…was the second-worst con I’ve ever been to. The coveted spot of “worst con ever” was Bent-Con, a queer-oriented comic con in LA where I sold all of $100 worth of stuff in the first two days, and blew off the last day to go to the beach.
Wizard World New Orleans 2015 was pretty good. I didn’t quite break even but I was only down $200 and had a lot of fun due to stuff like Chewbacchus rolling a couple floats and a brass band through the aisles now and then; it was a big Nerd Mardi Gras.
This year? I didn’t even cover my table, let alone flying in from Seattle. I got to sit next to someone who had bult a wall-o-prints as tall as a standing adult across the entire side of her table. Which cut down what I could see of the traffic by about half. (And when I asked her to, like, remove some of it on Sunday morning, she refused. People who do cons: please don’t do this shit if you’re in artist alley. You may TECHNICALLY be able to do it but it feels really rude, trust me. One grid’s worth of prints, I can deal with, that’s normal, but completely cutting off my view of the folks to my left? You are being an ass.)
The view to my left for the entire con. Real neighborly when the biggest resource is eyes on your work.
Talking to other people as I packed up on Sunday, it turned out I was far from the only one. This was just a shitty con all around. Which is kinda heartening; it’s good to know I was not making a major mistake or anything. The various theories people floated were:
- No Chewbacchus! Which meant no party mood, which meant tighter wallets.
- 200 more artist alley tables than last year, without the increase in attendance to support it.
- Middle of January rather than early February meant wallets still hurt from Christmas.
I think all of these theories account for part of these terible sales! I looked at the sign-up sheet for next year, looked at my costs and expenses, and looked at the date for next year’s con: “TBD”.
Nope. I’m not taking a crapshoot on the next one being this shitty. I would have lost money even if I was a local. I mean, yeah, it might also be awesome. It might be another Mardi Gras party con. But I am not going to flip that coin and risk starting 2016 off with a shitty con.
Basically this was the worst I’ve ever done at a pro-run con.
Next con: Emerald City Comic-Con. Which I made more money at even on my first, worst year.