This sounds like some sort of smackdown on either of these things BUT ITS NOT I SWEAR–We just had a Vendor Booth this year after having spent (almost) every year since 2013 in the Artist Alley for this particular con.
FOR TRANSPARENCY’S SAKE
Here are a few things to be candid about our situation:
APPLYING
We didn’t really want to be in vendors this year. It was forced on us a bit more because Otakuthon’s policy shifted towards, ‘things that are more anime or Japanese-inspired’ for Artist Alley which…is a little weird seeing as this con is over 20 years old and Vendors do not have the same standards set on them at all. When I (Hivver) asked Otakuthon if we were able to apply to AA if we didn’t get into the vendor hall they explained in their policy they couldn’t allow for this kind of double application and then were really honest with us and added that our work would be disqualified from Artist Alley even if our application did make it in…. (this was extremely heartbreaking as someone whose been here since 2013 but hey);;
Applying is also always a mess and the biggest frustration I have is that Vendors is a lottery and AA is ‘first come’ for 50% of the tables and a Lottery for the rest which leads to a great deal of cheating and clogging up the servers only for your chance to get in hinging on a lottery. They ask artists to prove they’re not AI… in my opinion they need to start doing the work of choosing & jurying artists who get into these events and aim for a more diverse range of styles. Otakuthon before the pandemic was one hell of a show and I often found a lot of original work in Artist Alley but uhm… not so much anymore.
STOCK & TABLE
This year we’re really struggling in the middle of inventory drain. We’re running out of a lot of our big sellers and having to scramble to restock… but restocking costs a lot of money so we’re kind of in this vicious cycle of always missing something someone’s looking for on the table. Its not the WORST problem to have. We’re still honestly getting used to running out of inventory within a year or two so we’ve been scrambling. Print runs of 50-100 do not stick around as long as they used to. No complaints but that might be another kick in the reason why our return this year middled.
We’ve also updated our look with our signature ORANGE this year and that DOES seem to help people find us real easy. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback and while we got a lot of, ‘I feel like I recognise this–‘ we also got a lot of, ‘OH YOU GUYS! I saw you at [other con]’ sometimes all the way from CALGARY. Which was insane to hear!
LETS TALK PROS & CONS
PROS
- Communication was excellent with Vendor staff.
- Setting up was a breeze. Almost VIP treatment tbh. We were pretty much escorted to the registration table.
- LOTS of space. I mean a LOT. 10×10 feet almost felt too big for our tiny little ordeal but we sure managed.
- The bigger space you can place however you like means you can allow attendees real time to look over your stuff without them feeling rushed to leave.
CONS
- It’s a lottery to sign up. Mental.
- You could be placed… ANYWHERE in the Vendor side of the hall… which means nice and close to Artist Alley ….or in some nowhere corner of the hall rip.
- A lot of attendees don’t realise you’re not a retailer/licensed vendor of IP product… so they can be much more… Rude. Especially about pricing.
- Some folks only found us by Sunday because they didn’t realise we weren’t AA.
*A small tip* this year Otakuthon was pushing WiFi because the connection in the hall is terrible with everyone inside it … for about $75-80 for the weekend. It sounds like, however, this didn’t improve most people’s connections especially with older phone models. We didn’t opt for WiFi and on our busiest day Square worked decent without the connection. Just something to consider in the future.
VS. ARTIST ALLEY
After having a Vendor Booth at the con, I guess the question begs, whether we’d go back to an Artist Alley Table if we feasibly could?
I think I’m personally still heartbroken. We had a couple of really insane years selling at the Premium Tables at Otakuthon. I really like that spot for the space (and admittedly the general respect other artists give each other in the premium table spaces… is better than the respect artists give each other in the regular space… If you’re an artist reading this, I say this with the kindest tone possible: Put Your Fucking Suitcases Under Your Table and Stop Clogging Up The Aisles for Everyone Else).
I think I’m a little torn this year though. Artist Alley isn’t what it used to be. A lot of people have really cute displays, there’s no denying that… but a lot of them look the same… extremely decked out and cluttered. It makes perusing as an attendee a bit of a nightmare and extremely overwhelming. A lot of the artists are hard to spot in their big table set ups, making it near impossible to buy and dip.
Long and short answer? I honestly don’t know. I think Vendors has a potential to let us grow but this first year was a bit hard haha. Though after talking to both Artists and Vendors at the show, it sounds like everyone struggled this year.
SO WHAT DO WE REALLY THINK ABOUT VENDORS?
Although this year was a bit of a hard one (we have a lot riding on every show we do now that online sales have completely dried up for us), I think we did okay considering we’re in a completely new part of the con. I think its easy to feel a bit down about not quite hitting numbers we were hoping to–but we DID have a lot of good interactions this year.
People really noticed our backdrop, stopped to chat with us a lot more about the characters on it (yEAH THEYRE ALL ORIGINAL… and some of them don’t even have a book on the table yet–BUT SOON). I got to see someone run up to the table and get EXTREMELY excited about Paint The Town Red of all things??
Our biggest sellers are always our pins but I’m always humbled by how many books people buy from us and how many people come back with friends just so that they can point at our stories and excitedly explain the plots to them & try to convince people they love to buy our stories so they can share them. I don’t know I’m still swimming in a lot of the really nice reactions we got this weekend, more than one of you came up to the booth just ecstatic and congratulating us on the upgrade and while we went into this worrying so hard it was gonna be a downgrade you all really made us feel like we DID upgrade.
Side-note–to the people who ask about my inspo for the 7 Deadly Pins collection—gosh thank you??? Because I put a lot of thought into those and getting to gush and explain the motifs and design elements to each sin. Likewise we did get a lot of really kind words about our pins, merch. It feels really nice to know that the effort you put into designs and manufacturing research and just having really good rapport with the people who help make your stuff REALLY goes a long way.
TL;DR — Vendors was fucking weird this year but like, we’re down to try it again next year if we win the lottery.
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