I have to admit one of my favorite places to sell earrings is comic conventions. I recently had the opportunity to sell at Geek'd Con in Shreveport. This may be a small con, but it was a ton of fun and definitely growing.
It's only three years old and I had asked several of my friends about it and no-one had heard of it. I learned about it from just surfing the net. Then I got a contact on Instagram from one of our followers (Kenzie) from Wizard World New Orleans. She was wanting to know if we were going to be there. I love hearing from people who are wearing our earrings and want to see us again. That is too cool!
I had been doing several balloon festivals and I was getting tired of being outdoors in the heat. I decided to give them a call and see if I could get in. Ok I know I am really bad about planning out my schedule ahead of time. It is something that I am making an effort to get better at. Hopefully, I will have the rest of 2019 scheduled by the end of Sept. that is my goal. At first, I was told that I couldn't get in and that I could apply next year. I let him know that if he had anyone drop out to give me a call. Within an hour I heard from them again, they had a commercial booth one up and I could have it. I took it and two days later, with eh chevy volt packed, a cooler full of caffeine, loaded down with new geek stuff to sell I was off to Shreveport, LA.
As I got to Longview TX I heard a commercial for the con. That is a great sign that I am an hour away from the con and I am hearing an advertisement, WTG Geek'd Con! The whole weekend I was there I heard multiple commercials on the radio, some really good money spent on advertisement.
The celebrity guests were Micheal Rooker, Lori petty, Barry Bostwick, Levar Burton, Trish Stratus, Richard Brake, Oscar Nunez, Kevin Nash, Leslie D Baker, Samatha Smith, Miko Hughs. I was a little concerned when I arrived and saw that it was a pretty small con. Then the doors opened up and hardly anyone came in. I thought we were in trouble. Then I learned that there was a huge line outside and the security screening was taking forever. The room just kept filling up, up and up. Later I found out the attendance from presale tickets alone was up 150 % over the year before.
There weren't a lot of cosplayers but the ones that did were having a blast. I don't think I have been at a con where I saw so many people laughing and having a good time. These people were loving it. Which makes working a con even more fun. I had several people come back to the booth hang out each day of the con. The other vendors were in a good mood the whole time., not a grumpy soul in the bunch. If you have been around vendors you know there is always one. This time he wasn't there.
The biggest complaint I had was that the cell service in the place was awful. I lost nine sales to the inability to run the credit card machine. Small side note, this has to be the coldest indoor event I have ever worked. Even with the place pack with people, it was freezing.
Also, remember that if you do a show in Louisiana the parish and the state taxes are collected separately. That can be very confusing.
This was a very well run show, with very friendly people running it.
