FanimeCon 09 Day 2
I forgot some stuff so I had to drive back home after hours on Friday night. I picked up some signage materials, some makeshift shelving and a prop weapon I had made some years ago that looks a lot like this:
I brought a sheet of pegboard and some hooks. I used it to display a piece of stained glass artwork done by a friend (Nausicaa's pet critter) and also the prop of Excaliborg. It got lots of attention, just as planned. I need to make more of them, I got a bunch of offers to buy it.
I won't sell this one, it's covered in black gaffer's tape and it won't last a minute if it gets wet. I'll make more now that I have a pretty good idea that there's more than a little interest.
I did more demos of buttonmen, but midway through the day, I got busted for selling dice and random buttonmen. The artist's alley rules are pretty strict on not being able to sell things you didn't make, so they went back into the suitcase. I think I made about ten dollars selling them, so it wasn't exactly a tragedy.
So I switched from doing buttonmen demos (play it at www.buttonmen.com) to catfight demos. It takes up a little more space but it's more than worth it. Oddly enough, for a while Nickie was outselling Tamiya two to one.
You would've thought that Tamiya would have sold better at an anime con especially while I've got a prop version of her giant hammer, but there you have it.
Actually something that belonged on Friday's post - I ran into an old classmate in the flea market. He runs a store in a town south of San Jose called Anime101
www.anime-101.com
He used to get a booth for the dealer's room but he skipped last year due to having just moved into a new location (money tight) and this year his wive was very pregnant with their second child (time tight). He said he would be back in the dealer's room next year. I showed him the prototypes and he was very interested. I need to get started scaling up for a real production run soon.
Another thing I forgot to mention about Friday - I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch at La Victoria. After getting all the stuff out of the car, I got out of the expensive convention center parking and went in search of a cheaper parking space. I found out that La Victoria has multiple locations and we got our signals crossed. He grabbed my burrito and met me on the street. I apologized for the misunderstanding, I bought him lunch yesterday.
Anyway Saturday went smoothly other than the above issue. A decent number of the foam weapons got sold. I got a good idea of what I need to do to be more successful next year. I need to be more organized for one thing...
I brought a sheet of pegboard and some hooks. I used it to display a piece of stained glass artwork done by a friend (Nausicaa's pet critter) and also the prop of Excaliborg. It got lots of attention, just as planned. I need to make more of them, I got a bunch of offers to buy it.
I won't sell this one, it's covered in black gaffer's tape and it won't last a minute if it gets wet. I'll make more now that I have a pretty good idea that there's more than a little interest.
I did more demos of buttonmen, but midway through the day, I got busted for selling dice and random buttonmen. The artist's alley rules are pretty strict on not being able to sell things you didn't make, so they went back into the suitcase. I think I made about ten dollars selling them, so it wasn't exactly a tragedy.
So I switched from doing buttonmen demos (play it at www.buttonmen.com) to catfight demos. It takes up a little more space but it's more than worth it. Oddly enough, for a while Nickie was outselling Tamiya two to one.
You would've thought that Tamiya would have sold better at an anime con especially while I've got a prop version of her giant hammer, but there you have it.
Actually something that belonged on Friday's post - I ran into an old classmate in the flea market. He runs a store in a town south of San Jose called Anime101
www.anime-101.com
He used to get a booth for the dealer's room but he skipped last year due to having just moved into a new location (money tight) and this year his wive was very pregnant with their second child (time tight). He said he would be back in the dealer's room next year. I showed him the prototypes and he was very interested. I need to get started scaling up for a real production run soon.
Another thing I forgot to mention about Friday - I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch at La Victoria. After getting all the stuff out of the car, I got out of the expensive convention center parking and went in search of a cheaper parking space. I found out that La Victoria has multiple locations and we got our signals crossed. He grabbed my burrito and met me on the street. I apologized for the misunderstanding, I bought him lunch yesterday.
Anyway Saturday went smoothly other than the above issue. A decent number of the foam weapons got sold. I got a good idea of what I need to do to be more successful next year. I need to be more organized for one thing...