Event Recap: FanExpo Chicago 2024

My first ever Comicon is in the books, and I wanted to shat my experiences with you. There were some ups and downs along the way, but overall it was a successful event.

It was supposed to be a six-hour drive to get to Chicago - we set out at 5:45am, and we ran into nothing but rain and slow traffic. We finally got to the hotel around 1:30pm, checked in and then went through the skyway to pick up our exhibitor passes and checked out where the booth was located. Later on we found out that Artist Alley could set up until 7pm on Thursday, but by that time I was already unfit for duty as I had had a couple of drinks and needed to go to sleep! 

Friday morning (the first day of the event) we got up at 6am so we would be ready to go by 7:30 for the long skywalk to the event center. It took approximately 12 minutes to walk from our room to the main lobby of the convention center, so we were early and had to wait around a bit.

It took us about an hour to set everything up once we made it in, after which we went back to the hotel for a few hours before the doors opened at 2pm.

When we came back there were a couple of booths on either side of me that were encroaching into my space (which is not cool, don't do that). This happened to me all the time at craft fairs, and I was not going to tolerate it. I couldn't do anything at that point so I sucked it up and got about my day.

There was a fair bit of traffic the first night and I got a decent amount of sales. As this was my first ever Con I was extremely nervous that I wasn't going to sell anything because I sell jewelry and not fan art items. 

The second day did not start off well. We took our time to walk in the skyway to the event center, and we were there just a touch after 8am. As we're walking to the entry some attendee yells at us "You're not getting in!" I said to him "We're exhibitors," to which he yelled "It doesn't matter!" I don't know why he chose to be so rude to us unless it was the fact that he would still have to wait another hour and a half to be permitted into the main lobby. The door to the second level was still locked, but that lasted for maybe another five minutes or so. The door was unlocked and we exhibitors were able to get in and get our booths ready.

I also suffer from neuropathy but since I present as an able-bodied person, I was told I was not allowed to use the elevator. The event hadn't even opened up to anyone else yet. 

I get to my booth and saw even more encroaching into my booth space. I contacted the event runner and was able to get the issue fixed in about 30 minutes. Things finally seemed to be turning around.

This was the largest day of attendance - when the bodies were crammed into Artist Alley, the temperature immediately went up 15+ degrees. There were many people using fans of some kind, and others wishing they had something to keep them cool. Sales were a bit better than the day before, and I got a lovely comment from a customer: "I'm so glad I get to shop for me, and I love shopping with smaller vendors." Day made!

The final day was the best for me in sales even though it was a bit smaller crowd than the day before. We even had a couple of guests stop by the booth that afternoon, which was a real treat for my daughter as one of them was her favorite voice actor (I think he came by just for her, really). I was able to do a tiny bit of shopping and picked up some amazing artwork (I will do a TikTok about that later on this week). Once the show was over, it took about 30 minutes to get everything broken down and we schlepped it all back to the car.

I want to thank everyone who came out and visited me at my booth. I have rebooked for next year and I cannot wait to see you all again!

Stay YOUnique!

~R