Let’s Glow! BART Anime Festival returns bigger and better on September 19
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BART’s Let’s Glow! BART Anime Festival returns to Warm Springs/South Fremont Station for a celebration of anime, art, music, cosplay and transit fandom. This year’s free festival will be bigger and better than ever, following a huge turnout of more than 4,000 attendees last year!
The festival celebrates the shared fandom of anime and transit, with an expanded lineup of artists, performances, food, cosplay, and more.
Get to know BART’s anime mascots at bart.gov/anime.
Details
- What: Let’s Glow! BART Anime Festival
- When: Saturday, September 19, 4pm to 9pm
- Where: Warm Springs/South Fremont Station
- RSVP on Eventbrite at letsglowfestival.eventbrite.com. Not required but helps us get a headcount.
- Free to attend
What to expect
- Artist Alley: 100 artists will sell a mix of BART, anime-, and transit-themed art, along with their own original artwork. Check out the artist alley catalog here: https://lg26.notion.site/. Tip: We recommend arriving prepared with a list of tables you want to visit! Help us keep lines moving - please have your order & payment method ready when you get to the front of the line.
- Music and performances: AniClover will DJ for us, and SanFlare will perform wotagei, a high-energy style of synchronized fan dancing. SanFlare will teach attendees the official BART wotagei dance. Local DJs chiii, DJ AJL, Spiritsnare feat. Majoriin from Trademark, Kataoka, Capturelight, DatGai will have tunes running all night.
- Special Youtaite concert: An exclusive VTuber concert produced by Neon Shrine featuring J-pop and Vocaloid cover artists JubyPhonic, Rachie, and Lizz Robinett. It all starts at 7:15pm on the Neon Stage (do not line up earlier than 7:00pm.)
- Railgoods: Shop BART and BART anime mascot merchandise, including new and exclusive products available at the festival. Find our current BART anime merch here.
- Food truck village: Boba + exclusive drinks, desserts, and an array of cuisines from food trucks across the Bay Area. Stop by Creative Sips & Ume Tea for am exclusive coaster and our event drinks: Baylee’s GOATed Berry-essa Special, Jasmine’s Sweetest Matcha ♡, Nimbus' Citrus of the Skies, and Mira's Transbay Taro Tea.
- Trinket & freebie trading: Gachapon Pals will be managing tables for freebies, trinket trading, and stamps! Bring your trinkets to trade, freebies to share, and collect exclusive event stamps!
- Itasha cars & manga truck: Anime-themed cars and vehicles will be on display with Dreamscape. The Manga Truck bring tons of free manga to read at the event.
- Community tables: Discover local happenings, conventions, and fan clubs. Kin-Yoobi Con (happening on Sunday), FanimeCon, OffKai Expo, Bay Area Hoshiyomis, Cal Animage Alpha/Anime Destiny, Tri-City Ecology, and Gamers Heaven will be tabling.
- Indie Game Showcase: Discover fun games created by local game developers. Hosted by BAD Collective.
Cosplay and win prizes
Start planning your outfit now! This year we are hosting a cosplay contest with prizes, including a special category for anyone cosplaying as one of BART’s anime mascots. See the cosplay contest details and guidelines here.
Cosplay seminar: At 6pm on the Neon Stage, Crafty Sorceress will answer your cosplay questions and show attendees how to dress as BART’s anime mascots. Check out their cosplay guides for Baylee, Nimbus, Jasmine and Mira.
No prop weapons: This event has a zero-tolerance policy for prop weapons of any kind and material. Leave them at home.
Take BART to Let’s Glow! and receive exclusive giveaway
Parking at Warm Springs/South Fremont Station will be extremely limited, so attendees are encouraged to park at nearby BART stations and take BART to the festival. Free parking is available at Fremont and Union City stations, and paid parking is available at Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose stations. Learn more about parking at nearby BART stations.
As a special bonus, anyone who takes BART to the event can receive an exclusive BART anime giveaway.
Come celebrate anime, art, music, cosplay and transit fandom with thousands of fellow fans. Let’s Glow!
Photos from past BART Anime events
Past 2026 Events
- NorCal Cherry Blossom Festival & J Pop-Up 2026 — April 2026 in Japantown, San Francisco
- BART tabled with our postcards, cardboard cutouts, informational material, and had a merch display. Despite the rain, plenty of people stopped by, we handed out all our stamp sheets and limited-edition postcards printed for the event.
- Peninsula Libraries Comic Arts Fest 2026 — April 2026 in South San Francisco
- Lots of families and kids stopped by to take photos with the life size cutouts, and to learn more about Clipper’s Youth & Senior discounts. Over 100+ applications were given out in 5 hours.
- Jackson Wang Pre-Concert Photocard Giveaway — April 2, 2026 at Coliseum station
- 200 lucky fans who took BART to the concert received a photocard freebie featuring Barty holding their lightstick. BART debuted a new postcard promoting Korean food & culture in Oakland, which encouraged concertgoers to return to Oakland and support local businesses.
- Hoshimachi Suisei Birthday Fan Ad Meetup — March 22, 2026 at Milpitas & Warm Springs/South Fremont station
- BART helped coordinate a fan-organized ride to see fan birthday ads at Milpitas station. We brought postcards, and the life size train cutout for fans to take photos with. At the end of the meetup, SanFlare held a live dance performance at Warm Springs/South Fremont station.
- This was the first ever fan-organized and fan-funded birthday ad in a US train station. We’re aware of the popularity of these ads, especially among K-pop and VTuber fans, so a page was created to promote them: bart.gov/FanAds
- BART MART 2 — March 26, 2026 at Millbrae station
- Our second BART MART celebrated Year of the Horse, with artists creating transit & horse themed merch! We also invited local Umamusume fans to run causal horse racing matches. 17 artists participated, with 3 stamp rallies. Caltrain & SamTrans (local bus) also tabled.
- BART MART 1 — March 4, 2026 at Downtown Berkeley station
- Our inaugural BART MART drew crowds of local students, as well as commuters on their way home. 14 artists participated. Cal Animage Alpha (local anime club) also tabled, and we had information about Clipper BayPass.
- GENESIS X3 — February 13-15, 2026 in San Jose
- BART brought the anime mascots to the largest local video game tournament for gamers & streamers to take photos with. The train cutout made a few appearances on the main tournament livestream. We also had postcards, stamps, and information about BART jobs & discounted fares.
Past 2025 Events
- FanExpo San Francisco — November 30, 2025 in San Francisco
- BART's beloved anime mascots were at FanExpo San Francisco at Moscone Center. Riders and convention-goers took photos with our mascots as well as BART-man.
- Anime Destiny 2025 — November 15, 2025 in Berkeley
- BART participated in UC Berkeley’s annual anime convention. We had a RailGoods merch pop-up, postcards, and BayPass information.
- Let's Glow! BART Anime Festival - September 26 at Warm Springs/South Fremont
- An artist alley featuring art inspired by transit, anime, games, and more!
- Fan club & community tables. Find your crowd like a club fair in college.
- Food & boba stands, with exclusive themed drinks based on the BART Anime Mascots!
- Live DJs from AniClover!
- Free dance & wotagei lessons with SanFlare
- Shortly after sunset, we will all dance together. Be sure to bring your light sticks if you have them.
- Itasha arranged by Dreamscape: bold, anime-inspired cars and scooters
- Railgoods Popup Shop, featuring original BART merch
- VTubers! Meet & greet your favorite virtual creators at the OffKai Expo table. VTuber Research Club will also bring their roaming robots.
- An exclusive eki stamp~
- Art boards!
- Lantern decoration!
- OffKai Expo Gen 4 — June 20-22, 2025 in San Jose
- BART participated in the Bay Area’s local VTuber convention. We collaborated with Dooby3D on a special Eki stamp to promote Berryessa station, worked with creators on a postcard featuring their favorite local spots along the BART Green Line, and sponsored a Densha de Go tournament, an arcade game where players operate trains in Japan. An airport access guide was created, growing BART airport ridership for visitors, while also making locals aware of public transit options to the venue.
- FanimeCon 2025 — May 23-26 in San Jose
- RailGoods Pop-Up.
- Cosplay Meetup & Contest.
- Special Guest: Caltrain!
- NorCal Cherry Blossom Festival 2025 — April 2025 in Japantown, San Francisco
- BART tabled with RailGoods, selling merch from our “Bay Area in Bloom” collection, and giving out postcards featuring destinations near BART.
- Peninsula Libraries Comic Arts Fest 2025 — April 2025 in South San Francisco
- We brought coloring sheets, stamps, and postcards for the local community. Lots of kids & families stopped by.
- Anime Destiny — November 9, 2024 in Berkeley
- BART tabled with RailGoods at UC Berkeley’s anime convention. We brought over our new boba guide.
Past 2024 Events
- Cupsleeve Collaboration at YiFang — October 2024 at 4 locations:
- BART collaborated with Yifang Taiwan Fruit Tea Northern California by featuring BART’s anime mascots on drink menu items and limited-edition collector cupsleeves as well as in-store photo spots. The collaboration and cupsleeve event ran from October 16 to October 31, 2024, at four Yifang locations in the Bay Area all located within one mile of a BART station. We also hosted two pop-up events at UC Berkeley and Colma bringing together BART fans from all over California.
- Participating Locations: UC Berkeley, Colma, Downtown Walnut Creek, and San Francisco Chinatown
- Anime Impulse Bay Area 2024 — October 2024 in San Mateo:
- BART partnered with Caltrain to promote improved BART/Caltrain transfers at Millbrae. By taking transit to the event, attendees got to to experience faster, more frequent trains on weekends thanks to Caltrain’s new electric service. Special BART × Caltrain collaboration art was commissioned for the event. We also offered a new boba guide.
- Stamp: Millbrae (BART ↔ Caltrain Connection)
- San Francisco Zine Fest 2024 — September 2024 in San Francisco
- BART tabled with anime merch, alongside many passionate fan artists from all over the Bay Area.
- Stamp: Powell (Anime Mascots)
- OffKai Expo 2024 — May-June 2024 in Burlingame
- BART brought our stands for content creators & fans to take photos with, in addition to our popular noodle guide from FanimeCon.
- Stamp: San Francisco International Airport
- FanimeCon 2024 — May 2024 in San José
- BART launched our anime merch collections at FanimeCon 2024. We also offered a noodle guide to promote off-peak ridership, provided information about jobs, in addition to a youth discount. A BART cosplay meetup was held with a discount for cosplayers.
- Stamp: Berryessa/North San José
- Peninsula Libraries Comic Arts Fest 2024 — April 2024 in South San Francisco
- BART brought over life size stands, informational material for San Mateo County riders, coloring books for kids, and had giveaways in our gachapon machine. It was a hit, especially among kids & families visiting the library that day.
- Stamp: South San Francisco
Past 2023 Events
- Meet the Anime Mascots — September 2023 in San Francisco
- BART held a Meet the Anime Mascots event at Powell St. Station on September 16, 2023. More than 700 riders came by to take photos with the mascots and grab a prize from the BART capsule ball machine. Some people came in cosplay of our mascots. We also introduced a stamp rally.
- Stamp: Powell (Anime Mascots)
- OffKai Expo 2023 — June 2023 in Burlingame
- BART tabled with SamTrans at the OffKai Expo VTuber convention in June 2023, and even held meet-and-greets with local VTubers who love BART.
- FanimeCon 2023 — May 2023 in San José
- BART launched the mascots at the largest anime convention in the Bay Area. We gave out exclusive mascot charms and educated people about how to take BART and VTA to travel to South Bay. We also promoted our youth discount.
Past 2022 Events
Crunchyroll Expo 2022 — August 2022 in San José
- While BART did not table at this event, our initial call for California-based artists was launched around Crunchyroll Expo. The call was wildly popular, receiving nearly 500 submissions. We also launched our first digital rider guide, which helped set the 2nd highest all-time Sunday ridership record for Berryessa/North San José station, right behind Pride 2022.