vendors seize ‘golden opportunity’ to showcase their creative side

LAST Saturday, thousands of anime and manga fans turned up at the Guyana Marriott for MARS 23.

This year’s event was the second of its kind and was organised by the founders of Sozos Entertainment, George Jacobs, Marissa Ramnauth and Shomari Williams.

The trio had said previously that MARS would be coming bigger and better this year, with a wide focus on highlighting the anime community.

This goal was accomplished as anime fans came out in their numbers. These fans included the vendors who played a pivotal role in highlighting the community, by showcasing their anime themed products and services.

Additionally, there were several in-house activities which allowed the fans to win cool prizes and trinkets compliments of vendors and the organising company.

Notably, all the vendors were young Guyanese entrepreneurs.

For many of them, MARS was a golden opportunity to express themselves, showcase their businesses and their talents, and create a name for themselves in the business world.

One such person was the owner of Riddle Me Graphics, Ridwaan Wilson, who came all the way from Linden to be a part of the event.

Riddle Me Graphics, according to Wilson, provides small scale printing services and designs graphics such as logos and signs.

He said that as of right now they are only providing small scale printing.

Estharita Cupido, another young entrepreneur started her business, The Art Realm during the pandemic.

What started out as a hobby quickly became a business.

“So, I do anime paintings, as well as other customisable paintings at the request of other people.”

More information about Cupido’s business can be found on Instagram and Facebook.

Lisa Lam, owner of Luna Stationery said her business specialises in “cute” stationery. She sells journals, notebooks, pens, washi tapes and stickers.

It has been one year since she started her business which is located on Sheriff Street.

She said that she is always pushing herself to achieve the best for her business in every way possible. This includes getting items that her customers will enjoy using.

Maria DaCosta used the MARS event as an opportunity to display her colourful jewellery.

She said that she makes all of her jewellery by hand and usually includes items such as crystals, glass beads and other items. Some are wire wrapped and paired with crystals.

“I have bracelets, necklaces. I recently started doing keychains. Everything is very fairycore.”

DaCosta has been in business for the past two years. She said: “I started it as just making jewellery for myself and then people got interested in it and I just went (forward) from there.”

In addition to anime merch vendors, there were a range of live entertainment activities including the tug-of-war game, a cosplay competition, spicy ramen challenge, and a voice acting challenge.

Shomari Williams, one of MARS’ organising members related that this year’s event saw an estimated 3,000 persons in attendance.

“We would have sold out our tickets. And it turns out that there were 3,000, or nearly 3,000 people in attendance, which includes the participants, vendors, sponsors and media, VIP, special invitees and so on.”

“It was a great event… We did not get to do everything we wanted to do. Truly we didn’t, but we are doing some of the things we wanted to do on the event day, after the event.”

Last year at the first MARS event, a little more than 700 persons were in attendance.