How beCosy Fashion Leveraged 'Insomnia: The Gaming Festival' to Fuel Brand Growth

The Importance of In-Person Events for Small Brands and Businesses

As a small clothing brand, it is incredibly hard to get your name out there in the beginning, especially as an online store. To make sales, your brand needs credibility, and unless you are a big influencer yourself or can afford to pay for one, it's incredibly difficult to get customers to believe in you and make a purchase. Like many other small businesses, this was our first challenge we needed to overcome. We are confident in the quality and value of our clothes and really rave about them constantly - but to a consumer, this means nothing. We decided that telling them wasn't enough; we needed to show them. This is where Insomnia, the gaming festival (IGFest), comes in.

IGFest is a gaming convention hosted by the NEC in Birmingham twice a year. It's a long weekend filled with gaming competitions, content creators, cosplayers, voice actors, interactive stands, shows, and of course, our home for the weekend: the marketplace. Already having ties with the gaming world from our connection with Into the Breach Esports, we decided that Insomnia was the perfect place for us to reach our target market and show off the beCosy quality.

How beCosy Tackled Insomnia 72

Back in September 2023, beCosy fashion attended i71 where we hosted our launch party for beCosy with our first-ever collection: CosyCore. It was somewhat successful, but we knew we needed to do more for i72. At the end of March, we attended i72. This time we came prepared with new business cards, new collections, and a new team of helpers.

At i71, we noticed everyone was being bombarded with business cards and that we needed to do something different to stand out. For i72 all our business cards were also a scratch card allowing customers to win anything from 10% off their order to a completely free item. We found this received way better engagement than our traditional business cards as people were incentivised to actually look at them.

We showcased all our collections, including a new collection in collaboration with the Goose House Games, featuring embroidered goose designs on sweats and T-shirts. To help promote this collection, we brought along the creators @uk_lem and @blazybard, they must have been doing something right because we sold out of almost all the pink duck duck goose sweats (unsurprising as they are pretty awesome).

However, the star of the show was our COSY CLUB collection, with both the hoodie and joggers being our top two most popular items over the weekend. It may seem surprising, but we were confident that once people could feel how soft and thick this collection is and see the print quality up close, they will love COSY CLUB as much as we do. We were right to have this confidence, and Insomnia has shown the value and importance of popup shops for small brands like ourselves.

What we learnt from i71 is that sales aren’t everything; events like these are essential to increasing brand awareness. BeCosy did this in 3 main ways at i72:

1. Word of mouth from myself, Morgan, and our TGH creators. We spent time away from the booth handing out our cards, showing off our outfits, and posting about beCosy on our socials.

2. Utilising the ITB stand. ITB had a large stand with a lot of footfall; we simply had a rack displaying COSY CLUB at the ITB stand and when people showed interest, they were directed to find us in the marketplace.

3. TGH x BeCosy VALORANT team. TGH put together a roster for the VALORANT women’s cup; this team was sponsored by beCosy, and one of the players (Mizzy) even wore our hoodie during the finals on the esports stage where they won the tournament!

If you want to see more of what went on at Insomnia, check out our short vlog here.

Will you be seeing beCosy at the next Insomnia?

You guessed it right, we're headed to I73 this September! Thanks to your support, we're back for another round and can’t wait to step it up another level. Get ready to feast your eyes on brand-new creations, exciting giveaways, and exclusive discounts. Follow our social media pages for all the latest updates and details about the event.

We just want to thank you for all the support you have shown us at Insomnia, whether that be by making purchases, sharing us to your social media, or even just coming along to say hello. We appreciate all of you!