Artist Alley at cons?

[aqutalion]

It might be possible for me to go to an anime con in the near future and I thought it might be neat to get a spot in the Artists Alley. But I honestly have no idea what to expect. I remember a thread about an AA being posted not long ago, so I figure some people have at least been to one, and maybe can help?

The big problem is that I don't have much in the way of prints and merchandise to sell. I figured I can do some buttons and small (trading-card-size) paintings. But the main thing is, I figured it would be fun to just do sketches and maybe paintings for people. So my table would be bare-bones, at best. Would this be laughably out of place?

[MaggieTheCat]

I did my first AA at an anime con this summer and it rocked. I had a completely awesome time and made a ton of money. Of course, my merchandise is a lot different than the normal prints, sketches, and drawn fanart (I make jewelry and charms, and I made a bunch of charms out of polymer clay of various video game and anime figures and characters, and they sold like CRAZY.) Is there anything else you do that you could give an anime/video game spin to? Like knitting or making jewelry? There are just so, so many artists who do prints/paintings/drawn art that most of them tend to get lost in the crowd, whereas the vendors that sell unique stuff at least get a lot of people stop by their booth to at least see what they do.

A table with nothing (or very little) on it is going to be a little out of place, and likely not get very much business, unless you have a big banner that says who you are and what you do (that's what I had and people were attracted to my booth because of it; artists who do prints just hang their biggest prints up to attract a crowd.) I honestly don't know how well people who do sketches do at cons; I'm sure if they're free, or very cheap, you'll get some business, but you also won't get much of a profit that way. From my experience, con-goers are really into fanart, so maybe if you are able to do sketches of characters that people are familiar with, you'll do better.

Maybe you could do a few relatively large paintings (or whatever your medium is) to hang up to attract people to your booth. Even if you don't have prints of them, they could still drum up business, and you could sell them for a little more than the average print since it's an original and one-of-a-kind. In my experience, large prints (the biggest ones we have are 24x37 inches) go for around $45. Mid-sized prints (around 18x24 inches) go for around $15-20. Both of those are in color; B&W stuff is, of course, cheaper. And those are both for prints, too, so like I said, if you have a couple of originals that have no prints, you could probably get a bit more for them.

Badges and buttons are both popular but also don't sell for much. Buttons usually $1, or even 5 for $4 or something like that. Badges $5 or under (usually under.) But there are some con-goers who will collect buttons and badges from every booth so it's always nice to have a stock of them available. You can also make collections of these to hang up to attract people.

There are a lot of tips and advice I could offer after having run my first booth, but I'll leave it all to this tutorial, which is awesome and has a lot of solid info: http://www.projectbluerose.com/tutor...urvival-guide/

[fireheart]

Not necessarily. A friend of my boyfriends did that. Hell, he even sold his own drawings and sketches in the form of buttons, bookmarks and prints.

Then he did the sketches. You could either have an original sketch of yourself, yourself sketched into a template (so for instance you could have your face sketched onto a template of a buff sword-wielding warrior), couple original or a couple template. My boyfriend and I did a couple template

[aqutalion]

Thanks for the link, Maggie. That was pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

I do sometimes make jewelry that might look sort of steampunk-y if you squint and imagine real hard, so that might be an option of I can get enough done. Also, maybe custom sketchbooks with fanarts or something on the cover. It hadn't even occurred to me these might be an option for an anime convention. Guess I'll learn.

[Taboo]

Is this a convention you've been to before and if so did you visit the artist's alley that time?

I hate to say this, but in my experience there are some cons that are just not worth selling at - the artist's alley is so inconveniently located that almost nobody visits it. That was my experience at AnimeNext after they rearranged room locations one year. I could barely even find it to set up. I got maybe 2-3 people at my table to even glance at it per hour.

If you can do it at a good con though, it can be a lot of fun.

See if you can get in touch with someone who was at the artist's alley at your specific con some year, and ask them about their experiences. That guide is also good.

[MaggieTheCat]

A couple of things I'll just highlight that I think that tutorial already went over, and just random stuff from my personal experience:

1) Try to get someone to go with you to help watch your table. Even if they don't sit with you the whole time, it's really nice to have someone to help handle money when you get busy, or to watch your table while you run to the bathroom, or to do food/water runs for you. If you don't have a friend with you, you can ask the booth next to you to do stuff like watch your table while you run to the bathroom, but keep in mind that if they get busy while you're gone, they might not be able to keep a close eye on what's going on at your table.

2) Get a good lockbox for cash and keep it with you at all times. If you're going solo and you have to go to the bathroom, bring it with you! Don't leave it at your table unless you have a trusted friend watching your table; even if you ask your neighbor to watch your table, bring your lockbox with you if you have to go somewhere.

3) I don't recommend accepting checks or credit cards. If you are already set up to accept credit cards, awesome. If not, just do cash. Most people who shop in an AA are going to expect this. I think out of the hundreds of people I had stop by my table, maybe 3 of them wanted to pay credit or check. I just politely explained that I don't take checks and I can't take credit, but that there is an ATM nearby (find out where the nearest ATM is so you can answer this question if and when it comes up.) Also, price everything to the whole dollar. You don't need to be messing with coins. And remember to bring some cash to make change with early on; I think we brought $100 to start. $30 in 1s, $30 in 5s, and $40 in 10s, or something similar to that. If you can't afford to have $100 in cash to start, then bring whatever you can afford, just make sure to bring plenty of 1s and 5s.

4) If you're not staying right at the hotel that the con is being held at, and you have merchandise you're setting up at your table, get some kind of cart or dolly to haul it with. Something that will go over "rough terrain" like sidewalks easily. I have a little plastic organizer on wheels that has 6 plastic bins that it holds; it's great over smooth surfaces, once you get into the hotel, but horrible over pavement and sidewalks, and even going over bumps like the metal underneath doors and elevators. For my next con I am definitely going to invest in something a bit sturdier.

5) Along the same lines, if you're not staying at the hotel the con is at, don't park in the hotel parking lot (heck, even if you are staying at the hosting hotel, consider not parking in the parking lot unless the rates are great.) The hotel that the con I went to had something like a rate of $35/day parking, but there was an open public lot about a block and a half away that was $10/day. My husband dropped me and all our merchandise off outside the hotel each morning, then went to park, then walked to the hotel to help me haul everything to the AA.

6) Make sure you get a sales tax permit for your state. They're not hard to get, at least not in Texas, and I'm sure they're not too difficult anywhere else. Once you get it, you will have to file periodically (I have to file once every 3 months, even if I don't do a con in that time frame and have no sales.)

7) If the AA tables are first come, first serve as far as which table you get, make sure you get there early the night before the con (if your schedule permits) so you can get a good table. The con I vended at said that they were going to allow artists to check in at 8pm the night before the con, and pick out/set up their tables. I got there at 8:15 and well over half of the registered artists were already signed in, so either they were there waiting or the con opened the sign in time early. I still managed to snag a good table, though.

8) Make sure to bring your merchandise and anything you value with you every night when you leave. I left my tablecloth, my wire frame cubes, and all of my jewelry displays (necklace displays, bracelet displays, etc. -- I hid them under the table and the tablecloth went down to the floor so they weren't visible unless someone went poking around.) All my actual merchandise came home with me each night.

9) If you make stuff that doesn't really fit into an anime/video game artist alley -- bring it anyway! You mentioned jewelry that was sorta-but-not-really steampunk-ish. That's okay. Bring some of it. Keep in mind that a lot of con attendees are kids, and that they're going to be with parents who aren't interested in anime stuff, but may be interested in something else. I sold a ton of little polymer clay charms for about $4-10/each, but I also sold a couple of much more expensive ($30-40) chainmail bracelets to parents who walked by. I wouldn't count on non-anime related stuff to be your main source of business, but it never hurts to bring some anyway in case there are a few people who are interested.