After signing up in May, I didn’t do that much during the summer. Other projects got in the way, but the deadline of the 8th of November kept creeping closer, so in mid-August I eventually got together a list of the things I wanted to offer: prints (duh), stickers (small, cheap and eternally popular), keychains (a fun experiment, will elaborate later) and – a late addition – zines. Working on prints and zines was very straightforward. Draw the thing, send it to a copyshop (or print at home), get it, cut to size or fold it. Boom. Done. No other step of the con preparations would go as easily as this. Stickers: I made them myself.
Because I wasn’t trying to spend a lot of money immediately, I decided to approach the stickers and keychains in a DIY sort of way. I bought printable vinyl sheets and laminate for those sheets, and was planning to cut them out with a cricut at a makerspace – not before running into an issue though. I wasn’t super satisfied with the quality of my inkjet at home, and. Did you know no copyshop within an hour of driving distance from me uses an inkjet printer?? I was about to lose my mind, when a wonderful friend I was planning on visiting told me that I could try out her printer from 2007. I was fully out of objects, so I let her old boy handle a test run, with enormously impressive results. Borderless print, deep, right colours. You could have told me this printer was born yesterday if not for the noises it made. Even the cricut cooperated, how lucky.
The keychains were a different story. I love plastic trinkets from the popular manufacturers as much as the next person, but they’re not cheap, and I was sure there was a fun, cool alternative. Printable shrink plastic is a thing, you know. Cutting those sheets out with a lasercutter (thank you again, makerspace) and doming them with resin gives you some pretty dang cute results! I was feeling good about everything I had prepared, even moreso after dropping off all my stuff at my tablemate’s apartment. We had done a test setup and were both very happy with the way everything was looking. Time for the big day!

Saturday

Okay, so. “Big” day was maybe a bit of an overstatement. The first 3 hours of Saturday were dominated by the crickets in the room. The con had started at 10am, and the people that did roll in were not super interested in the artist alley, which gave me a little time to check out everyone’s booth. And I was so impressed! Not just by the quality of the art, but by the kindness and openness of the other artists. I got so much great advice. I eventually made my first big sale to a stranger, which excited me, since it was my goal before the event to make a sale to someone who didn't feel the need to do anything for my sake, like a friend. (Speaking of friend, a very dear friend that I don’t get to see often stopped by as a surprise.) Hooray!
My stickers were doing well, as expected, but my keychain gacha was not left untouched either – unfortunately, some instances of the touching were not because of sales, but because of the extremely young ages of the attendees (one small child asked to purchase the whole gumball machine, along with my tablemate’s booth sign). We made it through the 10 hour Saturday exhausted but happy. Despite only selling art from original projects, I managed to make back the table fees for my half of the table that day, along with some profit. Exciting!

There was apparently an after-party for all exhibitors at the main stage of the venue, but all the artists I spoke to were too spent to go, so this was mainly an event for the game dev exhibitors – Have I mentioned this was a gaming convention? YEAH. The artist area was across the hall from the Main Stage, saving us all from the worst of headaches. We were still right next to the “Community Stage”, which was peaceful until about 6pm on Saturday when a Smash tournament was held on that stage. Moderated, sports-commentary-style, LOUD as hell. We weren’t super stoked about it, but luckily the con wouldn’t open until 11am on Sunday, giving us enough time to sleep in and possibly prepare for more of where that came from.

Sunday

… Was slow. Despite being more busy (there was a visible queue of visitors when I walked over to the back entrance of the hall, and it filled up immediately upon opening for everyone) AND people walking around the artist area, there weren’t many sales happening from what I could see. We saw a few repeatsies customers from Saturday, and it made sense for those people to not buy today, but there was a tangible “windowshopping” vibe in the air. I wasn’t bummed out about it though, my hopes and goals, on account of being super low, had already been met. A few more friends stopped by after my recommendation to show up on Sunday because of the cheaper entrance fee to say hello and chat some, so the time felt like it went by much quicker than Saturday (on top of being 3 hours shorter objectively). I was having such a good time by the end of it that I nearly forgot to walk around in the final hour to catch up with new buddies and – as I’ve learned is much more common than I thought – trade! This is the part where we all got to have a laugh at what the other artists liked most vs. what sold the best. I had a print that no attendees seemed to care for that I traded with three artists. Very cute. ALL IN ALL I was pretty happy with my first try. It was bound to end up being not-mindblowing, but I feel good enough about my work at this point to say that it didn’t necessarily have something to do with my art being bad, and more with the crowd being small and not suuuper happy to spend money. The sales I did make meant a lot to me, and I’m super excited to keep applying to shows and connect with more artists.

Thanks so much to everyone I got to chat with! Hope to see you again!