Free CJ Hendry pop-up draws a reseller with empty suitcases

Among those at the Wednesday preview was Californian Lawrence Irodistan, who flew in with two empty suitcases and the clothes on his back. He runs livestream auctions for collectors. “I flew in just for this event, so I can help my community of collectors attain this kind of stuff because obviously not everyone can travel to Australia, and we have a lot of CJ Hendry fans,” he says. He has previously sold Juju blind boxes for up to three times the retail price, plus shipping and tax, and says showing customers he can obtain rare and exclusive items is good for his brand. He is not sure the trip will break even once flights and accommodation are counted.

Juju collections are limited edition, designed exclusively for each event or online drop and never to be seen again, and early collections were created with the assistance of generative AI, a point that has divided fans. A cap on the number of items each buyer can take per transaction adds to the scarcity. Big Juju plushies sell for $99 and blind boxes for $39 in person. Some critics have dismissed Hendry's drawings of everyday objects as "expensive commodities", while fans celebrate her democratisation of high art.

The trade extends well beyond Irodistan. Days before the activation opened, an international reseller advertised in a Facebook group that she would be bringing marked-up merchandise from Hong Kong and Singapore to sell to fans outside the venue, and locals advertised personal shopper fees of $60 per customer, or $20 add-ons per item. One eBay listing priced a blind box, sold for $39 at the event, at $100 plus shipping, a mark-up of more than 156 per cent, and an inflatable carry bag available free with certain purchases was listed at $403.50 plus shipping. Another listing has 10 plush Australian native flowers, which Hendry sold for $5 a stem at a Sydney pop-up in May, at $894.70 plus shipping.

Hendry, whose Instagram following numbers more than one million and whose custom drawings have been bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars, says she finds discussion of resale uninteresting. “There's a lot of artists who have their work resold ... this has been happening for decades,” she says. “I just find it a really uninteresting conversation. That's the world we live in, and if that's what people choose to do, great.”

What resellers cannot offer, in her view, is the event itself. "Coming to the event in person is really important," she says. "Especially now in the AI age, you can buy everything online, you can do everything online, you can communicate online, you don't need to leave your house... the only way to be able to experience this is if you come."

Entry to Juju & Friends is free at White Bay Cruise Terminal, with the activation running until Sunday. Hendry will bring her Flower Shop installations to 14 cities across the world from November, including Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth in December.