ClexaCon Las Vegas 2019

Not the biggest con for cosplay, but those who did show up in costume showed up hardcore!

And we are BACK from ClexaCon! What an experience! Wowee wow!

So in many ways this con was exactly what I'd come to expect from a con and in many other ways, it also threw some unexpected curveballs at me. Let's start with getting there, sometimes the most important part of ANY convention. This was gonna be a challenging trip, a good eight and a half hours to Vegas from my home in the Bay Area. I've made longer drives before, most definitely. This one was different though, because I have toe drive through a place that to this day, we call DEATH VALLEY! :O :O :O
I know it's like 2019 and there's a lotta way to not die in the desert anymore, but the task itself is still daunting.
I think I played it pretty smart on the way there. I got home from work and went to sleep first, making sure to get several hours of rest in before I hit the road. I hopped into my car at midnight on Thursday and arrived sometime around 8am. It was a rather beautiful drive and I had a great soundtrack to accompany me. Highlights include my two favourite Kanye albums (Graduation and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy), a couple operas, an obscure Bjork project, and some of Gaga's earlier work.
It was a pretty uneventful drive, and seeing the sun rise over the desert WAS rather breathtaking, even if it DID get in my eyes as I kept going. It wasn't so bad after it rose a little more and got outta my eyeline. I was VERY overcome with the reality of being in a brand new place I'd never been before. I thought that I'd been to Vegas at some point in my life. I have distinct memories of at least driving THROUGH it when I was just a kid with my parents on a family trip. However, my mom corrected me recently and told me it was actually Reno we were in.
I knew I had arrived when I got off the highway and was greeted by a massive LED billboard bigger than my apartment for Cirque De Solil. I saw that and I was like "yep, I'm here!"
I'd heard a lot of talk about how Vegas was a nightmare to drive in, so I had prepped myself for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised not only to discover that I'd come early enough in the day that the traffic wasn't absolutely through the roof yet, and ALSO my hotel was not that far away from the highway offramp anyway.
Here's where things start getting messy. Apparently, I am NOT good at reading instructions. I wheeled all my comic book shit into the hotel, looking for wherever the epicenter of the con was. This hotel was HUGE and it was absolutely jam packed with people on slot machines. I was maneuvering my big old hand truck, stacked high with comics through this mess, going up elevators, down elevators, avoiding people and stairs and escalators, weaving through lines of people waiting for coffee only to find out eventually, that the Artist Alley wasn't gonna set up until 2pm. I had mistakenly read this as it OPENED to the public at 2pm, and we had until then to set up. Sadly, the reality of the situation was we wouldn't open until the next day. I was pissed, needless to say, since my people with the hotel room wouldn't be arriving until the evening time, and until then I didn't really have anything to do or anywhere to go. I COULD have gotten a lot more sleep :P
BUT! what could be done? I wheeled my stuff back to my car. I even found out from one of the organizers that there was a much better place I could park my car so I could load into the Artist Alley more easily when it DID open.
At this point, ONE of my friends showed up, although sadly, not the one who could check in to the hotel room. We got some breakfast, we wandered around Vegas a little bit, and kinda killed time until the con's first real event, which was a combination pool party/get your tickets thing. My ticket was gonna come from the Artist Alley, but I accompanied my friend while she got hers. Afterward, we kinda hung around the pool, ordered some delicious fruity slushies and just kinda people watched as everyone splashed around. I would jumped in myself, but all my clothes were in the trunk of my car still and since we had no hotel room, I had nowhere to change. I DID get some drawings done though, i was pleased with that! I also got to see a group of people inflate a giant unicorn floatie that wound up being almost as large as a whole section of the pool. They rode around in it until a hotel employee told them they had to take it out :P damn hotel employees, ruining everyone's fun!
As soon as our friends showed up to check into the hotel, I made sure to make it a super early night. I had driven for 8 and a half hours, and wandered around Vegas for another 12, so I was ready to collapse. The NEXT day, things were gonna be on like Donkey Kong!
I think it was something like 8:30 or 9am when the artist alley officially opened, and I was there as bright eyed and bushy tailed as someone who had slept on three chairs could possibly be.
I won't lie, the Artist Alley was a little slow. It was slow ALL weekend, actually. It became evident almost right away that not only was this con really hyping it's artist's alley the same way it was hyping it's panels and celebrity guests. Also, and this could just be me projecting, I dunno if original content was at the tip top of people's minds when they came here. ClexaCon is a celebration of queer women in media, and I think everyone very clearly had their favourites already in mind before they even arrived. Trying to toss a NEW one at 'em was always gonna be a challenge. Also, I did not have a table buddy with me this time. I've expounded many times before on how essential a table buddy is in presenting your best face to the con-going public. When you're by yourself at a con, you look like a loner, and loners are hard to approach. when you have a buddy, you look like a person who has friends and is fun to be around. This is especially pronounced if you and your buddy are telling one another jokes and funny stories and making eachother laugh. People see that and they wanna be part of the conversation.
I took it real personal at first. It really felt like no one cared I was there. it was also really easy to evince myself that people were avoiding me because I was being read as a "man" in a space dedicated to queer women. I was ready to pack it in and go home, I felt like I didn't deserve to be there. A friend convinced me to stay at least one more day, just to see if things improved. I listened, and i'm glad I did, even though the whole weekend was kinda slow.
The second day WAS a little better. I also got a chance to talk to more of the vendors and found out that EVERYONE was kinda hurting and it wasn't just me. That boosted my self esteem a little bit, but it did not do much to help me deal with the reality that i just was not making very much money at this con. I adjusted my salesmanship a little bit, and it sorta helped. I also did my best to save my money, which turned out to not be that big a deal because as it turns out, there's not that much in Vegas that a square like me would wanna spend money on :P
Almost all the best events at this con were free too. Day one there was a burlesque show, second day there was a dance, day three me and all my hotel mates when out for dinner and the last day we packed up early and we spent the night lounging in the hotel room, watching a bad local cable TV station. Wow, I don't miss those days.
Overall, I did NOT make enough to cover my costs. I dunno if I'd go to this Con again. At least not until I myself was on more stable ground as an artist and taking the hit of losing money in exchange for good publicity isn't sucha big deal to me. Other people had told me that LAST ClexaCon was a bigger money maker for them, and has surmised that possibly everyone who came last year was still burned out and less willing to drop huge bank now. I suppose that might be possible, who's to say?
I suppose what really matters though, what I should really be taking away from all this was all the friends I made while I was there! People who DID get my book gave me glowing reviews on their social media platforms of choice. So it wasn't a TOTAL loss and it was definitely an experience. What I keep telling people when they ask me how it went is that if I had had this exact con somewhere in California, then I would have been ecstatic with how well it went, but since I had to drive SO FAR to get there and SO FAR to get back, the fact that it was kinda slow just hit me a lot harder. I've been exhausted ever since I got back. I've literally been trying to write this blog for three days, but I keep on having to stop and start again the next day. I've gotten so little art done as a result :P
There was one big highlight of the trip though and it actually had nothing to do with the convention. I sought out my friend Avalon, who moved out to Vegas about 5 years ago and I haven't seen since. Avalon is the real life inspiration for the character Abby in TransCat, and even though she's somewhat of a villain in the book, me and real life Avalon got a lot closer after the insane crucible of high school. It was nice to see her and catch up before I headed back to Mountain View. A wonderful endcap to a stressful trip.
Anyway, that's my long rambling dissection of ClexaCon.
Next con will be Queer Comics Expo. Expect a new blog then! :3
Also, TransCat #10 will hopefully be available early June, in time for Sac Anime. More news on that as it comes.