Tokidoki x ONCH in Santa Monica

Some time prior to 2024, there was a Tokidoki x ONCH event held at IT’SUGAR in Santa Monica. I attended this event and was thrilled to receive a ticket for a tokidoki gift bag along with another ticket for a chance at winning tokidoki merchandise. Did I win? Read on to find out.

ONCH (Nelson Chung) was of course at the event and let me just say that he seemed very down to earth and chill. I wasn’t expecting him to be such an approachable person but he just was. (I didn’t approach him but it was obvious that he was super approachable.) He definitely seemed like someone that could just hang out with anyone. Public figures often have either an untouchable or otherworldly aura but that wasn’t the case with ONCH and I liked that. It made him seem closer to us “normal” people if that makes sense. LOL

So, ONCH was here at IT’SUGAR where the opportunity to purchase his Tokidoki x ONCH jewelry for $111.11 was made available in limited amounts. It wasn’t a piece your average person would wear everyday BUT it was definitely a piece that fans of Unicorno would appreciate. One woman purchased it and requested ONCH’s autograph on the jewelry’s box. She came prepared with a special marker for ONCH to autograph with. I don’t think anyone else that purchased the available jewelry came prepared in that manner but I’m thinking a selfie with ONCH was probably sufficient for them.

Talking about selfies, there was a photobooth adjacent to where ONCH and the tokidoki x ONCH jewelry was at. There were a decent amount of Tokidoki characters displayed in the area and the picture printed from the photobooth itself was super cute and memorable. You had the opportunity to take three photos (three poses) for the one keepsake photo of the event. It was something simple yet very fun, cute and quite on brand with tokidoki.

Next to the photobooth where the entrance of IT’SUGAR is at was an area of various tokidoki x ONCH merchandise. And that wasn’t the only tokidoki merchandise available. The merchandise that caught my eye was the Hollywood 100 x tokidoki x ONCH bag because I just liked how the bag’s design reflected Southern California. I chose not to buy it on a whim at the event because I needed time to think about whether I truly wanted the bag. A want is not the same thing as a need after all and in this economy, that is very important for me to keep in my mind. However, this tokidoki x ONCH event was an opportune time to go on a shopping spree since they were giving out a canvas tote if you purchased a sufficient amount of merchandise. The Hollywood bag is actually available online directly from the tokidoki website as of date however if you were to buy it from the website, you wouldn’t be getting that canvas tote made available for the tokidoki x ONCH event. That’s the catch!

The funny thing about all of this want vs need talk is that I succumbed to some major tokidoki shopping not long after the event. Blame it on needing retail therapy! LOL But fast forward to today and I think I’ve gotten really good at really sticking to what I truly need. A lot of the stuff we think we need are just wants and this can be a hard concept to grasp especially in a state or city that is heavily doused in materialism. Ha!

Anyway, back to the tokidoki x ONCH event. I mentioned early on that I received a gift bag. The gift bag was a Tokidoki tote which contained a puzzle book, a random Unicorno collectible art figure that I’ve yet to open, stickers, magnets, sticky notes, Unicorno candy and an IT’SUGAR gummy bear. The gifts were great and as a continuous consumer of tokidoki, I think I deserved it. LOL And as mentioned before, there was a chance for me to win a raffle(s). Let’s just say I was very close to winning a raffle! One of the winners’ raffle numbers was one number off from my raffle number. Yes, I was that close to winning tokidoki merchandise!

Because I was already in Santa Monica for the tokidoki x ONCH event, I decided to enjoy what Santa Monica had to offer me and then officially call it a day. As I reminisce about this event, I find it interesting how there was another event with ONCH that I would’ve gone to if possible. Parking in that area is challenging so even if I could’ve made it to the event, I might have hesitated big time since I don’t want to deal with driving around in circles. I hope whoever went to this event on Saturday had a great time and enjoyed a lot of free donuts!