what I learned at the Super Happy Fun Sell

2025 was my last year managing the Super Happy Fun Sell.

Now you may be asking, what the heck is a "Super Happy Fun Sell" and what does it have to do with this blog, or with classic Japanese animation? Well, I'll explain, if you get your cotton-pickin' hands off me, you barbarian. The Super Happy Fun Sell, sometimes described as the “Super Happy Fun Sale,” or SHFS for short, is Anime Weekend Atlanta's garage sale, yard sale, flea market event strictly for fans to sell their previously loved anime and manga merchandise to other fans. By definition, the SHFS is full of older merchandise from older shows, and frequently is the only place at the convention to find out of print manga, old VHS tapes and DVDs, and the occasional LP, LD, Beta tape or animation cel.


The SHFS has been a Thursday fixture at AWA for so many years that honestly I can't remember when it started. But it happened this way. Like many anime conventions, AWA began as a Friday-Saturday-Sunday show, with a lot of setup happening Thursday night and a lot of attendees showing up Thursday to pick up their badges early and avoid the Friday lines. Naturally, the convention had thought about getting some events going Thursday afternoon and evening, not only to encourage that Thursday badge pickup and entertain the early bird fans, but also to help relieve the pressure on a weekend schedule that was filling up with programming. I’d been doing some Thursday evening panels already and was always on the lookout for new Thursday things.


 

Some of the other shows were already hosting swap-meet events. The idea was out there in the world, I know we weren't the first. It's my recollection that one of AWA’s founders, the inestimable Lloyd Carter, was the person that said “let’s make this happen here,” and I believe he also came up with the "Super Happy Fun Sell" name, which is a reference to the SNL fake toy commercial about Happy Fun Ball, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

 

My immediate reaction was, "this is a great idea, I wanna run it." So there I was, on a Thursday night in September of 2008 in the Kennesaw room of the Waverly, watching it transform into something that usually happens on suburban Saturday mornings - a yard sale. At least I think it was 2008. Details are sketchy. As a Thursday night event, it was difficult to squeeze the SHFS into a program book that was firmly and deeply committed to Friday-Saturday-Sunday scheduling. Years would pass before the event achieved full AWA print recognition, which only helped to secure SHFS’s reputation as some sort of clandestine in-crowd night-market rendezvous, and incidentally, helped to shield the event from criticism by vendors in the vendors hall, understandably wary of any competition for attendee dollars. Relax guys, everything sold at the SHFS you probably already sold at least once already.


 

the only known photo of the first SHFS

That first year, things were casual. First come first served, pay at the door and take whatever table you want, sell whatever you got, whatever. The event went like gangbusters, but immediately I realized that we were going to have to formalize things a little, if only to keep the event an actual used-goods event and not let it be over-run by arts and crafts, self-published fantasy novel authors, and wannabe vendors who missed out vending in AWA’s vendors hall. I spent a lot of time explaining the event over and over again to people wandering in the door thinking it was registration or the dealers room, or that they could just stand in a corner and hold things and sell them that way. Don’t do that.

Every year we learned from the previous year and we'd find something else we needed to make a rule for. We added rules against bootleg videotapes or DVDs, outlawing "mystery bags" and blind boxes, and preventing the sale of home-made candles, embroidery, and jewelry. The idea of “yard sale” seems pretty simple, but a lot of people seemed unfamiliar with the concept; we are providing the space for you to sell used items in, and that’s it. No, we can't make change, we don't have any carts or hand trucks, no, we can't provide wi-fi.

 

Super Happy Fun Sell, AWA 2011

After a few iterations of the SHFS and a move to a larger ballroom space in the Waverly, the event had evolved somewhat. AWA added an online registration system built into AWA's web page, we wrote a FAQ and a list of do’s and don’ts, and we found ourselves with a devoted audience of both sellers and buyers, ready and waiting for Thursday. Myself included! I love yard sales, thrift stores, antique malls, used bookstores, anywhere there's a random factor skewing retail choices towards the offbeat and unknown. I also love Japanese cartoons and Japanese cartoon-related merchandise. Creating an event where all these items come to me, rather than me having to hunt them down one by one, well, that’s not the main reason we have the SHFS, but it’s close.


 

some of my SHFS finds from over the years

Also, and this is the important part, the SHFS is an event people absolutely love. I’m talking “lines down the hall and around the corner waiting for the doors to open” love. People love the feeding-frenzy vibe, people love bargains, people love cleaning out their closets and making a little scratch, and that love is infectious. There’s something unique or fascinating or nostalgia-inducing on every table and everyone is happy to be there, smiling at even the possibility of finding treasure and taking it home. Putting smiles on faces is the best thing; in fact, that’s really why we started AWA in the first place, and who can deny we all couldn’t use a few more things that make people happy?


 

AWA 2016 SHFS

So, if I love it so much, why am I stepping away? Well, first off, the SHFS involves arranging and coordinating and organizing. Not an untenable amount of work, but it’s work that is easier and more convenient if done by people in the area, which I am not. In addition to advance promotion, table layout, and the answering of myriad questions, the SHFS has to be integrated with the convention and all that convention’s moving parts like schedules, locations, and staff. That integration happens when staffers get together and talk this stuff out. And me, well, I haven’t been to an AWA staff meeting in twenty six years. In fact they aren’t even called “staff meetings” any more.

promo slide for AWA 2021's SHFS

There’s even more to do when the event actually happens. The seller’s tables need to be set out properly, and if they aren’t, they need fixing. Someone has to work line control, or at least find someone to work line control. We have to find the event signage and that involves someone who knows where all that signage is stored, and that someone definitely isn’t me. Someone’s got to move all the tech equipment out of the room because there's usually tech equipment sitting around in the room waiting to be moved. Often a guest or a panelist or someone on staff or someone staff-related has been promised a SHFS table by somebody else on staff, and that information never gets to me until the day of the show, because, again, the not-being-in-Atlanta thing, just one more last minute curveball hurled on the Thursday of an anime con, a day already filled with curveballs.

The key to dealing with these last minute switcheroos is being flexible, that’s the key to everything about events like this. Like the old saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Treat your carefully crafted plans as if they were merely casual suggestions and adapt as needed. And let everyone else know your plans have changed, because it’s teamwork that makes the dream, or the anime con, work.

 

AWA 2017 SHFS

And that’s my advice to the AWA team that’s taking over the SHFS. To be honest, that’s my advice for the staffers who run any event like this – and to the sellers who are schlepping their merchandise through the maze of the convention center and setting up their tables. Be flexible and adjust to the situation, have your goals in mind and let those guide your actions, instead of the process. And get one or two of those collapsible wagons, or at least a hand truck!

So I’m no longer running the SHFS. But am I through with the SHFS? No sir. You will see me there next time, prowling the aisles, looking for offbeat old anime stuff, chatting with friends, and marveling at all the stuff.
 

AWA 2019 SHFS

AWA isn’t the only anime con to throw a swap meet or a yard sale, of course. Anime Boston’s swap meet is strictly barter. No money changes hands, it’s strictly for the free exchange of goods from one fan to another. Anime North’s Nominoichi fills an exhibit hall with tables piled high with merchandise and that event absolutely swarms with customers. I’m told Colossalcon holds Otaku Flea Markets twice a show, and last I heard Fanime was still holding swap meets. Even without conventions, fandom swap meets and flea markets are popping up all over the place. There’s one happening in Toronto this weekend! My advice is to keep your eyes open for a happy fun sale near you – and remember to show up early, carry along a few shopping bags, don't be afraid to bargain, and bring cash!

-Dave Merrill