On April 27-29 was the 2012 Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. We have been at this event for 5 years and have seen it grow! Our booth has went from a single table, to double, to corner and then the past 2 years a full End Cap. This to me is quite an acomplishment. It's not cheap to say the least, but what we get back from it is sooooo worth the cost.
I need to start by thanking Gwen, Andreas and Tracy for working my booth with me the entire weekend. We got to the BMO center at 9am on Friday morning for set up and left Sunday at 6:00pm. There are a lot of hours involved in the convention and through years of experience we have learned that chair cushions and floor mats are keys to comfort!
This year was an added twist to the chaos, a second booth! I purchased an "economy" booth for our Alliance LARP. We stuffed all the LARP gear into it and we had several dedicated volunteers manning it, JP, Keith, Shauna, Abbey and Lorne! Those guys again went above my expectations and really helped push our little LARP into a spotlight I did not expect (more on that next week).
We also had the privilage of selling Expo tickets this year. I have been bugging the Expo folks for a couple years about this. We are the only NE store and getting tickets over here was a big thing. We make no money off of the sales, everything goes back to the Expo. But what we do get is exposure! Getting the Myth Games name 'out there' is very important and this advertising let many people know about us that had not heard of us before. We are on their website a few times, and with links back to the store the click throughs were huge.
We must have fielded dozens of calls per day leading up to the event from people wanting tickets. Many came in and grabbed up their tix, but even more wandered around our store, grabbed a game or two, then picked up a ticket as well.
The Friday was as expected. Lots of people, lots of fans and lots of sales! We handed out coupons to the store, spoke about all of the events we do and really pushed some information out there. It was a long day for us as it started around 6am and after the convention was over I had to head to the store for our Midnight pre-release. The low-point of the night was getting in line for a Wil Wheaton photo op and being turned away because they undersetimated his popularity. Geez, you think a guy with 2M Twitter followers may be considered popular? Oh well, there was a 10:30am Sunday Photo OP scheduled so I had to wait. Thanks to my wonderful minions, I was able to head home and get some sleep while they ran the 70 player event (2 off of a full event!).
Saturday was the "day from hell" as many poor convention goers found out. Lots of overcrowding, long lines etc. Luckily our vendor area was not the crush of people in the Photo/Food area. Minion A and myself pushed our way through the throngs of people to get a couple autographs (hey, I'm a fanboy just like the rest of you!) and I got Katee Sackoff to sign her Starbuck card for my Battlestar Gallactica board game. Then I realized that Richard Hatch (the original Starbuck) was across from her and I had a game piece for him as well. It took me longer to get back to my booth and grab the card than to get his signature. The day was very busy. Lots of sales, lots of flyers and lots of walking between the LARP booth and Myth Games' Booth.
Saturday was also a pretty bad day emotionally for me. Many of you know I have cats. I love my boys. My youngest, Loki, was battling Amemia. He had been on some steroids and his red blood cell count was back to normal and so was he, or so he appeared. Unfortunatley he took a turn for the worse during the week and when I woke up at 5:30am I decided to go check on him. He couldn't move. When I picked him up he cried. I have never heard him meow like that before and I knew something was terribly wrong. So off to North Animal Emergency. After a couple hours I received the news that his condition was critical and just the diagnostics alone (just to find out what was wrong) would cost close to $3,000. As much as people believe that owning a store means you have tons of disposable cash, this is not the case. So with a very heavy heart I had to put my boy to sleep. Saturday and Sunday were VERY hard days to keep my composure. I did not tell anyone because I knew that if they were to give me a hug, or try to console me I would have completley melted down.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! I met up with Shauna at the Will Wheaton line and so the wait began for photos. Once the line started moving it was pretty quick to get in take a snap and get out. It took longer for our photo to be processed as the machine printing them had a problem. Oh well. Then it was into the line to get his autograph. He was genuine and engaging. It was pretty cool. I offered him the store to play some games at, but he was exhausted and was heading to bed after his grueling weekend. His schedule was insane, but he still managed to keep smiling and chat with everyone. That is the mark of a true professional.
So the day went along, more photo ops for the staff and my freinds. Luckily we can all take turns "roaming" the convetion floor and get out of the booth. It helps to break up the days. The highlight of the event for me was getting in line to see John Noble (Walter from Fringe). We overheard him commenting on his lollipop he had. It was such a "Walter" moment that both Gwen and I started giggling. His line was full, but we arrived early enough that once they started to sign there was not a huge wait. Again, we were happy to find him very engaging. He chatted with everyone and really was just a great guy. I asked him if we could snap a quick photo with Gwen's iPhone and he obliged! What a great guy. It's great when you really like an actor (or any "famous" person) and you find out that they are genuine and nice in person. It just maked the weekend a bit better.Sunday night was unpacking the truck, grabbing some food and collapsing on the couch. Monday was putting everything back on the shelves, re-ordering and gearing up for the next big event: our LARP weekend event!
No rest for the wicked!
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