I attended Comic Market 106 (夏コミケー) on August 16-17, 2025.

I arrived at the early entry queue at 7:30 and stayed until 14:00. There is a pre-queue for early entry ticket exchange. This year, there was also a “cool relief” area in east hall 8, which was appreciated.

I used the same bag I used in c105_report. However, I did bring:

• 3x 900mL pocari sweat
• Daiso “cooling neck ring”
  • This seemingly was ineffective. According to the literature, I guess it will only be effective at low temperatures throughout a day, not necessarily during a prolonged event. I found that it melted slowly, and was fully melted by the time I left.
• A lot of snacks that I didn't eat (almost all were destroyed by heat)
• Lots of “energy” gel, which realistically was a mix of types focusing on replacing nutrients that would've been obtained by eating but weren't.

The temperature was about 32C at the peak during the waiting line. Compared to previous summer events, it felt like this was a lot less intense. The main thing I would say is that the shade might make it seem more tolerable but it really doesn't change much. I still drank about the same amount of liquids as I would expect to in warmer weather. I think that basically at this heat you can't really sweat more than the max. At the event specifically, I ended up drinking 3200mL of sports drinks (3x pocari sweat, plus the event specific sports drink).

For some reason, I developed a very bad headache during the waiting line, but I took ibuprofen and it was overall fine. I know it wasn't heat stroke because I didn't have any of the other signs. I suspect caffeine withdrawal, since I had been avoiding it going into the event and carefully ensuring I was hydrating properly.

I added a clipboard with a small amount of capacity, but I didn't feel it did anything substantial to help. I ended up sharing my circle.ms login with a friend so he could add his items directly to my list, and also asked him to provide a PDF with his desired items. I printed the venue map too, since east halls 1, 2, and 3 were closed. I found that having this accessible on paper was significantly better than relying on saved images on a phone.

I basically left earlier than usual only because I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, and wanted to rest a little before preparing for the second day.

I made the decision to stay in a hotel significantly closer to the venue. I won't name which one it is, for fear of losing my new favorite hotel, but it worked well and was quite affordable.

I participated in day 2 as expected. The night before, I had an absolutely dreadful night’s sleep the night before, with only 3 hours of sleep. My hotel room wouldn’t quite get cold enough, and I was doing circle catalog activities the night before again, too.

I arrived at Tokyo Big Sight at around 7. On day 2, I was in block 4の2, which closed at 7:05. According to the signs, 3の1 closed at 5:53. According to one SNS user, they left for Tokyo Big Sight at 4:30. I assume that “as early as the first train” is the most practical earliest arrival time. Blocks 1 and 2 are early entry only. My friend who arrived at 4の3 at 8:15 on day 1 arrived at 4の6 at 8:30 on day 2.

Day 2 was definitely more packed in terms of people arriving on day 2 than on day 1. I feel very strongly like day 2 is more congested generally in the east halls.

I spent a decent amount of time in the Hall 8 cool rest area, which is new. I used 2 of the phase-change heatstroke prevention packs. These packs use phase change chemistry to produce cooling, and are apparently reusable up to 3 times. I don’t know what they are chemically, but they did seem very effective. They don’t last a long time, but it was definitely nice to have them.

I developed a headache again. I don’t know the root cause, but I used ibuprofen + caffeine (EVE DX Quick).

I drank basically the same amount of liquids, 3700 mL, of which 500mL was just water. There's a bit of a problem that I've felt, which is that bringing anything cold to Comic Market is a fool's errand. It just doesn't stay cool.

New this year, I brought a bag with me from prior Comic Market years, which I used to hold purchases once my backpack was full. I realized that my backpack solution, ultimately, is suboptimal: I need to find a better solution that allows me to purchase things significantly faster. My friend and I brainstormed, and by searching Amazon Japan for コミケーバッグ, you can actually find decent results. It seems like the specific genre of bag that's good is a “meeting bag”. I plan on purchasing and testing meeting bags before the next event, to see if this is a suitable improvement. The downside to this genre of bag seems to be that they're designed to be carried over-the-shoulder, instead of as a sling-type or a backpack type. This means that as the bag fills, the weight will naturally increase. I hope that I can find a suitable bag with an over-the-shoulder type sling for better weight distribution.

I also found that the clipboard type box I had, which was suitable for carrying very small amounts of items, wasn't suitable this year. It just had too small of an area. I'm considering getting a small box I can use and modifying it to have a slot at the top, and maybe attaching a clipboard to that box. I'm not sure what the end solution is.

Finally, I had another issue: cash management. I feel like I need to break down and get a long wallet like most Japanese people have. It's just too fiddly to carry around cash in a loose format, at least during Comic Market. Change and cash were too easily lost and misplaced. I nearly lost several thousand yen on the floor because of poor cash management.

At the conclusion of the event, I stayed after for about 1 additional hour, and helped pack up like I did in C105. I wish I did more, honestly. I ended up packing up about 30-50 tables and only 20 or so chairs. I felt like I could have done more, but east halls 4-5-6 were basically done, and the remaining halls, south and west, were a very significant distance away, which would've required a trip to just see if they needed help. During C105, I was able to easily peek into 1-2-3 and see that they needed help immediately, which led to me helping there. A significant limiting factor is that I don't want to carry my stuff while I volunteer, but I also don't want it to be identified as missing/lost goods. I will bring a sign to help communicate that they aren't lost goods, but rather, are accompanied by someone volunteering next time.