So! wow, guys! The'res a LOT to say about this con! where do I begin?
Well, first off, let's talk about this odd timing! Last year I talked a little bit about how the convetion center is about to undergo massive renovations! That'll be good because I'd love to see what they can do with this space. It's already pretty nice, i'd love to see it NICER!
Bad news is, it's gonna take a year, and during that year, we'll be at the Cal Expo instead.
now, they did a trial run of Sac-Con at the Cal-Expo earlier in the year. I didn't hate it, like I was expecting to. it was actually a pretty good con, fun-wise, and also pretty good sales-wise. But the big thing is that Sac-Con is only one day. People can come in the morning, leave in the afternoon, and not worry about where they're gonna sleep. Sac-Anime is a multi day event and I could be wrong, but I didn't see any hotels near by. it really makes me wonder what the logistics of STAYING are gonna be like.
In either case, that's neither here nor there, what's important is that with these renovations on the horizon, Sac-Anime got scooted up a lot earlier in the summer. Usually we're not prepping for Sac-anime Summer until like August or September-ish, but this year it was June. This was coincidental, because this weekend also happened to my the Sacramento Pride March AND... all the local schools were having their graduation ceremonies as well! There was a LOT going on! Everyone that I ran into in my hotel, I was like "So, you here for pride? the convention? or someone graduating?" It was a fun conversation every time. It was amazing though, with all these people amassing on the city at once, how many people had no idea the other two events were happening. Pride people were like "oh shit, there's a convention?" Con people were like "graduation is this week too?" and Graduates were like "wtf are all you nerds doing here?"
So anyway, all of this kinda came together in some good ways and some bad ways. The most noticable way it manifested it seemed was the severely LESS populated convention. It was, in a way, kind of a bummer, especially for us artists, because our sales kinda depend on the crowd being thick. i think I still did pretty good, especially with the handicap I started out with. what handicap, you may be asking? Well! I'll TELL you!
Last convention I went to, I sold completely out of Issue #1 and ALMOST out of Issue #2. That was last month, so I put in an order IMMEDIATELY for more, plus I tacked on an order of Issue #10 which was gonna make it's debut at this con. Turnaround time for these kinda orders is USUALLY about a month, so i knew there could be no margin for error. I did everything I could to make sure the files I sent to be printed were perfect in every way. I got a confirmation that the files had been received, everything was going on track.
UNTIL!!! Until about Wednesday evening before the con. I was sittin' at home wondering "Why aren't there books at my door yet?" i logged into my printer's message center to double check, only to find a message that i for some reason didn't get an alert about, from a lil' earlier in the week. It was someone telling me that the files i said were in fact corrupted, and if I could re-send them please.
So I did resend them, but with an stern, earnest email reply "It's really important I have these books by tomorrow. Is that even possible?" I never got a reply to the message but I DID receive a notification early Thursday morning that the boxes had been sent off. That in itself was impressive, but I still knew they'd never make it in time. I told my mom and dad to be on the lookout while I was gone. i figured worse comes to worse, i can drive BACK to Mountain View when they come, collect them, and still have them available for at least the last half of the con. i was hoping it would come Friday night, but it waited until Saturday to show up, which meant I only had issue 1 and 10 for the last day of the con! UGH!
It's okay, though! There were still plenty of people who hadn't yet picked up an issue #9 yet, and a lot of newcomers were intrigued by the idea of having he Graphic Novel still. So... I hobbled along, sales wise, until I could refill my arsenal. It wasn't the best I'd ever done a con, but I still think I did pretty good, all said and done.
Oh! Oh! ALSO! Let's talk about the OTHER big mistake I made this time around XD
Here's a thing I didn't know about Sacramento. Apparently, there's TWO Holiday Inns by the convention center. One of them is a Holiday Inn Express. Its right next to the convention center and I've stayed in it many times before. The other one is just a regular holiday Inn, and it's about a mile away. Guess which one i booked this time!!?? :P
Yeah, so... silly me, I guess.
It wasn't bad. It was slightly inconvenient for everyone involved. I had some fellow artist friends staying with me, plus Danielle, my table mate. But we made it work. Thankfully, Dani's bf Joshua was happy to drive us back and forth when we needed to because he's a precious and we really just don't deserve him.
SO YEAH! Apart from all that weirdness, the con was really fun! Even the kinda inconvenient parts of it GOT fun! Like when i drove from Sac to MV and back to get my books? Danielle came with me and we had a fun little mini roadtrip where we talked a lot and listened to music.
Also, some friends came out to support me! My cosplay pals Arisa and Lola showed up to my booth. A LOTTA Danielle's friends came by too. They furnished up with coffee and foodstuffs and good conversation. Basically everything was exactly how i wanted it to be, despite minor setbacks. I was FUMING the day I found out I wouldn't have all my books ready, but it just wasn't so bad. I got everything I wanted out of this and couldn't have been happier.
That being said, i think this coming year might be a good opportunity for me to take another TransCat break. There's a lot of stuff I wanna do with the end of this year and maybe the beginning of 2020. I find myself often putting off big TransCat projects because convention time is coming up again and I wanna stop doing that. i have a lotta big story plans and ideas for cool TransCat related side projects that I really wanna focus on. I also am so, so close to being debt free, and it seems like every time I have to make plans for a con, I gotta take a lil' step back, or take a lil' break, and I wanna stop doing that too. I'm also not super confident about the convention's change of venue and i'm thinking about sitting at least one of them out, just to see how it goes. Might jump back in for summer, depending.
But yeah, that's where TransCat is right now! Look forward to bigger things coming in late 2020 or early 2021, but i'm gonna take this time to lay a little low and really work that part out, and make sure that whatever I bring to you when that time comes is phenomenal and worth the wait <3 br="">
Expect updates... sometime? Once in awhile? Every so often? Yeah.
Well, first off, let's talk about this odd timing! Last year I talked a little bit about how the convetion center is about to undergo massive renovations! That'll be good because I'd love to see what they can do with this space. It's already pretty nice, i'd love to see it NICER!
Bad news is, it's gonna take a year, and during that year, we'll be at the Cal Expo instead.
now, they did a trial run of Sac-Con at the Cal-Expo earlier in the year. I didn't hate it, like I was expecting to. it was actually a pretty good con, fun-wise, and also pretty good sales-wise. But the big thing is that Sac-Con is only one day. People can come in the morning, leave in the afternoon, and not worry about where they're gonna sleep. Sac-Anime is a multi day event and I could be wrong, but I didn't see any hotels near by. it really makes me wonder what the logistics of STAYING are gonna be like.
In either case, that's neither here nor there, what's important is that with these renovations on the horizon, Sac-Anime got scooted up a lot earlier in the summer. Usually we're not prepping for Sac-anime Summer until like August or September-ish, but this year it was June. This was coincidental, because this weekend also happened to my the Sacramento Pride March AND... all the local schools were having their graduation ceremonies as well! There was a LOT going on! Everyone that I ran into in my hotel, I was like "So, you here for pride? the convention? or someone graduating?" It was a fun conversation every time. It was amazing though, with all these people amassing on the city at once, how many people had no idea the other two events were happening. Pride people were like "oh shit, there's a convention?" Con people were like "graduation is this week too?" and Graduates were like "wtf are all you nerds doing here?"
So anyway, all of this kinda came together in some good ways and some bad ways. The most noticable way it manifested it seemed was the severely LESS populated convention. It was, in a way, kind of a bummer, especially for us artists, because our sales kinda depend on the crowd being thick. i think I still did pretty good, especially with the handicap I started out with. what handicap, you may be asking? Well! I'll TELL you!
Last convention I went to, I sold completely out of Issue #1 and ALMOST out of Issue #2. That was last month, so I put in an order IMMEDIATELY for more, plus I tacked on an order of Issue #10 which was gonna make it's debut at this con. Turnaround time for these kinda orders is USUALLY about a month, so i knew there could be no margin for error. I did everything I could to make sure the files I sent to be printed were perfect in every way. I got a confirmation that the files had been received, everything was going on track.
UNTIL!!! Until about Wednesday evening before the con. I was sittin' at home wondering "Why aren't there books at my door yet?" i logged into my printer's message center to double check, only to find a message that i for some reason didn't get an alert about, from a lil' earlier in the week. It was someone telling me that the files i said were in fact corrupted, and if I could re-send them please.
So I did resend them, but with an stern, earnest email reply "It's really important I have these books by tomorrow. Is that even possible?" I never got a reply to the message but I DID receive a notification early Thursday morning that the boxes had been sent off. That in itself was impressive, but I still knew they'd never make it in time. I told my mom and dad to be on the lookout while I was gone. i figured worse comes to worse, i can drive BACK to Mountain View when they come, collect them, and still have them available for at least the last half of the con. i was hoping it would come Friday night, but it waited until Saturday to show up, which meant I only had issue 1 and 10 for the last day of the con! UGH!
It's okay, though! There were still plenty of people who hadn't yet picked up an issue #9 yet, and a lot of newcomers were intrigued by the idea of having he Graphic Novel still. So... I hobbled along, sales wise, until I could refill my arsenal. It wasn't the best I'd ever done a con, but I still think I did pretty good, all said and done.
Oh! Oh! ALSO! Let's talk about the OTHER big mistake I made this time around XD
Here's a thing I didn't know about Sacramento. Apparently, there's TWO Holiday Inns by the convention center. One of them is a Holiday Inn Express. Its right next to the convention center and I've stayed in it many times before. The other one is just a regular holiday Inn, and it's about a mile away. Guess which one i booked this time!!?? :P
Yeah, so... silly me, I guess.
It wasn't bad. It was slightly inconvenient for everyone involved. I had some fellow artist friends staying with me, plus Danielle, my table mate. But we made it work. Thankfully, Dani's bf Joshua was happy to drive us back and forth when we needed to because he's a precious and we really just don't deserve him.
SO YEAH! Apart from all that weirdness, the con was really fun! Even the kinda inconvenient parts of it GOT fun! Like when i drove from Sac to MV and back to get my books? Danielle came with me and we had a fun little mini roadtrip where we talked a lot and listened to music.
Also, some friends came out to support me! My cosplay pals Arisa and Lola showed up to my booth. A LOTTA Danielle's friends came by too. They furnished up with coffee and foodstuffs and good conversation. Basically everything was exactly how i wanted it to be, despite minor setbacks. I was FUMING the day I found out I wouldn't have all my books ready, but it just wasn't so bad. I got everything I wanted out of this and couldn't have been happier.
That being said, i think this coming year might be a good opportunity for me to take another TransCat break. There's a lot of stuff I wanna do with the end of this year and maybe the beginning of 2020. I find myself often putting off big TransCat projects because convention time is coming up again and I wanna stop doing that. i have a lotta big story plans and ideas for cool TransCat related side projects that I really wanna focus on. I also am so, so close to being debt free, and it seems like every time I have to make plans for a con, I gotta take a lil' step back, or take a lil' break, and I wanna stop doing that too. I'm also not super confident about the convention's change of venue and i'm thinking about sitting at least one of them out, just to see how it goes. Might jump back in for summer, depending.
But yeah, that's where TransCat is right now! Look forward to bigger things coming in late 2020 or early 2021, but i'm gonna take this time to lay a little low and really work that part out, and make sure that whatever I bring to you when that time comes is phenomenal and worth the wait <3 br="">
Expect updates... sometime? Once in awhile? Every so often? Yeah.
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