So I just finished up with FandomeVerse Expo for the first time. Here I am in my hotel typing this up while it’s fresh in my mind. It’s a 2nd or 3rd year convention located in Lancaster, CA. 2016 dates were September 23-25th. It is 3 days, with an artist ally table price of $100, you can upgrade to a premium table (in this case corner table) for an extra $10.
Table cost: $100 (upgrade to corner: $10), comes with two badges
2016 attendance: less than 500 (with a decent amount being artists/vendors)
Hotel: 105/night x 3
Before the convention even started, I want to say that the convention chair, Paige Willey, called me personally to talk to me about the convention. She assured me attendance was minimum between 1500-2000 (she denies this and tells me that she’s sorry if I got the wrong impression. Let’s just say I’m not the only one that she quoted numbers to). Okay, small convention, worth a try, after all, it’s a personal touch that they’re reaching out to me specifically so that speaks volumes. That’s where I went wrong, very wrong. The number she gave me to call if I had any questions always went to voicemail, and over the span of a couple of months, I never got call backs from the messages I left after I spoke to her. I submitted an inquiry via their website and never got a response. People I spoke to at that convention couldn’t even get a hold of them to make their payments for their tables. I emailed again as we got closer to the convention, no response. The ONLY time(s) they responded were when people posted on their Facebook page.
Day 1:
Set up time via email/exhibitor handout: 8am - 2 pm. Hall opens at 4pm.
Driving in, we didn’t see any signs/banners/posters etc to let us know exactly where it was. Their email indicated there would be signage to direct us where to load/unload. You guessed it, zilch. We only found it by driving around and found people unloading so we figured we were in the right place. There wasn’t anybody at the loading area to check us in, badges weren’t ready (and they weren’t ready until about 7 PM that night. We’ve been here since 8:30AM). Day 1 summary: 0 sales. No traffic, the only people we saw walking around were other vendors. First day hours were until 10PM. Why? Who knows. They stated to allow students after school to come. Event’s cancelled without much notice, no one knew what was going on. Con chair, absent.
Day 2:
Hours are 11AM-7PM
Traffic wasn’t much better. The busiest day of the convention and it was a ghost town. The convention was charging $25 for a one day at door ticket. For the first time, I had attendees complain to me about how expensive it was. With lack of traffic and minimal sales, a few artists and I went up to talk to the convention chair since no one else knew what was going on or couldn’t do anything about it. Chair was absent, and we were told that they couldn’t get ahold of her. We then spoke to one of the Vice co-chairs, Brian, who took our information to relay and address the issue. At this point, there was a lot of discontent in the hall and vendors were packing up and leaving. A few artists were leaving as well. Red flags popping up all over the place. Vendor/artist area is in room as everything else so although our area was ‘closed’ at 7PM, there were still events happening until midnight. I didn’t leave any of my product in the hall, broke everything down and took it back to the hotel with me. An hour before closing, staff came and told us that we can get 15 people in free if they mentioned our studio name...a little too little too late.
Day 3:
Hourse 11AM-8PM
Kept my display to a minimal today. Finally made my table money back in the morning. I’m still out gas/food and hotel. I’m definitely losing money on this. Was informed by other vendors that there was a staff meeting going on with vendors about sad state of convention. You know something’s wrong when they pull all the vendors into a meeting. And of course who was absent? Yes, the con Chair didn’t deem it worth her time to show up, until the vendors demanded it. We were all told, there were 500 tickets for attendees picked up (not believable), that they spent 6k on advertising (only one person heard a radio ad which was very short), and that they did all they could but the city, THE CITY, of Lancaster did not support them and took down all their flyers. Local vendors, obviously called bullshit. I had to leave the meeting early, I had sales to make, or at least attempt to recoup some losses. It doesn’t end quietly here. By midday, more vendors and artists were leaving. Their solution: breaking down tables in the middle of the day and removing them so there are gaps everywhere. I was told personally that it was to use for other stuff and to consolidate vendors. I called bullshit, because that was obviously not the case. Then one of the con co-chairs came and told me that consensus of all vendors was to leave early and the time they all agreed on was 6PM. I was never approached or asked, just told. Nobody in my row was asked, nor the next row over. When I stated that they’re breaking contract, a different con co-chair told me that there was miscommunication and that I could stay until 8 PM (well hall was empty by 4 but I was welcome to sit there for four hours). I was not a happy camper by this point. So FINALLY, after waiting an hour, I get to talk to Paige. Her response to all this: well in the contract, “hours can change and we will try to notify you as best as we can”. I don’t think getting 3 different answers from the chair and the two co-chairs falls under that. I would also like to add that I booked an extra night because of their convention hours as I didn’t want to drive 3+ hours home when it was supposed to end at 8PM. Not sure how fair that is. And I’ve never heard of an event closing early and forcing vendors to leave two hours before the end of the show, nor breaking down tables and everything while the show was still going on. When addressed, there was no valid answer Paige could give me.
In summary, avoid at all costs.
PRO’s:
Decent amount of food places within walking distance.
They offered free wifi to vendors.
Staff listened, aside from MIA con chair
The few people we saw of Lancaster were nice.
Free parking.
We could bring our own food in, they gave us water.
CON’S:
No accountability. The person who can do anything (Paige) says she can’t do anything. She was never there.
The staff and people of Lancaster are lovely, but unfortunately, it was chaos and a mess. I met some lovely people who kept apologizing for the convention and the impact of the convention on my impression of the city. I assured them it does not. But this was business, and this is a convention that I will go out of my way to warn people from vending. Now if there is change in management, then that’s a whole another reason to reconsider. Change is needed for this or future similar events to rebound and succeed.
