Collectors go all in at festival, marking Hong Kong’s rise as card trading hub
Biggest Grade10 Festival will be held at Hopewell Hotel in Wan Chai on November 22 and 23 and feature more than 120 global exhibitors
Hong Kong’s annual collectable card festival will return later this month with its biggest showing yet, as industry watchers say the local market is “beginning to take off” with the city poised to become a trading hub.
The fourth Grade10 Festival will take place at the Hopewell Hotel in Wan Chai on November 22 and 23, featuring more than 120 global exhibitors and an anticipated 20,000 visitors, including enthusiasts from mainland China.
This edition marks the first event since MemeStrategy, the locally listed company behind popular social media platform 9GAG, acquired the Grade10 brand.
The expo, now more than twice the size of its inaugural edition, reflects Hong Kong’s rapid rise as a centre for collectable cards, spanning everything from Pokemon to premium sports memorabilia and K-pop photo cards, according to MemeStrategy.
“The number of cards we see graded in Hong Kong is almost the same as the grading volume for all of mainland China,” said Lawrence Pun, co-founder of retailer and card trading marketplace HobbyX, a regular exhibitor. “This proves that Hong Kong has a very large number of collectors and high-value items.”
“Trading cards all began in Japan, where they already have a very sophisticated market... Things in Hong Kong are just starting to take off.”