Mood:
rushedTopic: Comic Cons
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3495: Yesterday, on Saturday August 27th my youngest son Vinnie, Tina, and I set up a dealer's table at the 2nd Annual So Cal Comic Con. It was held at the Boys & Girls Club in Oceanside, California. I hadn't set up at a comic con or show for over 15 years, (being an online comic book dealer only!), and I saw it as an opportunity to show Vinnie the difference between setting up at a physical convention, versus being set up for online sales. A good way to show a young teen-ager how to set up and run a small business, while dealing with the public in person! In addition, out of the twenty short boxes of dollar comics that we were able to store in our new SUV and actually drive over to the show in... Three of those boxes were Vinnie's own comics, plus those accumulated by his older brothers, that he would be selling on a commission basis for them. I like how his young mind thinks when an opportunity arises. He could learn the business without buying inventory to resale, just invest his time, and learn from my know how from first setting up during my own college years at the San Diego Comic Con back in 1972! So as stated back in blog #3484, this comic con (show) would be a good learning experience. For both him and myself, working as father & son in a business set-up together... Plus, Vinnie's step-mom, Tina, would be setting up for the first time also! She had been to many comic cons and shows, but had never been on the other side of the table! So this would be a new experience for her also! So... Here it is Sunday morning, and I'm up early as usual! All three of us have another 'comics related event' to attend today, the 'Read A Comic In Public Day' event in San Diego. As seen at blog #3493! I'll be mobile Facebooking a few pics from there as well. And then uploading pics to a special photo album later, as I'm not taking my laptop with me... Just my Droid! As promised in my earlier blogs, and on my Facebook Fan Page, 'Michael D Hamersky On Comics', I did some mobile Facebooking from the con itself yesterday in Oceanside. I uploaded those pics from my Droid to my Facebook Fan Page, 'Michael D Hamersky On Comics'. Those pics went first to my generic 'Mobile Uploads' album. They will be moved to a special 2011 So Cal Comic Con album, which had already been set up for that purpose! I also found I was able to upload 196 photos while at the con via my digital camera / laptop that I also brought. (Thanks to Joel Elad, co-con promoter for the use of his Sprint system!) Those photos were from the setup period before the con opened, outside before the doors opened, and during the con in the morning and the early afternoon, with more to follow in the late hours of the con, and possibly the three of us celebrating a hard day of working a con at an Asian seafood buffet! Just so you have the 'full picture': The So Cal Comic Con's Facebook Event Page can be found at this link. The So Cal Comic Con's Facebook Fan Page can found here. You didn't have to attend this year's comic con to 'Like' it. So that your Facebook Friends can see you 'Liking' it, and be aware of it for next year! In the earlier blog I posted the 'Press Release' on this con. So for all the details please that blog #3484 to see who was scheduled to be there. I'm just going to 'report' on the 'highlights' of this con from yesterday. So for the 'report' itself, as mentioned in the title of this blog: Dealer info: The doors for entering for setup were at 7:30 am. We arrived at 8:15 as we just had 20 short boxes to cart in, with no banners and no display racks to set up behind us. The access was from the parking lot and the side parking was easy to use. You needed to bring your own dolly or cart to bring your inventory in. Vinne & I used a small dolly bringing in 3 -4 boxes at a time, while Tina starting placing the box display sheets on the boxes. The total setup time for us was minimal, being the three of us there, but Scotty who was next to us with two tables by himself had a longer period of time carting in & out multiple boxes. However, he is used to doing so at other cons as well. Opening hour: Unfortunately it was getting a little warm by 10AM and the front area had very little shade. So those in line for opening were getting a little warm. The doors did not open exactly at 10am, but shortly afterwards. So those in heavier cosplay costumes had experienced a little uncomfortableness. When I went out to front doors just about 9:45 AM, there was a good sized line, of which some of the photos are shared in the photo album link. Morning hours: The first hours had good traffic, and a long line at the 'Guest of Honor's table. J. Scott Campbell sketched for endless hours, and the line for him seemed to never let up. The line went down past the rest of the guest artists, totalling ten in number. That side of the room was always busy throughtout the morning into the late afternoon. As I told J. Scott at the end of the show, I thought he did a 'superheroic' job of satisfying all attendees! And that he reminded of Jim Lee in the early years, where Jim, even after the scheduled signing was done, would get up and sign one each of the items for those still in line before leaving. J. Scott thanked me for saying that, as he has had a table by Jim at other cons, and seen the same thing. J. Scott took it as the compliment that I meant it to be. The other comics artists were pleasant and a couple stood out to me that I had not seen before... A couple were early setups, and others came in closer to the opening time. All stayed until near closing time at 5PM. The dealers had varying crowds at their tables. Some were high end dealers with great display racks. Others were low end sellers. I had purposely brought only dollar comics (20 boxes worth) & a few CGCs to sell, so as to make some room in our backstock room. There were quite a few collectors there buying expensive comics, but not in any quantity that I saw. There were several attendees there who bought bargain items, but again not any in quantities. It has to be the local economy as there was plenty of good bargains at many of the tables there! The heat in the room started rising during the early afternoon. I hadn't seen this at the 1st Annual Con, but then realized it had been held in November. Even though this Boys & Girls Club of Oceanside is relatively close to the Pacific Ocean, the heat in the room was noticeable. The cosplayers that I had seen wearing heavier costumes had changed out of them. As the afternoon wore on I noticed that the crowd wasn't staying as long. Several of those that were there because of my Facebook efforts, stopped and told me that they were leaving because of the heat, and wanted to say goodbye before leaving. The raffle prizes didn't always get raffled off on a timely manner. It is hard to run your table, make sure your guest artists are taken care of, and get the raffles out on time. However, those that had winning tickets were very happy with the prizes! Including my son, who won a Stan Lee signed Spider-Man action figure MIB! The three of us stayed until closing time, as I wanted to see the whole con from an exhibitor's standpoint this year. The breakdown process went pretty smoothly. No major jockeying for the back door exit. Very courteous exhibitors. All in all, the three of us had a fun day, a good learning experience, and fun networking with our customers, Facebook Friends, and other dealers & the guest artists. We look forward to doing this show again, which will probably go back to the November time slot, due to the heat in August. Which is probably a good thing. That's it for this 'mini-report'... I want to thank the con promoters, Rey Reyes & Joel Elad for their efforts into making this 2nd Annual Con a fun one to attend. North San Diego County needs con promoters like them to bring a comic book convention to the area, as the oversized Comic-Con International: San Diego is held only once a year in July at the San Diego Convention Center. It is too darn hard to even get one day memberships there any more. We need smaller shows like Joel & Rey put on this weekend! Thanks again!
The competition has some other good nominees for the same category I was nominated for, so I'm asking for your help on this! If you have enjoyed this blog or any of the others in the now over 3,482 blogs in this series of mine, I'd appreciate your vote! Here is a direct link to the voting page. 'Comic Blogger of the Year' is the category, and 'Michael Hamersky On Comics' is the name I'm listed as to vote for. Here is a link to blog #3481, where I went more into depth on this topic. My thanks to any of you that take the time to vote for me! Voting ends online on September 4th!
My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,495 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog! BTW, You can 'follow' this blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app link! We currently have over 2,531 'Followers'! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! ~ Michael D Hamersky Note: My online 'Local' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item(s) that was mentioned here today...!If I have it... You can find it 'Under The Big Top Of Comics' at: http://www.ComicBooksCircus.com/ Web Page Note: This blog post is written for the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safari, Netscape, Firefox and the other browsers serve the page up differently, sorry about that! The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. Note: As of Monday, June 27th, 2011, I'll be using my new laptop, where the default resolution is 'higher', so there may be some temporary glitches until I am used to the new resolution. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners.
To mail printed items to us for possible review, send to: Make It So Marketing Inc., PO Box 130653, Carlsbad, CA 92013  Also, if you are a Facebook member, I would have liked you to send me a 'Friend Request'. However, I have reached the maximum limit of 5,000 Facebook Friends and Fan pages already, so I've added a New 'Facebook Fan Page' so that even more of YOU can 'Like' what I am doing, and be interactive with me and others there. Here is the link to that 'Facebook Fan Page': Michael D Hamersky On Comics! Please click the 'Like' button on that page! |
~Michael D Hamersky - who is asking you for your vote in the current voting going on over at The Shel Dorf Awards web site. I was nominated for 'Comic Blogger of the Year' on Monday, August 8th! While being honored to be nominated, I'd also like to win! 
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