Anime fans and commuters gathered at BART Mart 2, pop-up artist alley, on March 26 at the Millbrae Intermodal Station skyway.
The anime-centric event, which ran from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., featured 17 artist booths, fan-held Umamusume: Pretty Derby races and three stamp rallies.
“The idea is to get people to linger a little bit longer,” Bay Area Rapid Transit internal communications manager Tom Williams said. “BART is a vibrant community hub, and we want to show it off as such.”
BART Anime Project launched its mascots in 2023 to promote public transportation usage, especially among younger people and celebrate 51 years of the agency. The two BART Mart events followed from this initiative.
At the event, BART had a booth with official merchandise of its mascots. Some items are no longer available for online purchase, such as its acrylic standees, sticker sheets and keychain charms.
“The first BART Mart was in downtown Berkeley. This is the second one,” Williams said. “There is such a depth of just passion and community around anime … in the Millbrae area that we wanted to try doing it down here.”
Located minutes from the San Francisco International Airport and in the middle of the San Francisco Peninsula, Millbrae is the only BART station directly connected to Caltrain.
The downtown Berkeley station, while only minutes away from UC Berkeley, does not connect to other rail transit.
“It (Millbrae) is not a parking lot in the middle of nowhere,” Melody Starling, BART youth engagement specialist, said. “We’re walking distance from every little town, and we can draw crowds that are passing by … to or from school or work or wherever they’re going.”
Yue Lin, artist and vendor, said BART Mart 2 is a space for attendees to meet other anime fans, even among commuters passing by.
“You wouldn’t have met all these people by traveling by car,” Lin said. “This is quite a cool community.”
The project made BART Mart 2 horse-themed to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
Starling said that the peninsula has “some local horse racing history,” including the former Tanforan and Bay Meadows racetracks.
To celebrate the new year, fans hosted Umamusume races, a game where players train anime girls modeled after racehorses to compete against each other.
“Umamusume is the hot thing right now in artist alleys across the U.S., … especially with younger folks. We wanna meet them where they are,” Starling said. “It’s also the perfect tie-in with the year of the horse.”
Anyone could join at the beginning of each casual match, which was projected onto a large screen, with the game supporting up to 18 players per round.
”It’s definitely getting a lot of enthusiastic crowds, curious onlookers,” Starling said. “I hear people shouting (from halfway across the station). They’re getting excited, it’s a lot of upsets in this game.”
The event spread art vendors out across only 10 tables, with more than half the vendors sharing a slot because of the station’s limited space.
“We prioritize artists that make transit-related art,” Starling said. “We also try to reach out specifically to local art communities, … we are here to support local artists.
The event gave local artists exposure to an audience outside of their current following, with the stamp rallies encouraging passersbys to visit different stations to complete the images.
“They (artists) are being put in front of all these commuters and other people who are using BART right now,” Williams said. “There’s so many people passing through here.”
Lin and her sister, Sophie Ling, 20, electrical engineering and computer sciences major at UC Berkeley, said BART Mart 2 is their first time hosting a booth. The two create letterpress prints using metal plates and cotton paper.
“Before this, … I thought I did not have the experience required,” Lin said. “It (BART Mart 2) opened my eyes more to the community and that I have people who do like my art.”
The project was selective with which vendors it accepted, owing to its stations’ sizes.
“I think a great part about it is that it is free for artists to booth at,” Ling said. “It lowers the barrier of entry and makes it seem not as intimidating to start tabling at events.”
Lin said the event made her more aware of Bay Area public transportation options.
“I usually take the car to work, so I don’t really use the public transport,” Lin said. “This (event) opened a door to me.”
Though the project has not scheduled more BART Marts for now, Williams said it and the agency are planning more.
“They’ve been pretty successful,” Williams said. “All I see are happy people and excited people and people who are excited to be in a transit station, and that’s great.”
BART Anime Project is also planning an anime festival, Let’s Glow, which will feature a larger artist alley and more live events on Sept. 12 at the Warm Springs BART Station in Fremont.
Last year’s festival featured DJs, food and boba stands, dance lessons and an artist alley.
“I think these have struck a great balance between being active without being so crowded that it impedes upon the operation of the station. People being able to ride BART comes first,” Williams said. “We’ll take a look at it and decide where and when we want to do more of these,”
Williams said the agency wanted to geographically spread its events out and give people a chance to come to BART events, no matter where they live.
“All these people are out here seeing that BART is clean and safe and reliable,” Williams said. “BART is a part of all these people’s lives, and it’s great to be able to show it off as such.”
