FC '08 Post-Mortem

After each con, I try to do a bit of "lessons learned"-ing, to apply to future cons. mammallamadevil and I have gotten to the point where we have a good groove and can complement each other quite well at the table, but there's always something that we can do better next time. So my notes from this time around are, in no particular order:

• Double-check the registrations. Twice now I've thought I was registered for FC when FC didn't think so, and both times it was because the table got purchased but my registration didn't get purchased with it. If Karl hadn't been so awesome to help us get that resolved this time around it would've been a ginormous hassle. Same with the hotel -- if I'd called ahead to confirm that the hotel would let me in, I wouldn't have had to get Vince to call again from the road. So note to myself: redundant confirmations GOOD. ;)



• New material at the table. This is actually a reiteration of something I've talked about before -- it really just wasn't feasible this year due to all the sturm und drang going on. Naturally, with nothing new, merchandise sales were slow, even though badges and sketchbooks still sold well. Kerry and I went into this con with the plan of getting rid of older stock, so that we'll have a mostly-new table for AC. Gotta get those books into production, too.



• Never drive your own car. I don't know why, but FC seems to be The Con That Kills Cars. Fortunately, I take a plane anyway. But I can just imagine the trouble I might have driving up to AC, for instance.



• Self-contained art box needed. I usually bring pens, pencils, markers, and a handful of reference books, which then get scattered to the winds in the madness behind the table. I need to put myself together an art box that holds all this stuff in a self-contained unit, which I can then just carry around with me as needed. I don't know if it should be a tackle box, a modified tote bag, or what -- but it needs to be compact enough that I can have it at the table, and portable enough that carrying it around is actually feasible. This may take some work.



• Can haz Monday? Everybody was expecting me to stay 'til Monday, and I gotta admit it would have been nice to not have to frantically pack-and-run after closing the dealer room Sunday. The problem is, that would eat more PTB and add another night to the hotel bill. I'll have to examine this for next year.



• Half the table to work, the other half for merchandise. I need to have drawing space. It might be better to have less actual merchandise at the table -- or find some way to keep more of it OFF the table. I need approximately two feet by one-and-a-half feet of clear space, plus room for the aforementioned art box.



• Keep it neat, keep it sweet! Having a trash can behind the table was a big help in keeping all those wrappers, bits of cellophane, and other miscellaneous pieces of crud from building up. If we can arrange to have a bit more neatness and organization going on, I think it will pay dividends both in our sales and our mental health. Needing to root around every time we want to find anything gets to be a real drag, and it puts an unwarranted burden on Kerry to be "the person who knows where everything is". I want to try to come up with some way to be more systematic in our setup. LABELS ARE YOUR FRIEND!

There's probably more, but these are all that I can think of at the moment (that I'm willing to share with the wide world, anyhow!).

-The Gneech