Recently, I discussed with one friend about an ambitious idea about developing Western doujin culture from people related to TouhouFest. I would like to share some thoughts about that.
There are a lot of serious differences between Japanese and Western Touhou communities.
We should understand who participate in doujin events. A big number of participants of doujin circles are university students, they have possibilities and don't have too many responsibilities, but at the same time they don't have a lot of money which they can spend on these activities (self-funds). In the past most general participants of Touhou-only events were students or older. Now, the number of much younger participants is increasing. But as Western Touhou
Doujin culture would be "young" and most Western Touhou fans who would be ready to participate in such events in most cases aren't very young (I suppose, we don't have good demographics about Western Touhou community, more about that later), I think we can assume that most participants would be university students or slightly older.
Doujin activities are really expensive, in many cases circles (especially first-timers) don't earn money and lose it. The advantage the West has is that people in the West are much more tolerant to other ways to earn money (like donations and crowdfunding) besides sell-funds and profit from events. But if we would rely too much on these ways we can just get another
indie culture. If you want to do doujin activities you should get used to the fact that in result you can lose money (be in red), because the main goal of doujin activities is to make goods and have fun, not making money (in indie culture the "profit-seeking" behavior is much more common). Modern doujin culture also requires serious infrastructure (like printing companies), otherwise it would be even more expensive for circles.
To temporary solve these, organizers might have to rely on
wealthy circles which have enough money for such activities (but if this would not be controlled then there is a chance that such events will become much more commercialized; in addition, the circles' pockets are not bottomless). If in result the event is big enough, then there will be a chance that the event organizers will find sponsors who would be interested in supporting such activities, and there is a (smaller) chance that one of them would be interested in developing the infrastructure for the events.
Japanese Touhou fans also invented an alternative to Touhou-only sales events: Touhou-only reading clubs, but for their existence there should be so many fanworks that you cannot get/read all of them.Next, even though there are a lot of Touhou fans in the West, their density is much lower compared to Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China. To get to the event in most cases you would have to pay much more money than Japanese doujin event participants do.
This problem is possible to solve. But for this
Anime Club Kofu's strategy should be used. They organize a lot of small events in different areas as their goal is to make Touhou Doujin activities more accessible in such areas (of course, on such events there are not as many circles as on events in big cities, but such events can help a lot too). But such activities greatly increase the financial expenses for organizers (and for US it would be much more serious, I think; but if the organizers would be able to find a sponsor, someone rich who is a Touhou fan, it can help greatly at the beginning). In addition, there may be something like "Western Reitaisai" as a face event (it could be for example TouhouFest which is in California, but maybe there is a better place for such event, or there could also be "Western Kouroumu").
And here the meet the problem: we don't know the actual demographics of Western Touhou Community. We don't know where do Touhou fans live and how many fans in different areas are interested in such activities. For example, which country is the best place for the first European Touhou-only sales event? France? Maybe Germany? Or even Poland? We don't know. For this we should gather the information about most (or at least active) Touhou fans. My friend offered the idea of Western Touhou Popularity Poll. But we should organize it very careful to avoid fraud.
Similar practices have been used by Chinese Touhou fans for a long time. They collected data about Touhou fans using Chinese Touhou Popularity Poll, so they could know a lot of useful information about demographics. Using that information organizers of Touhou-Only events can better plan the places for the events (they also use local groups and chats for planning). They had people who were interested in development of Chinese Touhou Doujin. And to make events even more accessible for Touhou fans they organize in many different regions.
Finally, we shouldn't forget that such activities require enthusiasm. The current state of Western Touhou fandom... well, it is stagnating. And it is really fragmented. But I see that there are some possibilities for reclaim. But such moment shouldn't be missed and organizers of Western Touhou events should use it.
For example, the growth of doujin activities in China in late 2010s happened during the another rise of popularity of Touhou in China.
If the organizers of Western Touhou events would like to create Western Touhou Doujin sphere or something similar to doujin, the best thing they should do is learn from the experience of Japanese, Korean and Chinese Touhou Doujin spheres. They should learn how they developed in different conditions and what things they did were right or wrong and why. But they shouldn't just copy the practices which were used in Eastern Touhou Events. The West has its specifics too, which should be taken into account, some ideas that worked in Japan or China may not work in the West.
