Fountain City Con 2022

New badge holder in full effect and ready to sell some art!

There are some blog entries that take me a long while to write, then edit and revise. This one for Fountain City Con, and the upcoming one for C2E2 have taken me literal months to get through (the entry date is backdated for chronological sake of the blog).

I did my best to be open minded about how I was approaching this overview of the show.

But I feel I have to be fairly honest and forward as I have been in all my previous writeups about shows. That means from what I earned, to what foot traffic was like, to how the show environment felt.

Fountain City was a show I'd heard good things about, and this year was to mark the first time it was going to be a two day event. I sat on the fence about doing it, because I had already made a massive investment that I was nervous about, in just having paid for C2E2 (from waitlist status). But it wasn't a lot for a table, so I gave it a chance.

Friday - Show Setup Anxieties

Friday night had set up time from 5 PM until 8 PM. I was unable to make it out there until well past eight o'clock, but thankfully the staff onsite were extremely nice when I called explaining that I was late getting off of a contract job and was now gridlocked in traffic on 70 highway. The route turned into what would’ve been a 35 minute drive into an hour and a half.

Really hoped it was going to stay overcast through the weekend, just to stave off the heat.

Thankfully, when I arrived, there were still plenty of others, mainly vendors still setting up. I pulled up the map that had been sent out prior via email with loading and load out instructions, just to make sure I didn't need to check in with anyone.

When I got in through the corner entrance, I was surprised by how large the show floor space looked at first glance.

The show layout looked really sharp.

My table set up was roughly an 8 x 8‘ area, with plenty of room behind my table and the other line of tables behind me. Thankfully that meant I could set up my full display, but I only had a window of about 30 minutes to get things set up before the hall would close up for the evening.

I managed to get the walls the table and display rack set up, and decided to wait until Saturday morning to get everything else set up.

About halfway setup, just had the artwork left to hang on the walls.

I drove home that evening, thinking about the possibilities and what else I still had left to set up. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit worried, that naturally happens when it’s a show that’s brand new to me. I was happy to see that plenty of artists were at the show.

For some reason, after getting home, about 10 o’clock that night, I was still really nervous.

As I got ready for bed, I laid there awake, just thinking. Insomnia bouts aren't fun, especially before a show. Somewhere in between random thoughts, I fell asleep.

Saturday - Day One, One Sale

As you all may know, I love getting into shows early so I can walk around a bit, maybe do some shopping and a lot of visiting before the public gets in.

The marketing had quite an eventful show day planned out, with a cosplay contest, and enough vendors, artists, and other things that led me to believe it could be a very well attended show.

In the email they requested the people get there by 9 AM although the show is to start at 10 AM on Saturday. This was to accommodate the VIP ticket holders that would get in for early shopping. I am not new to this, as NakaKon does this very thing as do many other shows.

I believe my brother (who was my booth assistant for part of the day) and I, got there about 8 AM.

After catching up with a few people, I quickly finished setting up my artwork, the table, and got my square reader fired up, business cards laid out, and checked to make sure that I had all the things I needed to get through the day.

All set up and ready to sell!

We wandered around for about 40 minutes after that, looking at future possible purchases and checked out the Lego builds from a local group.

I may join up with this Lego group at some point in the future.

I also picked up a few vintage video games. By then, it was time for me to go back to my table, as it was time for the VIPs to start coming into to the show.

The Japanese Atari was a true sight to behold.

I love that there are more video game vendors at shows these days, especially with import game versions for sale.

WHY does Japan always have the best graphic design for packaging?!

So back I was at my table. The energy around me was filled with people talking between one another at the tables, waiting for customers to come by.

There are times when you do enough artist alleys, enough shows, that you can start to feel that something is off. It didn’t really seem like there were many early attendees coming in.

I tried to reassure myself that the anxiety and fear I was feeling was unfounded, "it’s a new show for you", I reminded myself. "it’s a brand new location just chill out man".

Ever since I started writing these review blogs, I write down metrics, count how many business cards I hand out, record crowd density throughout the days, note the types of sales made around me, and build up reference notes for accurate review of how I can work a show if I come back for future selling efforts. For instance, I handed out 38 business cards, spoke in depth to 26 of those people, and of those 26 people I made 11 sales, consisting of 10 comic books, and one art reproduction I sold with a $5 discount applied. I also spoke to 14 vendors, and purchased items from 5 of them. I spoke to 10 creators/authors/artists, and bought from 4 of them.

A good number of people showed up between the hours of 11am till around 2:30 PM. This was also around the time the cosplay contest was happening. Which was a great highlight of the day for many people. The rest of the show time was quiet enough that I was able to visit a multitude of creators I knew at the show, I’m talking at least 5 to 20 minute conversations each.

One of the two judges for the cosplay event, Folxy Cosplay, with one of her amazing creations.

For those of you that have done shows, you know what I’m getting at. A good portion of the show's hours, it did not seem that there were more attendees then there were vendors or artists at the show. This is based on the count of people that walked down through the particular artist alley row I was in. Yes, I kept track of that. 112 on Saturday, and 72 on Sunday.

I say this having taken video and photos for TikTok and Twitter over the course of that day and hesitating because there was no foot traffic in our particular road in artist alley. It was slow enough for me to also go all the way across the show floor to make transactions with various vendors take the time to dig through containers filled with toys and look up some comic books, exchange money and come back and nothing had changed.

At some point from what I understood, there was a soccer game occurring in the other half of the arena. The Outside situation was that the parking lot was already pretty filled by the time this show was beginning to pick up steam by 11 o’clock. I had a few acquaintances that had attempted to get out to the show that informed me there was no where to park which was really unfortunate. I had looked up the game schedule for the venue, and did find a game that was scheduled for that day, but I'm not sure how much parking had to do with attendance either way. as I was pretty sure the parking lot was large enough to accommodate busy events.

Anytime I see someone cosplaying a Jawa, it brightens my mood.

I don’t believe it was a lack of advertisement, I don’t know if it was a new location, I don’t know if it was the weather, but something didn't quite work out in favor for me at this show.

I tried my best, I engaged with people, caught up with friends, did trades, sold a few things and was grateful for everyone that came by and picked up stuff.

But with such low sales, I had to turn this into essentially a marketing and self promotion event, and just accept the loss. Which is never easy.

I did have time to do some small sketch ideas throughout the day.

As the day wore on, there was a lot of hope that Sunday would be a better day. I ended that evening by 6 o’clock, worn out, my voice practically gone and looking forward to dinner.

So I went to sleep with the thought I had a possible chance at making a comeback the second day of the show, since I thought I had from 10am till 5pm to sell.

But as it turns out, I had overlooked a small detail in the email that truncated that hope for me.

Sunday - Day Two, Ten Comics sold

I always try to support any show, even if it doesn’t go well for me. I figure if I’m having a bad day, I’m gonna try like hell to make sure other people don’t.

When I got in there the mood was weary, people were quiet. I'd picked up some coffee energy drinks to fire up my energy. After readying my booth setup once again, I quickly drank my canned energy, and went to start buying things.

Was not prepared for the spectrum of rarities on this table...

The day was filled with a lot more conversation interactions and business card trades. I even had enough time to go shopping yet again right after 12 o’clock. There was nothing particularly outstanding about the day that made me think I want to come back and do the show again.

This also marked the first time since the 80s that I had seen the USS Flagg in person. This one fully assembled!

I did try to stay upbeat, I worked on my standup routine (no seriously, I may not do stand up comedy anymore, but I still work on material for telling stories at my table during shows).

Throughout the day I had enough time to tell long winded stories previous experiences at shows, even at one point explaining how I made a recipe about chili. But I did manage to sell 10 copies of my comic book to people.

Right around 1:45pm, something odd happened. There was a little bit of flurry of action over on the other side of the arena floor. I didn’t really paid any heed, thinking, "ok somebody decided to start breaking down early".

As it turns out, in the email there was two facts that I had overlooked one was the show would end at 3 o’clock but if people wanted to start tearing down at 2 o’clock they were fine with that I believe is it how was it was worded. We had to be out by 4 o’clock and no later because of an event that was happening immediately after the show.

I'm being frank in saying that I'm not the only one in my area that had to have missed that breakdown time on the email. The arena event workers took any spare tables that were in the vendors area and started stacking them and putting them away along with accompanying chairs.

I don’t know the exact order of events that happened, but one of the people in artist alley in my row was friends with a vendor who was told that if he had the opportunity to start tearing down, to do so. So that they could take the tables and chairs. Information went back-and-forth and I’m certain some misinformation may have happened, or at the very least misunderstandings.

I get that there was a note in the email, but I was also a bit surprised that there was also no direct communication from anybody running or working at the show, who might have come around maybe at 1:30pm to remind everyone what was happening.

By the time the tear down dust has started to settle, I was sweaty, sitting outside in my truck, with the A/C on full blast.

Maybe there was a miscommunication between Fountain City and whatever volleyball tournament event that was happening at three or 4 o’clock, I really don’t know. But it was an awkward and very clumsy end to a show that certainly seem to have had a lot of promise going for it.

My stuff on my little hand truck, over to the side of volleyball nets going up.

I do feel bad for the people that had come in to attend the event around the 1:30pm to 1:45pm mark.

I distinctly remember speaking to one such a woman who had brought her four children. I remember this because I and another creator in artist alley had spoken to her about what anime would be appropriate for her now teenage daughter. My neighborhood recommended Fullmetal Alchemist, and I had recommended the Netflix anime Komi Can’t Communicate. The woman was grateful for the input and was looking forward to wandering around till 5pm at the show because they had just gotten there. Not one of us corrected her, I also was of the mindset that the show ended at 5pm. I'm not sure why.

Mind you that was moments before everything started being taken down and the show and it’s entirety was for the most part packed up and shut down by 3 o’clock.

So...I really wanted to be positive in this review. I gave an honest and open look at what it was like for me to have done this show. The negatives I posted and talked about are not without example. You can look at the photos, and I'm brutally honest about my earnings.

Fountain City Con Haul

I hope the show continues to grow and finds incredibly greater growth and success next year if they hold it again. But I can’t take the gamble of expense to attend a show that I didn’t even cover the cost of the table I purchased. And that’s an unfortunate thing, because there was quite a bit that I did enjoy about the show. But enjoyment does not equal making a living. And this is a discussion that anyone that does the show should have with themselves if they decide to proceed with making a professional career effort out of what they do and showcase at conventions.

Show Overview.

Onto the breakdown points of Fountain City Con.

Is it worth it?

For me, it was not. I'm basing that on my earnings and expenses.

The cosplay contest appeared to have been run really well, and people in attendance seemed really happy with the show as a whole.

The show has a lot going for it, and is very family friendly, and any families I saw looked like they had a great time.

This was the first time Fountain City had a two day show. I had really hoped it was going to be a new show I would look forward to doing. But even before the money I spent of my own accord at the show on fellow vendors and artists, I had only barely made back my table cost. I can't justify doing the show again unfortunately.

Expense/Earnings

1. Artist Alley Table price: $56.12
2. Fuel/food: $44.89
3. Purchases from vendors and other artists: $137.00

Total Expenses: $238.01

1. Friday Sales: 30.00
2. Saturday Sales: $26.75 
   
   Total Earnings: $56.75

Pros

• The show has a positive energy, and from years past, clearly people have enjoyed attending
• Show layout and variety was very good, from vendors to artists, gaming to collectibles
• Cosplay contest was held, and many of the people seemed to enjoy it
• Email communication for setup was clear and timely
• Show attendance rates were $20 Adult Wknd Pass, $15/$10 single day, and more options

Cons

• Didn't see staff members during the show on the floor or making rounds, that I could see.
• Abrupt/hurried end to show for event space to set up volleyball nets
• Told by friends attempting to attend on Sat, that there was no parking early in the day

The Final Evaluation

I don't know what form the show will return in for 2023, but for those that enjoyed it, I hope it returns and is a great experience.

It's reputation when it was a one day show was stellar from all I'd heard previously.

Attending is affordable and very family friendly. It's another good, lower cost experience before one tries going to shows like NakaKon or Planet Comicon.

I can't speak for other creators or vendors, but the low sales and sporadic seeming attendance over the majority of the weekend didn't work out for me financially.

Thank you so much for reading, I am Mario, the Artisan Rogue, and until next time, remember to support artists and local businesses. Be kind to your fellow beings and always take the path less traveled. We all may live in times uncertain, but kindness, understanding, and believing in the good that is in most each and every one of us is what can bring about better days!

LINKS

Fountain City Con

Folxy Cosplay

L. David Hesler - I traded for a great Zombie book from him!

1313 Mockingbird Lane - Amazing toy store in Lawrence, KS!

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
Illustrator, Voice Actor, Writer, Animal Rights Activist

www.theartisanrogue.com