[Writer Post][Conventions]Tyler Part 2: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
It’s been a pretty long Wednesday, but I started sketching out the second part of the Tyler Rose City Comic Con post – this one is more of a traditional convention report. Almost said “after action” – my Day Job has bleed over – no, there won’t be any corrective actions for an improvement plan. Just my opinion of what went down. I do call it “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” because with any live event has something of all three. Now the question is… do we go in this order or go backward?
Let’s get it out of the way…
The Ugly
This is the third venue for this convention in its three years (for good reasons – they outgrew the last two immediately). However, the only place they could get was the Fairground Buildings (PLURAL) that were built in the 1930s and not actually updated in goodness knows when. There were mostly functional ceiling fans, but no air conditioning. When a City Employee tells you they hesitated to rent the show the buildings, that’s Not A Good Thing.
The buildings were awful. Our building had an indoor bathroom that wasn’t cleaned or serviced the whole weekend. Half the trash cans were catching water from the MULTIPLE roof leaks. One vendor in our building had to move their stuff around because a MAJOR leak required a rolling dumpster to catch the torrent from broken ceiling tiles. I think I had a touch of Con Crud because of two days of Warm/Humid (to the extreme) followed by Cold/Damp.
Apparently the Staff intended on having some of the event entertainment and stuff outside with no real alternative plan until it actually started to rain. The confusion was understandable – but… having an “independent pro wrestling” ring and shows in one of the buildings with vendors and a panel stage. That was beyond weird – and they were on the WRONG SIDE of the building. The ring and their audio/visual stuff ended up blocking some vendors, and when they did a show/demo, their followers blocked the way into the building, which deterred customers. Which leads to…
The Bad
Having vendors in the same room as panels. This is an “iffy” idea at best. It seems rude to try to sell stuff while a panel discussion or demonstration is going on. But it’s very DISCONCERTING to know that there will be after-hours things like wrestling matches, cosplay contests, and a party going on while all your stuff is basically only covered with a sheet. Yes, security roamed the place. No, nothing was messed with, but it was an added stress – especially when you’re not in a hotel that does room resets. Jimmy helped reset chairs on Sunday, and we all pitched in to pick up trash (which wasn’t ever taken out).
The vendor map layout was like the Pirate Code – more like guidelines than rules. I think at least once I heard, “oh, we can’t find you on the map, so you can just set up here…” which then creates a domino effect. Extra tables were brought in and shuffled around. Vendors were split between two buildings with two other buildings between. With the rain, that affected sales. I was in the building with panels – the celebs and other artists were in the OTHER building (and the Celeb Q & As were also in that building). There wasn’t a good way to create a flow down into our building.
The Schedule had a bit of Yahtzee cup going on, too. Some things were canceled or scaled back or preempted because everything had to be inside due to the weather. This is why you always have contingency plans. Major, major contingency plans.
Though there was no controlling the weather, it was definitely a factor. There should’ve been a lot more people, but the rain kept a lot of people away. It also kept people in singular buildings for the most part. There wasn’t nearly the to-ing and fro-ing that the organizers would have liked – because dodging the rain, but sales were probably down because of the weather.
The Good
There is Good. There’s always good. It’s not all gloom and doom. Promise. Despite the weather-related issues, we sold books – enough to make it worthwhile to come back. We talked to many people. Didn’t make anyone cry in the critique portion of the Short Story Contest. I was on a panel with Timothy Zahn. We actually got to SEE part of the show because the stage was RIGHT. THERE. (Which is how I was able to be heckled by Gil Gerard. Enjoyed our neighboring vendors.
The convention organizers are Good People. They have really good intentions, and if they can get into a stable space they can actually start developing a super show. They put on a GOOD one now, but most conventions/shows can build on successes and learn from weird logistics by being in the same place more than one year…this crew hasn’t had that ability. They are doing an awesome job in a hard situation that may or may not be easily resolved depending on whether or not they can get the good facility – which was across the street and hosted the GUN SHOW that same weekend.
The celebrities and other vendors were genuinely nice and professional. It was a joy to work with them – and be in same building as they were for a short amount of time. And the food vendor didn’t rip people off like some convention center food vendors do – good food, decent prices, and they had a buy a cup and drink for $5 get refills for a $1 all weekend deal. That was AMAZING!
The show has a TON of potential. It’s affordable, they get some decent guests for their size. They just need to have the time and space to work the kinks out and figure out what works and what doesn’t and smooth out the rough edges. That takes time. But I think they can make it work if they get the venue situation figured out.
So, yes, it’s something I would do again – in a heartbeat. I want to see this show succeed. I want them to continue. And now onto the We Heart Art: Creating New Worlds Event at the Dallas Public Library on Saturday!