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Animazement Con Report!
11 years ago
General
This was the farthest East I’ve done a show and it was like being in an alternate dimension. East coast is certainly a big difference from Central and West coast cons. I will leave the culture shock stories for another time ^_~
It’s hit or miss any time I do an anime show because I do almost no fan art (and then usually really obscure fan art), but this crowd was very supportive of my original work. I had very strong sales for an anime crowd. This is even with me being a terrible salesman and having crud placement in the corner across from a no-show table. A lot of people walked down, saw the empty table, and turned around without looking my way. I had planned to advertise my location in the Art Show, but their pricing made that a less appealing option (more on AS later).
I sold out of my small fan art prints very quickly, but the 11 by 17′s barely moved. On the other hand, people definitely preferred my original images in the larger sizes. I also managed to sell all of the damaged prints that I was able to save. On the second leg of my flight out, the lady seated in front of me spilled her drink and didn’t say anything. I found out an hour later when we were deplaning and I pulled my sopping bag out from under the seat -_- I lost roughly half my small binder. I swapped out some of the lesser damaged ones into my display book and ended up with 11 lightly water-stained prints. Thursday I was a grumpy bear.
Artist check-in desperately needs to be separated from regular pre-reg. They’re already using blank badges and a check list of names. It shouldn’t be any more work to hand the AA staff a stack of badges and let them handle artist check-in entirely.
There were definite problems with flow in this new location that I think can be easily fixed. The entrance had a staircase that funneled people to the opposite side of what it looks like this layout was intended to handle. Traffic tended to start in a middle row and end up branching off randomly as things caught the eye instead of traveling the rows. You can offer a person choices, but you can’t offer people choices because herds are never systematic. I think stretching the islands into rows and moving Art Show to the center instead of corner would do a lot to improve things. I would also love to see a vendor map in the con book for both Dealer’s and Artist’s Alley. It was difficult to help people find what they were looking for when they had no reference for where W20 etc actually was. Also, signage for the hallways. The banners for each venue were awesome, but there was no ‘sign post’ style popup to help direct traffic near the stairways. Without a map, arrow signs giving people directions become pretty important.
I enjoyed meeting the other artists from AANI when I got the chance to sneak away from my table. Brian had to stay home and run graduation so I was without my table help :( My roommate, Kate Faehling, was great company and made the trip infinitely better. Much love for my table neighbors! I may have to beg the Grave Impressions team to write me a sales pitch because they were rocking!
I heard a lot of compliments about the overall quality of the Alley from people who stopped by my table to chat. I know some of the other artists heard us as being referred to as the “Fake Dealer’s Room” but I choose to take that as a compliment. It means we’re all producing competitive quality!
Art Show had a first-time staff without much experience with how shows are generally run at other conventions. Instead of selling space by the panel, they were selling it for $8 per foot. They also had hard-side cubicle walls that required gallery style hanging hardware instead of the standard peg board or grid wall. It looked very nice, but raised the costs for AS considerably while limiting how much could be hung. I only ended up hanging 2 of my canvases and not posting my location map because of the up front price. The staff was very friendly and interested when I brought up my concerns about the cost. They’re apparently required by the convention to make a certain quota to pay for the floor space AS takes up in that hall, so the pricing is entirely understandable. I suggested they switch to less expensive display methods and gave them a price breakdown for panels at several conventions with the possibility of adding a small commission percentage on sold work to make the cost a little less of a risk for the artists. They did have excellent records and gave us a thorough paper trail, which was very nice. The auction was also very lively. ^_^
I would definitely consider doing this con again in the future when travel budget permits. It was a ton of fun and Raleigh is a very chill place. Almost surreal in its laid-backness ^_~
It’s hit or miss any time I do an anime show because I do almost no fan art (and then usually really obscure fan art), but this crowd was very supportive of my original work. I had very strong sales for an anime crowd. This is even with me being a terrible salesman and having crud placement in the corner across from a no-show table. A lot of people walked down, saw the empty table, and turned around without looking my way. I had planned to advertise my location in the Art Show, but their pricing made that a less appealing option (more on AS later).
I sold out of my small fan art prints very quickly, but the 11 by 17′s barely moved. On the other hand, people definitely preferred my original images in the larger sizes. I also managed to sell all of the damaged prints that I was able to save. On the second leg of my flight out, the lady seated in front of me spilled her drink and didn’t say anything. I found out an hour later when we were deplaning and I pulled my sopping bag out from under the seat -_- I lost roughly half my small binder. I swapped out some of the lesser damaged ones into my display book and ended up with 11 lightly water-stained prints. Thursday I was a grumpy bear.
Artist check-in desperately needs to be separated from regular pre-reg. They’re already using blank badges and a check list of names. It shouldn’t be any more work to hand the AA staff a stack of badges and let them handle artist check-in entirely.
There were definite problems with flow in this new location that I think can be easily fixed. The entrance had a staircase that funneled people to the opposite side of what it looks like this layout was intended to handle. Traffic tended to start in a middle row and end up branching off randomly as things caught the eye instead of traveling the rows. You can offer a person choices, but you can’t offer people choices because herds are never systematic. I think stretching the islands into rows and moving Art Show to the center instead of corner would do a lot to improve things. I would also love to see a vendor map in the con book for both Dealer’s and Artist’s Alley. It was difficult to help people find what they were looking for when they had no reference for where W20 etc actually was. Also, signage for the hallways. The banners for each venue were awesome, but there was no ‘sign post’ style popup to help direct traffic near the stairways. Without a map, arrow signs giving people directions become pretty important.
I enjoyed meeting the other artists from AANI when I got the chance to sneak away from my table. Brian had to stay home and run graduation so I was without my table help :( My roommate, Kate Faehling, was great company and made the trip infinitely better. Much love for my table neighbors! I may have to beg the Grave Impressions team to write me a sales pitch because they were rocking!
I heard a lot of compliments about the overall quality of the Alley from people who stopped by my table to chat. I know some of the other artists heard us as being referred to as the “Fake Dealer’s Room” but I choose to take that as a compliment. It means we’re all producing competitive quality!
Art Show had a first-time staff without much experience with how shows are generally run at other conventions. Instead of selling space by the panel, they were selling it for $8 per foot. They also had hard-side cubicle walls that required gallery style hanging hardware instead of the standard peg board or grid wall. It looked very nice, but raised the costs for AS considerably while limiting how much could be hung. I only ended up hanging 2 of my canvases and not posting my location map because of the up front price. The staff was very friendly and interested when I brought up my concerns about the cost. They’re apparently required by the convention to make a certain quota to pay for the floor space AS takes up in that hall, so the pricing is entirely understandable. I suggested they switch to less expensive display methods and gave them a price breakdown for panels at several conventions with the possibility of adding a small commission percentage on sold work to make the cost a little less of a risk for the artists. They did have excellent records and gave us a thorough paper trail, which was very nice. The auction was also very lively. ^_^
I would definitely consider doing this con again in the future when travel budget permits. It was a ton of fun and Raleigh is a very chill place. Almost surreal in its laid-backness ^_~
