Pros and Cons

The Show: ACen 2010
Where: Rosemont (Chicago), IL
When: May 14-17
Which Fandoms: Anime, etc.
Demographic: The standard; perhaps less Steampunk fans than usual.
How Many Days Did You Attend: all of 'em
Why Did You Attend: the Alley
How Many Years Have You Done This: This was my second.

Review of Con-Staff interactions: Philip's candor and efficiency (in regards to interactions with artists and the doling out of tables) is the standard to which I hold all other Alley heads.
Review of Pricing: One 8' table was $60; badges were $50.
Review of Location: Finding the Alley was a bit tricky--especially when check-in was in the Alley and there was thus no hope of finding a map in your bag o' con stuff. In a show of ACen's size, it might be nice of them to put up maps in the convention center.
Review of Guests: I met Hawk from Applegeeks. :D
Review of Artist Alley: There continues to be a problem with people photographing an artist's work without permission. There's also a growing problem (seen across a few Alleys lately) of people selling mass-produced items as handmade.


Other Thoughts: We got a deep dish pizza from Gino's East. It was really expensive but ridiculously fabulous and extremely filling. Four of us took two days to finish it. If you have a car in the area, be sure to check out Niko Sushi and/or Mitsuwa marketplace.

Net intake from this show (for me) was only a little less than ABoston's.

The Show: Tekkoshocon
Where: The David L Lawrence convention center in Pittsburgh, PA
When: April 8-11 (Thursday-Sunday)
Which Fandoms: Anime with a giant dose of concerts and dances. The official t-shirt tagline for the show was something like "A music convention with an anime problem."
Demographic: Lots of dollfen. I'm noticing what looks like a decline in catgirls but a surge in Hetalia fans/cosplayers. Pittsburgh also has a pretty good-sized bellydancer population, and the attendance reflects that. Doctor Who fans/Doctor cosplayers seem to be gaining in number, as well.
How Many Days Did You Attend: Friday-Sunday. Programming happened on Thursday but the Alley wasn't open for anything but setup.
Why Did You Attend: The Alley
How Many Years Have You Done This: This was my fifth Tekko, fourth selling. I think. D:

Review of Con-Staff interactions: Feytaline is nice, responsive, and easy to work with. Not only did she help shut down people taking pictures of artists' work (which is pretty f'ing annoying), she put up a big conspicuous sign telling people to knock it off. Finding con staff is easy, too, since they wear brightly colored Tekko shirts.
Review of Pricing: $40 per 6'x3' table; $45 entry.
Review of Location: The convention center is pretty sweet, though it can be a maze if you don't know where you're going--very much like Pittsburgh itself. There's still very tasty food within walking distance: The Original Fish Market sells sushi in the adjoining hotel, Wholey's down the street in the Strip has godly gigantic $6 fish sandwiches as well as sushi, and Subway is within blocks. There's $5 parking across the street at the Greyhound station (very convenient if you're not carrying a ton of stuff), and discounted parking for con attendees under the building itself. It's usually $10 or $12 to park, though fifteen-hour or so stays in the convention lot run $20. (Prices noted are without the discount; I think you have to talk to the attendee to get that.) Water stations and cups are also plentiful and refilled frequently enough that you won't need to fill a water bottle out of the bathroom sink.
Review of Artist Alley: Lots of open space and good lighting. I'd forgotten what it was like to recognize an Alley head but not be worried about what was going down if they walked by. We also got to see Tekko's Dancing Guy doing his thing again, and he's always hilarious to watch.


Other Thoughts: It's a smallish con but a laid-back and friendly one, and their processing for badges, artists, and so on just gets smoother every year. Its being local means I see lots of people I've known from Tekko, from my old workplace, and so on. There's a notable number of fans who tend to not eat all weekend, so feeding them will gain you a new friend.

About the reviewer: I did this show the weekend after ABoston. Their attendance is a fifth or sixth of ABoston's but I still made about a third of what I did there.

The Show: Anime Boston
Where: Hines convention center, Boston, MA
When: April 2-4
Which Fandoms: mixed
Demographic: Slightly older--early twenties on up, it seemed. Possibly noteworthy: I also talked to a lot of congoers who said they only go to ABoston and Connecticon.
How Many Days Did You Attend: All three. Sunday was Easter Sunday, though, which meant it was super-slow.
Why Did You Attend: the Alley
How Many Years Have You Done This: First one

Review of Con-Staff interactions: Mixed but generally positive. We were told upon sign-in that the Alley wouldn't be secured from the public on Sunday morning. When I expressed confusion, the person staffing the Alley table told me that most cons don't provide a secure Alley at all--but in my experience, most cons do provide a secure Alley. Then when Sunday rolled around (and we'd staggered out of bed super-early in order to defend our stuff), we found that security wasn't letting people in until 10 anyway.

Staff was also on the ball when it came to table campers. This is the first time I've seen someone just randomly setting up shop at an empty table, but con staff hopped on 'em quickly enough. Also, their check-in procedure was the fastest and smoothest one I've ever had.
Review of Pricing: Parking was awful in the official convention center lot--$40 a day. Another lot, closer to the attached hotel's entryway, was $30 a day/$18 on Sunday. It ended up being a shorter walk than the $40/day one--a big bonus when when trucking a 40lb wheelie of merch/parts.
Review of Location: The convention center was on the ball with cleanliness: every few hours someone would come by to dump the trash can in the middle of our little island, and it seemed there was always someone on hand in the bathrooms. There were no overflowing garbage cans like there are at so many other shows. The attached mall had a pretty diverse and tasty food court, too, if you could make it through the seething masses of plague-riddled humanity to get to them. Also, I am a bad person no one yelled at me for rejecting shoes after my sandals revolted and chewed holes in my feet.

Review of Artist Alley: This show was brutal (in an awesome way). I was playing catch-up two hours after opening on Friday, and I'd brought a ton of stock. I sold more there than I did at Otakon.
Review of Dealer Room: It seemed very open.
Other Thoughts: We got rooms at the Fairfield Marriot in Revere, about ten miles away, for about $80/night. Staff there were also pretty awesome, their business lounge let you print things for free, and breakfast, while not fantastic, was still good. And they gave me band-aids for my poor, sad feet.
Traffic into Boston was mild to nonexistent in the early mornings, and I can handle a $3 bridge toll + $30/day parking better than a $100, $200+/night hotel that's only a little closer and would also charge $30/day or so for parking.

About the reviewer: Not dead yet.

A few of us were doing this one, so let's try something a little more centralized/streamlined. Expand upon your answers and/or do the template thing in the comments.

Poll #4901 Katsucon 2010
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Your thoughts on Katsucon 2010 are generally . . .

You attended Katsucon 2010 as a . . .

If you were there as an artist or a vendor, you found Katsucon 2010 to be . . .

You sell:

ETA: Artists are starting to voice their opinions over here on Katsu's forums.

Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

The Show: MAGFest (the Music And Gaming Festival)
Where: Alexandria, VA
When: January 1, 2010 - January 4, 2010

Which Fandoms: Gaming--Console, Arcade, TableTop, LAN, Import Games, LARP, Gaming Design, Game Programming, Game Psychology. ALSO MUSIC--Indie Bands, Game Music Covers, Local Talent, Loads of Concerts!

EDIT Con Demographic: The majority of the folks walking by our booth were menfolk, aged 17-30 years old. But do NOT discount the female gamer and cosplayer population, who were both certainly represented and having a grand time.

Size of Con: Between 2,000 & 3,000 people.
How Many Days Did You Attend: 4
Why Did You Attend: Vendor in the 'Marketplace.' More on that below.
How Many Years Have You Done This: This was our first year.

Review of Con-Staff interactions: AMAZING. The website was functional, clear, and straightforward. What wasn't readily available information on the site was promptly and thoroughly answered by staff. (This was during the Thanksgiving/DecemberHolidays rush no less!) I had a family crisis arise days out from the con, so I was swapping around name badges and trying to get extra badges and canceling badges. Yet, no matter how overwhelmed or generally confused I was about my own needs as a vendor, the staff responded within 24 hours with concrete and helpful answers. They accommodated all the changes I needed and greeted my 'emergency stand-in' helpers with special attention! All those change-ups were happening in the 5 days before the con AND before New Year's Eve. When I was able to join my helper-squad on day 2, the con staff was just as willing to work with me as if I were the only person in the alley. I cannot say enough about how incredibly 'On Top of Their Game' this con's AA was.

Review of Pricing: Totally reasonable. We paid $170 for a full 6' table and 3 convention memberships for a 4 day con with a 24/7 alley. We did not try to offer an panels this year, so I do not know if that would have made any of the badges cheaper, but there's always next year.

Review of Location: The hotel offered FREE PARKING. (Love!) It was also easy to get to (considering it was nested in the clusterf--- that is the DC Metropolitan Area). As for our table location... the AA was at the nexus of the arcade, the gaming rooms, and the concerts. If you came down the escalator, you had to walk through. I love it when a Con considers the traffic flow. :)

Review of Panelists: I did not attend panels that weekend, but our indie game designer did. He was in heaven.

Review of Guests: Very friendly. Again, our indie game designer hung out with them--I'm not really up to speed on all my "Names in Gaming" so I don't really know if the guests were amazingly popular or what... though like I said, the ones we met were very sweet.

Review of Artist Alley: MAGFest has what they call a "Marketplace." All vendors are treated equally--if they are dealers or artists. The space is sold by the table and there were two 'lockable rooms' for people who didn't want do 24/7 sales. There are no divisions by genre or medium. People selling Tshirts and import games could be right next to people selling lego-game-sprite art. The result was that people browsed the entire floor. This year, there was a healthy mix of crafters, bands promoting their cds & tshirts, clubs, pro-dealers, and artists. As the show gains in popularity, this may need to change just to accommodate the growing demand, but right now, the space fit the entire Marketplace very well.

My only note: Some of the marketplace booths were under the over-hang of the floor above and did not get very good lighting. We were advised by staff when we purchased our table to bring clip-lamps or other lighting for our booth just in case. Electricity was provided for free and the lamps turned out to be a great idea. :)

Review of Dealer Room: See above.

Other Thoughts: I think I covered it all.

About the reviewer: My name's Sarah. I'm with Interrobang Studios, a webcomics & gaming collective. At conventions we sell comic book collections of our webcomics, a number of parody comic books (which went VERY well at this con), art prints featuring both original characters and popular characters from games and animation (also went well at this con), posters, crochet creatures/plushies, indie game cd's (good seller at this con), and custom art commissions (good seller). The average cost of things at our table: $5. We were able to make back the cost of table and badges by the middle of the second day of con. From the promotional side of things: I was able to hand out approx 800 fliers directly to con-goers--with time to speak to each of them. We saw a 10% bump in our web traffic that I attribute to this con.