Key (company) - History - Comiket Involvement

Comiket Involvement

Comiket, short for Comic Market, is a large comic convention held twice a year in Tokyo, Japan during August and December, which are referred to as the summer and winter Comic Markets, respectively. Key has been an active participant in the convention since Comiket 57 in December 1999, where they sold Kanon-related products (as Kanon was their only release at the time); one such product was a Zippo lighter. The first Air-related products Key sold at the convention were at Comiket 59 in December 2000. Typical products include: postcards, telephone cards, calendars, posters, and albums. The products Key sells at Comiket are all related to the visual novels the brand produces.

Key, through Visual Art's, generally participates at the winter Comiket in conjunction with other brands under Visual Art's, but has been known to appear at the summer Comiket too, such as with Comiket 70 in August 2006 where they sold Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume related products. The combined total of the products Key sells at a given Comiket range in price between 3,000 and 5,000 yen. This includes the selling of music albums released under Key's record label Key Sounds Label which has been releasing albums since Comiket 60 in August 2001 with the release of the label's first two albums, Humanity... and "Natsukage / Nostalgia". If there are any unsold products by the end of a given Comiket, Visual Art's has been known to set up an online mail order to sell the remaining goods from all the brands under Visual Art's that participated at Comiket. After Comiket 73 in December 2007, Visual Art's started taking mail orders on March 4, 2008, and only six days later on March 10, 2008, Key reported that all of Key's goods sold at Comiket 73 were now sold out. At the end of the second day of Comiket 75 in December 2008, all of Key's goods at the convention were sold out.