spots. Wonder Festival makes sure to have activities for everyone to enjoy, so make sure you experience them to get the full experience!
About Wonder Festival
Wonderful Festival is held twice a year at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. The event began in 1983, and it was originally made to showcase figures that independent groups or individual amateur sculptors made using garage kits. Garage kit is the term used by hobbyists to classify handmade plastic models they’ve made themselves. Amateur figure sculptors use their talents to make figures of characters they want to see, created using the materials of their choice.
Flash forward to 2025, Wonderful Festival is celebrating their 40th anniversary! The event now includes an area for major figure manufacturers like Good Smile Company, as well as an individual dealer section for sculptors selling garage kit figures.
