Pop Umai is a small business known for their adorable and tasty anime cookies. Run by Rocio, Pop Umai has quickly become synonymous with exciting, anime-themed events that pop up throughout Southern California. Each event includes incredible vendors, boba drinks and treats that go along with the theme, cosplay contests, voice actor meet and greets, and more. We spoke with Rocio at their latest event, part 2 of Kiss Kiss Boba. Rocio shared a little bit of her journey and vision for Pop Umai events.

Discussing Pop Umai Event Hosting with Rosio

Q: “Can you tell us a little bit about your journey from small business to hosting events?”

Rocio: “So I was originally, you know, just an office worker. And then I had this dream to open up an anime themed cafe. So just being honest, you know, I’m not like a baker, but I was thinking, well, what’s something that I can create in the meantime to kind of test, you know, whether SoCal wants an anime themed cafe. And so I was like, I can make cookies! So, I started making anime themed cookies. And after doing a couple of events, I’m like, you know what? I want to run like, an anime themed cafe managing an event. Does it align with my vision of, you know, doing a cafe in the future? So I’m like to kind of doing…practice runs and perfect myself for when it’s time I decide to host events.”

Q: “What does it take for you to put on an event like this?”

Rocio: “A lot of patience, a lot of time, and a lot of like you actually have to have a clear vision of what your event, how you want, your event to look like. Because I know that one of the good things about being a vendor is, like, you get to take part as not just organization. You need to actually visualize how you want this event to be and think about everything that could go wrong and come up with a backup plan of why it could go wrong and how to prevent it, that sort of thing.

Because I’ve been to a couple of events where it’s clear the organizers have no real vision. They just think, oh, you know, event people like anime. Surely if I just host an event, people will just come in like it. It’s like, No. Like, why do you like events? You know? What about events do you like? So you really need to take a fan perspective, but a business perspective as well to be like, okay, how do you combine the two?”

Q: “How many of these pop ups have you done so far?”

Rocio: “We try to do, you know, at least like 3 to 4 a year…I think the first year we did like three. I’m losing count and it’s hard. I know I need to go back and create a timeline, but, um, yeah, so I think we’re like at ten or close to ten that we’ve done.”

Q: “What’s your favorite event you have done?”

Rocio: “So my favorite event was the last event that we hosted in…May 10th. It was a Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail themed event. The reason why that one was one of my favorites is because we just had such a strong community, like a strong support from the community. You know, we had a sponsor come out that believed in our idea and was like, ‘We’d love to sponsor you.’ We had a venue that catered to us.

They were like, ‘Yeah, do you need this much space? You need this.’ You know, all the vendors were on board with the idea. Everyone was just so and of course all the fans were just so supportive, sharing, posting their photos, being excited and that’s why it’s been my fear, because overall, you know, like it’s a very community thing here. And so to see that, to see over 3000 people come to the event because they just love the theme, they love the energy, they love the atmosphere.

The Future of Pop Umai

Q: “Do you have an idea or a vision for a bigger event?”

Rocio: “Absolutely. Our goal is to eventually take over a convention center and still do free, free events. Like we still want these events to be free. We want more people to come and enjoy themselves and, you know, just be a part of the community. We hate the, you know, just so many, too, to experience something like this. You just need to pay up for, you know, up front, $40, $60, $80, $100 just to be able to engage with people.

Q: “Do we get a hint at anything that’s coming next?”

Rocio: “We’re planning our biggest event in October, and that’s what I’ll leave it at that. We’re very excited for it.”

Be sure to follow Pop Umai on social media for updates on upcoming events!