I'm back with another post!
So, today I am going to be talking about conventions. I had the opportunity to finally become a vendor in last year comic and games events in my hometown and it was a wonderful experience. I'm here to share my tips on how to prepare as a booth vendor!
It was my friend's and my first time running a booth and we found out soon afterward that we needed to prepare a lot more for a lot less. Despite all the research, I was still overwhelmed by the entire situation. Now, here are some of my tips that can hopefully can help a lot to future vendors.
1. Prepare Ahead of Time
This is definitely a no-brainer. Prepare a month or two before the event to avoid stress and headache. If you're working a demanding full-time job like me, prepare waaay before that. Plan your budget, plan what merch or your prints that you are going to be selling, plan how to layout your table and such.
If you're going to sell illustrations, it is best to choose only the polished ones to sell, and polished illustrations will need time to be produced. So, spend some time to produce quality drawings and paintings that can be turned into art prints. This will benefit you a lot in terms of confidence and will show to your audience that you're dedicated and professional.
2. Plan your budget
You're going to be covering not just the cost of the booth, but also the cost of productions. There are two ways you can go about: the first one is to spend less money by making most of your products yourselves, and the second one is to spend more by getting professional services.
I was selling some of my illustrations which I printed out by myself at home. I didn't print out that much so the cartridge cost was well below Rm100. Also, I don't have that much of an audience yet so I made sure not to overspend on stuffs when I know not a lot of people are going to be buying. You can certainly go to print shops to have better quality art prints and they do charge less for more prints. I only decided against it because I was not well-known yet.
Now, when it come to comics, this thing also depends. If you made comic with many pages, it is always best to get help from print shops to produce your comic books. However, if you do mostly oneshots with 10 to 20 or more pages, it is best that you print your comic yourself. With Microsoft Publisher, it is not very hard to do.
3. Bring Name Cards
Probably our biggest sin was that we didn't bring or prepare any name cards, so the ones buying our stuffs didn't know where to find us on social media. I cannot stress how important name cards are. Usually, in convention, not many people will buy your stuffs in first view. They would come, look around, and then continued to other booths before coming back to your booth to have a second look. Some will buy your stuffs, most will not. This is especially true when conventions that focused on outside brands are concerned. They will be coming to find collectibles with established characters rather than admiring your original art!
But even when customers are not buying, does not mean they're not interested. I had a lot of people inquiring about my work process, the tools I used, and flipping through my files more than once. They were interested, but they were not sure if they wanted to spend money on my works. In cases like this, name cards will help them to get to know you by leading them directly to your social media.
Also, it does not hurt to have your contacts with them as they may be interested to commission you in the future.
4. Prepare A Lot of Small Changes
Please prepare as many small changes as you can. Some people can drop big money out of a sudden, and it would be hella awkward to be rummaging your bag for your wallet while they stood and wait.
I guess that's it. Just some simple tips. Hopefully some of you can benefit from this. As for me, I will definitely be joining conventions for this year too. It is a fun activity and a good way to find my niche. So, that's it from me!
Thank you for visiting and please tell me what you think of this post.