Whoops! Almost forgot I had this in my Drafts. So, here we go; a few things to add and… etc

Lessons learned

Hmm. Don’t eat loads of chocolate cookies about a week before a dental visit? That’s common sense, surely… alright, slightly more important stuff:

1) Colouring is popular, but colouring takes time. Pre-show we hoped we’d be able to get a sketch coloured in a little longer than it takes to initially get sketched – maybe 30 minutes. It was closer to an hour. I don’t actually want it to be any less, really, because that hour yielded some amazing results. But, it also meant that Kat and Jason experienced the mad rush of getting a lot of stuff done, and ended up still present in the hall finishing off final colours after everyone else (bar us) had gone home. So next time; less colours in the queue (and possibly… I’m afraid… a price increase).

2) You (our customers) have your budget, and you’re going to spend it. So there. Basically increasing the minimum-asked-for donation did bugger-all to affect how much money we raised, which is great. In fact it did exactly what we wanted; it reduced the pressure on the artists while still raising loads of cash. So that was all win.

3) Tom-Toms are really handy. Although I’m still taking a map.

4) We still can’t move sketch cards. The £10 price gap between a £5 sketch card (a headshot of your character – or anything else – on a trading card sized.. card) and a £15 full-body A4 sketch doesn’t seem to phase most people. This has been the case for a year. Ain’t giving up on the buggers though.

5) Having three of us able to drive is really, really nice. Just felt so much more relaxed, both there and back. Fantastic.

6) Video to promote our games is good… but it’s not doing the job. We sold a decent amount of stuff but we didn’t sell what I wanted to. Next year, we’ll be more focused and we’re going to push specific products harder. It’s a comics show – I should be able to sell City of Heroes/Villains. (Thinks: may even do a playable demo PC again.)

7) Having Mat there to take photos is also really good. Even if he does eat all* the cake.

8 ) Restaurant finds: The Raj does a pretty decent Indian, although that basement got a bit hot ‘n’ stuffy. The Cathay Rendevous was pretty damn fine Chinese, too, and good for comic-celeb-spotting. (You have no idea how handy it’ll be next year for me to have written that down.)

9) There is simply no point in taking swimming trunks to that hotel, I never have time… but I know I will again.

10) Having said that, we need to book a cheaper hotel earlier if we’re going to save cash. Although two years in our current location has given me the taste for luxury, dammit.

11) Can’t get away with anything less than a standard-sized Transit-style van, now. Too much merchandise and just too much stuff. Although I shouldn’t panic so much that it won’t all fit.

12) Plastic tubs are the best for storing stock and merch. We bought a few to hold our stock, which were fantastic; easy to stack, easy to move, didn’t rip, and best of all… you could see what was in them. Next year, the van will be entirely full of them, I’m thinking.

13) Shorts for the win! If the forecast is as hot next time… essential.

14) Might need to look at getting a fan for the stand. I saw a solar-powered fan yesterday. That would be perfect, considering our hefty power-drain. It’s the combination of too many people and too much equipment pumping out heat.

15) We need a minimum of three stands’ worth of space. We were officially supposed to be smaller this year than last. Ha!

16) The cafe on-site does pretty good sandwiches (win!) but doesn’t do receipts (fail).

17) Don’t forget COH t-shirts at a COH-friendly show. Grrrrrr.

Update: I forgot one.

18) We have so many regular visitors we have to seriously think about paying (paying!) for more stand space just so they can sit down. This will probably happen at Memorabilia.

Etcetera

I found a few links to blogs and so on that talked about the show, which you might want to have a gander at. One even mentioned here, so it’s only fair to link on back.

DownTheTubes was the site that mentioned us, and has a good round-up of other reports.

Comic Bits Online also had a good report.

Finally, if I haven’t mentioned them already… I met a couple of comics podcasters in person during the show, and if you’re a fan you should give them a listen. So click away and send a referral link to Geek Syndicate (Hi Barry!) and Birds of Geek (Hi Amy!).

Absolutely finally

… because I don’t think I did ever mention it here; we raised £1,666 for Draw the World Together / EveryChild. That’s officially ‘up’ by about £200 on last year (I think; figures are at work) but as last year included a fluke £200 auction bid, I personally see it as being more like £400 more. So thank you, thank you, to everyone who gave us cash.

Now get back to playing Issue 12. I haven’t even hit the servers yet.

* Well not all. But those were very large pieces.