My review on Alternative Press Expo 2015
Hello, all! So I wanted to update everyone with my experience from APE last weekend. Alternative Press Expo (APE) has been a convention I have wanted to table at for 3 years. Note that I don’t sell zines or sequential art, which APE is known for, so I did not hold my hopes too high on getting in.
Apparently APE was sold back to the original owners this year, so it is no longer owned by Comic Con. I’m still new to conventions since I’ve only been tabling for 1.5 years, so the politics of it all get confusing and gray to me. Basically with the sale of APE the customer service went to crap along with advertising, location (APE is no longer in San Francisco but back to it’s original location in San Jose) etc. I have no beef with the new location area, but many do. What I *do* have a problem with was that the con was not inside the San Jose convention center but rather a condom clown shaped tent made out of vinyl in a parking lot behind the San Jose convention center. This added a lot of confusion to customers because they were expecting the actual con hall but were instead wandering the pavements outside the San Jose con center to try to find the actual location of APE and because there were NO SIGNS a lot of people could not find it for a long time. Imagine being frustrated—frustrated shoppers spend less which is frustrating to us sellers in turn.
Asking around a few of my friends did not even make four sales on the first day—many did not even break even on table cost by the end of the weekend, let alone food, travel, and other expenses. There were also a fair bit of empty tables, even though online it said tables were sold out and there was a wait list. So some sellers were in a desert wasteland of white tables, avoided by potential customers because they had no idea that sellers were in the back of the rows.
The problem here is that APE was relying heavily on vendors to advertise. Within the first few emails we were asked to advertise APE for them to get exposure, within the last few emails we were told to advertise for APE. Since I don’t have a huge following no matter how much I advertise for APE it’s not really going to do much, and it’ll just eventually irritate my followers. So lose/lose situation for me.
We were told we’d get four passes with each table but at badge pickup I was told I could only get passes for *helpers* so I only got three badges, even though we paid for 4 badges.
I asked many of my customers if this was their first APE experience and many said it was their first time at APE. A few customers that came to APE every year were voicing their frustration because APE did not jury in just sequential artists and zine sellers but every kind of seller— these customers were pretty upset and mentioned that many of their friends refused to go this year because they were not getting the experience that they paid for prior years. Actually none of my sequential artist friends that tabled at APE 3-4 years prior did not table this year because they did not want to travel the hour to the new location.
My table buddy and I traveled 5 hours to get to APE (6 hours back because of traffic) and were very excited about the con. We bought a hotel etc—I’ve never traveled a long distance to a con, so this was a totally new experience for me.
APE gave out free passes to educators and store owners and had a list of people giving out free items to these people. I was put on the list but told APE I only wanted to give free items to store owners but they did not advertise this—so I had about 30 people bummed and upset at me for not giving out free items. What I did was with any purchase I gave a free print of their choice—and I ended up extending this to everyone that came to my table that was either educator/retailer, but I did not just give away product to people. Many left saying they did not have money, but hey neither do I! So this was pretty frustrating too because many people felt led on by me when it was APE’s lack of communication to people.
On Sunday I saw people walking around with a Saturday only badge and both days I saw people just sneak in without a badge period.
The food court just offered hot dogs, canned soda, bagged chips and cookies—not actual meals like the main San Jose con floor would offer. The bathrooms were a portable little trailer house that had bathroom doors that did not secure all of the way in some stalls and had stale, warm air—-not a happy experience for some shoppers. The AC was on full blast in the tent on Saturday and on Sunday the AC was non existent—my table buddy and I were sweating in our chairs.
Over all the con was just poorly planned and felt thrown together. Take a look at APE’s actual website for an idea of management. http://www.alternativepressexpo.com/
Would I do APE again? Most likely not. I made back my half of the table cost and hotel cost and a few dollars for a bag of chips but did not break even all the way. I’m sure each year the con will go a little bit smoother, and the crowd will get bigger—-but as I said lack of advertisement is APE’s worst enemy. On Sunday some buyers said that they had *no idea* APE was going on til that morning and had been *looking forward to it*. So old customers had no idea when it was going on, new customers had no idea what it was and everything was a little crazy.
I wish you luck in the upcoming years, APE! You hold a lot of promise for the future as soon as you get your ducks in a row. People want to love you, but people are wary of new ownership and location.
