So my first FantaSci Con is in the books now.
I did a lot better than I thought I was going to. I made some new friends too. I learned a couple of things too, and remembered some things after the fact that I should have remembered from MarsCon.
Things I should have remembered:
- snacks and drinks are important
- I blame nerves and trying to remember everything without a written list for this.
- sitting behind your table with nothing to do between customers, makes for a very long day
- I was halfway through day 1 before I remembered the blanket in my day bag, didn’t have enough yarn with me to finish it through.
- bring a battery pack to charge your phone
- really thankful and vendor neighbor was kind enough to let me borrow hers
Things I learned
- get a collapsible wagon to haul your displays/product in
- This is especially true if you have a long walk to your car, and making multiple trips to get product/displays, is a pain.
- it helps when you’ve met your fellow vendors at other events, always nice to have someone else who you are comfortable to be around at events with hundreds of strangers.
- also helpful with set-up/break-down and the slow times when you don’t have customers and want to chit-chat
- If you are given the option to pick your table placement, don’t pick the one that is near the back of the building, facing said back of building.
- I had people go to the table before mine and not even bother walking the additional 4 steps to look at my product
As always, events can be mentally exhausting, Especially if you have never worked retail before. It’s ok to need to step away from your table to take a breather. If you are by yourself ( like I usually am), make sure to make friends with your neighbors so that can watch your table for you.
Also, when you forget your items with the prices on them, index cards are awesome. On that note, and I can’t recommend this enough, find out where the closest Walgreens/CVS/Rite-Aid/Pharmacy. Seriously, they are a blessing when you need the aforementioned index cards, drinks or snacks, or some other odd thing that you know you’ll need because you forgot them when loading your car/wrangling the small human you have been entrusted with into the car at 6:30 in the morning.
