Con Craziness in Artists' Alley

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Heyla, this would be my first entry post to this comm and this isn't your typical report of bad commissioner, I was actually thinking back today on my experiences at various conventions and things i've come across while in the Artists Alley and I was thinking - maybe it would be good to toss around some suggestions and/or warnings to keep in mind for those who are new to having a table at a convention. If you have any stories or suggestions to add to mine, please do! I am always looking for solutions to problems :)

1. People stealing from the table

I'm always a little stunned at some of the stories i've heard from my friends at their own AA tables. The best one is probably from a friend who makes ceramic dragons and other critters in varying sizes (from one inch tall to more than a foot tall and all sizes in between). One con we had a table side-by-side and even so, i still missed this incident until after it happened. Apparently, a group of about four guys tried to distract her/ block her view while their other friend grabbed one of the larger dragons from the end of the table and just walked away with it. Luckily she saw it happen and chased him down, got it back without a fight or damage! Sadly, people also like to pocket the wee little dragons, which is why she ended up getting a second-hand windowed case to put them in.

So it's a good idea to not leave your stuff on your table in a way that would make it easy for someone to just walk off with something, even if it's right in front of you. I've mostly done 1" button making in past conventions and our way around this problem was to not put out actual finished buttons but instead put out the paper strips we made the buttons from, which people could pick up and look at (and give to us if they wanted a button of that design, which we would make up on the spot) but would be pretty dumb to steal since they aren't stickers, they are just printed on photopaper. I remember people coming back to the table with a paper they had "accidently" taken after they confirmed with me that nope, they aren't stickers!

It's a bit of a juggling act to figure out how to let people see what you are selling without making it easy to pocket but doing things like using display books or putting things under clear plastic can definitely help.


2. People asking for a deal / free art / some zany trade

I've had people offer to dance for buttons, try to give me twelve cents for one $2 button, come by at the end of the con and beg for free buttons because "you can get rid of them, the con's over!", offer me Pocky for a button or ask me to take 50 cents off the button's price. Obviously, for some people there is some confusion between AA and the Dealer's/Merchandise room *LOL* The solution to that is pretty easy to guess: Be polite and stick to your guns unless they are offering to buy a truckload of something and want a little discount. If they like your stuff enough to buy that much of it, it's good to reward a little fangirl/boy behavior plus they'll probably come back to your table at the next con.


3. People wanting to get their own table and do the same thing you are doing

This is more of a grey area and comes in many forms. For me, it was the people coming up to our button table asking with studied casualness "Sooo... how much does a button maker cost?" and then it becomes awkward. I'm not a fan of telling people what to make/not make or trying to suggest that there can be only one of a certain kind of artwork at any con but it's also a huge pain in the ass to try to be nice and helpful and then at the next con, you find three other tables selling buttons and one in particular is selling direct rip-offs of your work *sigh* And it did make a difference in our sales after that point, so it wasn't just a "hey that's MY idea!" kind of situation *chuckle* But after that, i've tried to be helpful when possible but there's a point when i won't share the specifics of certain things because it's almost become a "trade secret" for me LOL I'd like to think it's possible to share ideas about some things but also respect your own struggles with perfecting something and not being eager to let someone else benefit from your own hard work. In an ideal world, we could freely share information AND also make money at cons, the reality is that there are some people out there so determined to have a table and be successful that they have no problem stealing your ideas if they think they can get away with it. I know this is a touchy subject with a number of people

Any thoughts? ^_^

~Sunhawk

Comments

[growly.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips! I'm thinking of doing some time workin' in FWA's artist's alley in February and this does indeed help, since I'll probably also be selling small things (in my case, prints, jewelry, and maybe small sculptures).

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Some good thoughts there.

The "trade secret" thing is particularly touchy, I think. I know some artists, particularly fursuit makers, who guard their methods very jealously. I've always been of the opinion that anybody who's dedicated and professional enough to compete with me is going to come up with their own methods anyhow, so I share pretty freely.

But I know in other areas it's not the same, and particularly with something that's an investment but not a huge one, like button making, you have to worry about such things. I think the best thing may be to have a polite but honest answer. "Thanks for your interest, but I prefer not to discuss the details of my business." Or something along those lines.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, another thought, mostly unrelated but...

Does anybody have any idea how many tail and ear makers there are in the Anthrocon dealer's room? I know FC only has one or two, at least in past years. But I've never yet been to Anthrocon.

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! ^_^ I'm going to be doing jewelry at the next con too, i was thinking of having them attached to a slanted display board of some kind, so that people can pick them up and look at them but they'd be secured on the back of the board :)

[growly.livejournal.com]

Cool! I've bought a few little rack things from Goodwill that should work fine for me. ^_^ I don't even know what these things were originally for. O_o

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

Wow, one more reason for me to not spend the $4000 odd I'd need to get to and from a con, register, be a dealer, etc...

2) Agreed completely. Aren't there like, rules against this or something? If not, there should be. And to enforce it... reporting repeat hagglers/beggars to con staff/organisers so they can be formally warned.

3) This is always a tricky point. The BEST way I've found to balance being nice and keeping your own work original and great is this:

If it's equipment related, just say "try ebay." That's always the best line for getting rid of "OMG where can I get a [thing/thing maker]" people. Aah, ebay...

If it's technique related, it's really up to you. Personally, I'm not one of the higher-range fursuiters out there so I tend to be pretty open about my techniques, I write tutorials and try to help out beginners whenever I can.
Thing is, if you're really good at doing what you do, (for me, I pride myself on being really good at carving foam pieces and getting headframes and such to look just like the concept art) then even if they had the same materials and a how-to book your work would still be better 99% of the time. Also, if you copy other peoples' techniques, your work will always be derivative and inferior, and people will probably just hate you as a 'copier' anyway.

So, it's not that bad a situation :)

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

Yeah, i tried to phrase myself very carefully about the "trade secrets" section since i know there's a lot of opinions on the subject. Some things I will talk about, like how to use Photoshop and paper quality since those are pretty general. But yes, we did start to tell people pretty much what you suggested, despite the pouting we'd get in return *chuckle* There were a few button makers i had no problem with because we came to a mutual agreement that the other person would focus on things that we had no interest in covering, stuff like zombie/horror type buttons while we were more about geek/sci-fi/fantasy and pop culture stuff.

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

I love getting stuff from Goodwill! ^_^ I recently snagged some clear plastic bins from Staples because they were going to throw them out anyway heh heh.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Nice!! I really need one of those for my fursuit... All my suiter friends have these fancy plastic bins, I carry mine in a garbage bag. xD

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

I've never seen specific rules against haggling, which makes sense because it's common practice in the Dealer's room. I personally only haggle with the dealers who are importing stuff like DVDs or manga because they get the stuff in bulk REALLY cheap and then jack up the prices for the unsuspecting con crowd. For instance, there is one dealer i've seen for a few years now who sells those oriental paper umbrellas for about $12 bucks and i got my own in Toronto's "Chinatown" for about $2.

But generally people don't harrass us more than once and those that do we can deal with no problem, since they fold when firmly told to GO AWAY *LOL*

Yeah that's what we started to do, tell people we got ours from Ebay or online.

I agree with you in terms of being better at something even if you told someone else how to do it. Still, i'm always amazed what people will buy from one table when there is another table at the same con with the same product done MUCH BETTER. Maybe it's only me that kind of situation would bother LOL Unless you are SUPER popular, I've never seen much hating for those that copy; people seem positively gleeful to find the "same" thing cheaper :/

But perhaps it's different at furry cons, i've only done anime/sci-fi/comic cons *chuckle*

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

I sometimes use my suitcase because it has wheels and a pull handle ^_^ Plus they tend to be good for keeping things from getting all mashed up - you can always pad around your goods with clothing that you plan to wear anyway LOL

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I have no problems with haggling, so long as they understand that if I turn down an offer, it's turned down, end of story. I actually don't mind negotiating prices at all, and will even sometimes do trades, if they have something to offer that's of interest to me.

It's when they offer me something that I'm not interested in, or a price that so low it's insulting, and then won't take no for an answer that I get annoyed.

And I couldn't agree more about copied work being inferior! Though there are a few cases where a copyist becomes as good as the original, and in those cases I think it's actually the copyist who loses. After all, they've just proved they had as much talent as the original, but they lost out on the chance to develop into something unique and intersting, and ended up being just another imitator, lost in a crowd of imitators all doing the same style.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Nope, furry is not excluded from this. 9_9
It's one of the things that makes me bitter about selling in the fandom, actually. A lot of people seem to only care about cost and not quality. For instance, someoen buys a cheap fursuit that looks horrible and will fall apart fairly quick because they don't feel the need to pay more for a quality suit. :/
Tis a sad, sad, fact of life. But for all those people, there are still many that recognize quality. :) I love it when someone talks about another artist and talks about their quality rather than cost.

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

well, you're the expert, I've never been to a con ^..^ (Aussie)

"i'm always amazed what people will buy from one table when there is another table at the same con with the same product done MUCH BETTER."

That is one of my GREATEST pet hates, ever. Won't got into detail about it, but yeah. Since when did quality cease to be worth paying for? I mean... I've seen crap go for hundreds of dollars whilst a moderately priced masterpiece sits around unlooked at. Blah.

*shuts up before getting into trouble*

In short, agreed. completely. :)

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Luckily, some people do know better. Our button table used to have a number of "regulars" who expressly told us they came back to buy more buttons from us because they knew ours were "better" *chuckle* It probably didn't hurt that we had a replacement button policy that was pretty sweet ;) (Basically, we were so determined to make a long-lasting product that if you came back to us with a button that was waterlogged or had for some reason come apart, we would replace it with a new button at no charge)

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

No? You've not been to Supernova? My friend was telling me about that con the other day :)

LOL no worries. Yeah, every year i walk around the AA and some tables have me just shaking my head. I have a friend who paints portraits in oils and he's Old School good, but he doesn't get half the work he should *sigh*

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

YAY!

Kudos for good business practices ^..^

*points to good seller*

This person good!

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

Supernova?

Never heard of it... what kinda con is it?

Well, I guess you could say I've been to a con... Genghiscon, a sort of mini sci-fi/fantasy con we have every year :)

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you! Heh heh one year, someone left a mostly-full waterbottle at our table and we used it to stuff a few buttons into to prove to people how waterproof our buttons are LOL It's the kind of thing the cheap button makers aren't so good at, sealing the mylar plastic that tightly.

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Looks like it's in Brisbane, here's their website: http://www.supanova.com.au/

Seems to be a multipurpose con: anime, sci-fi, fantasy, comics, gaming and so forth. We have a similar con in Toronto called the Fan Expo :)

Ha ha that's a great name for a con! XD

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

oh they have it in Sydney too, sorry i missed that part!

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

ah... that'd be why. I'm a Perthie :)

We have three cons I know of: Wai-con (anime), Swancon (sci-fi/fantasy), and Genghiscon. I've been to both swancon and genghiscon, but I liked genghiscon much better, seemed so much mroe informal and funky. And we made larp weapons XD

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Around Toronto, the two cons i usually work are AnimeNorth (which is fan-run and mostly anime though fantasy/sci-fi is generally welcome too) and the Fan Expo, which is a company-run con. I like AnimeNorth better because people tend to be more determined to buy stuff while you seem to get more people "rubbernecking" at the Fan Expo - looking around and generally taking up aisle space without buying anything LOL

Interestingly enough, i remember a guy trying to sell tails and ears in the Dealer's room at AnimeNorth a few years ago, he seemed really lost and disgruntled at the lack of sales. But last year a girl in AA was selling tails and ears and sold right out of her stuff. So it's a bit hard to predict what will sell LOL

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! There are sooooooooooooooo many people who'd rather buy cheap crap. That's why I dislike furbid, all the cheapskates seem to be there, and nothing sells for any real money unless it's by LatinVixen.

Happily there seem to be enough who have taste though. Like at FC last year... I was next to this anime club girl selling tails. They were, er... mangy, to put it kindly. Also very small, and were just sort of generically "thing" shaped, not any specific species. And she still sold some! But I sold more. *grins*

But the only reason for anybody to buy one of those things when my lovely stuff was right next to them was that they would rather save money.

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

They were, er... mangy, to put it kindly. Also very small, and were just sort of generically "thing" shaped, not any specific species. And she still sold some! But I sold more.

Oddly enough, sometimes that's what some anime fans are looking for. Catgirls, as they exist in anime, tend to be more subtle in terms of having ears and tail heh heh.