I believe it also didn’t help that I had recycled button art for my necklaces instead of creating new designs. After I rearranged them to be more center stage, more people did notice the necklaces but I only ended up selling two. Friday, when my jewelry stand took the corner, I noticed that most people would glance over it and immediately be attracted to the button display. What I learned about phone charms and necklaces though was that my current table layout is not geared towards smaller items, due to my larger staples. (Or maybe that fourth item could be the zipper pouches?) However, with my experience at AWA… I’m sort of wondering if I don’t need a fourth staple item. Truthfully, I’ve always had that experimental corner and whatever I put there doesn’t seem to do as well as my staples (buttons, prints, and badges). I had previously mentioned t hat part of the reason I’m retiring the Bakura dakimakura cases was that they took up a lot of table real estate without much sales, as they are a higher priced item, so for AWA I wanted to experiment with the pendants and phone charms to see if either could become one of my staple products. I can think of at least two reasons my own table didn’t personally do well. (Which, got a couple artists to comment they had never seen my real hair before, lol!) So, I do believe I’m to blame for not meeting my goal, but after talking to other artists, there seems to be a general agreement that AWA was poor sales all around this year.Ī few theories that’ve been floating around include the noise levels from the Main Events Room, the table layouts, and an increase in badge prices. By Sunday I didn’t even bother to wear cosplay or a wig. I’ll admit, I was pretty discouraged by the slowness (and shoplifting) of Friday traffic and it really effected my attitude for the rest of the weekend. My chillax approach however did seep into my salesmanship, and I do feel I could’ve made more if I tried harder to be at my top game. I didn’t quite realize the craziness of that until Friday morning, standing in front of my table with not enough space for my phone charms or grab bags. Yet, in spite of that, I managed to produce 19 new products between AWA and Otakon. Nothing too ambitious, just a bit of winding down at the end of the con season. Ribbit, the AA director, even recognizes me now, lol!Īnyway! As the home con I usually approach AWA as the safe convention. I consider Anime Weekend Atlanta to be my current home convention, as it’s the one I’ve attended most consistently (2012-2014) and back in 2010 when I went full table I consider it to be my first real artist alley experience. SO IN SPITE OF THAT, I’m trying to focus on the positive bit of AWA, which was making new artist friends, greeting ecstatic return customers, and meeting askdarkhourbakura followers~! Seriously, the people just made the con for me.After four years of Artist Alley, had my first blatant shoplifter steal an item in front of me near Friday closing w It was very upsetting but educational experience.Overall sales felt very slow and artist friends around the alley reported similar experiences.It became apparent I really do have a too much merch problem. Tested out two new products, phone charm wipers and glass pendant necklaces. Warning, this report is more on the negative side of things, but! That’s not to say AWA was an overall terrible experience for me, there were lots of good moments too with friends. That, coupled with the fact that this was also the first Artist Alley where I had to deal with a shoplifter in the act, I can’t say it was a good AA experience w But well, let’s document this and learn from it. Reportedly, sales were down for a lot of the artists around the alley, but we haven’t figured out why yet. Unfortunately though, now that I’ve finished the number crunching, I’ll have to say this AWA was my worst con in sales since 2011, with a 20% decrease from 2013. It was great seeing a lot of old faces and returning customers, and meeting new aritsts and DHB fans too! Thanks for stopping by guys! Whew, and with the end of AWA that concludes my con circuit for 2014.ĪWA’s definitely my current home convention, having gone since 2012.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |