ONLive: Philippines' First VTuber Convention
Rare cosplays, hours-long jamming, informative panel discussions and more in this historical event for the Philippines' VTuber community.
It is without a doubt that a VTuber-centric event in Southeast Asia needs to happen. This region has a lot of VTubers, fans and even artists and modelers, moving altogether to elevate the creator economy.
Several events have featured its own VTuber showcase, including AniManGaki in Malaysia and the stand-alone V-Festa in Thailand. Heck, even the first Offkai Expo in the US was so successful it will have an encore with more guest VTubers. We have yet to have our own stand-alone VTuber fan event, that is until the team at Pygmalia took the challenge.
The organizers of Anime Idol Convention and the Genshin Impact-focused Primo Stella has organized ONLive, the country's first VTuber convention / fan event held at Upper Box Event Space inside Promenade Mall, Greenhills Complex, San Juan City. Hundreds of fans, artists and VTuber personalities gather for a day of entertainment, putting local VTuber talent to the physical space.
ONLive features several activities, such as:
- Cosplay competition for solo and group participants
- Panel Discussions on the VTubing scene
- Trivia Games and Raffle
- Standee Auction
- Meet-and-Greet sessions
- VTuber Medley Concert
I participated as a judge for the Cosplay Competition, as well as presented my own take on VTuber Security, which I did again after the event for your viewing pleasure.
Among the competing cosplayers, there's only one group which represented Holostars, and the rest represent Nijisanji EN. Kye Koree and the group Moonlight stood out the best in their respective categories.
ONLive is successful in having VTubers Dasu, Maddie, KiraKiraKat, and KoMETA Virtual Live CEO GIRA for another informative panel discussion on the country's VTubing scene, answering questions in front of the audience.
In just one day, we've seen some rare VTuber cosplays—some cosplays are focused on Holostars, some in the independent segment (such as Pan the Bread, Doremii and Hanami Arisa), and some even cosplayed Japanese VTubers such as YuNi and Delutaya. This especially came as a welcoming surprise to me, who has been hooked to the 24/7 VTuber news cycle.
Of course, we have the main event—the VTuber Medley Concert. Songs from various local VTubers are shown on stage, and even if it felt like watching MTV, people still vibed to the tracks.
If there are three big moments from this segment, it's the fact that international guest Nyaru did her idol research as she sang MNL48's Aitakatta Gustong Makita and BINI's Da Coconut Nut.
Fast forward to Maddie and Dasu's live performances, red queen Maddie stepped up on stage, singing side-by-side with KiraKiraKat who was on the screen. Dasu capped off the concert with a DJ party enjoyed by the audience.
The last parts of the program are fun—especially the standee auctions. Pan the Bread's standee was auctioned off at Php4,000, Elaine's at Php3,000, Virgil's at Php6,000 and Miria's at a whopping Php10,000. Miria would probably be surprised to know that while she was at vacation, her standee was the highest bid item in the event.
Overall, ONLive achieved its goal of bringing together the VTuber community in the country—and since we had fun there, we are already looking forward to the next one.
Watch our video feature below and see the interviews with attendees, partners, and other personalities.
VTuber NewsDrop is a media partner for ONLive. Thank you for having us!