Convention Pre-Planning – Part 2

Ok, so back for another Blog post! Where did we leave off last week? Ahh yes. Planning to go to a Convention.

We’ve covered the hotel, flight, parking, passes, food and bags.

What else is there? Ahh yes, spending money!

Don’t kid yourself. You are going to spend money at the con. There’s just no way around it. How much and where is up to you, but it’s very difficult to go to a convention and not buy SOMETHING. Well, it’s difficult for me, but I’m a collector. You may have more self control and will power.

Things to get at a show – Autographs, photos with people, sketches, toys, comics, clothes, hats, costumes, props, games, etc. There is just so many things available!

First off, Autographs. I don’t generally collect signed 8×10’s of my favorite actors, I prefer to have a signed photo of me with the celeb, but more on that in the next chapter below. If you’re into collecting, and want to make sure you don’t miss out, be sure to check the convention website to see if you can pre-order the autograph ticket. By ordering it in advance you can guarantee that you’ll get your autograph, and possibly even get to cut the line to get your autograph first! Be sure to check the Convention store, or the particular celebs bio page to see what the details are. If you can’t pre-order, then you’re going to have to wait in line. Remember this simple rule of conventions –

Friday’s for Autographs and sketch card creating.
Saturday’s packed, on lines you’ll be waiting.
Sunday’s for shopping, you little Pack Rat.
And those are the rules of Conventions per Spat!

Learn it. Know it. Live it.

So, get your autographs out of the way on Friday if you can.

Getting a signature on an item you bring from home is also an option. Generally, Comic artists and writers will sign their comics for free. While the Movie and TV actors will usually charge to sign their DVDs and posters.

Now, getting a photo with the celeb of your choice is a different story! Once upon a time that was super easy. Just walk up and ask. But then some of the guest started to only take the pic with their Polaroid camera and then charge you for it. Soon, they began to charge for a photo with them, even if taken with your camera. Then some guests just decided not to take the pics at all, since it usually took a bit of time to do, and if the line was long, taking a pic with every person on it, as well as signing autographs and chatting for a moment just took forever. I would see it happen at every show. The celeb standing there with their arm around a fan while another fan stood there asking, “Which button it it?” “Oops, I think I turned it off.” “Did the flash work that time?” “You blinked.” “Blurry.” Well, you get the idea. It took forever.

So then photographers joined in! We use a guy for the Wizard shows that we call Froggy. Talk to him at the next show and you’ll know why.

Froggy, and his company Froggy’s Photos will take a professional photo of you with the celeb of your choice, in a properly lit photo session at the show. And then they’ll print out a high gloss 8×10 for you! His prices are reasonable, and at the end of it, you have an awesome keepsake to take home with you, or, do what I do, and bring it to the celeb and have them sign it. Some guests do charge to even sign these pics, but some don’t. Be sure to ask first!

Personally, I’ve had about 15 Froggy photos taken in the last few years at conventions, and I love them.

Ok, sketches and then we’ll take a break until next week!

A lot of people who don’t actually spend time in Artist Alley at conventions just assume that it’s the place where artists sell art. There are also artists there who are famous for a comic or character that they created or worked on who will be there signing copies of the comic.

But what a lot of the Movie fans miss out on that the Comic folks have figured out is… the artists will also do custom drawings for you! That’s right! If you’re a fan of a particular character that this artist is famous for (and sometimes even if their not), they can draw it for you. Of course, there’s usually a fee for it, and some of the work is not done while you wait (you drop off your sketchbook and then pick it up later), but it can end up being THE keepsake of the con. You’ll see people rushing towards Artist Alley as soon as the doors open on Friday just so they can get on the list for a commission at the show!

Next time you’re at a con with an Artist Alley, I highly suggest you head over and see what the Artists there have going on.

Also, be sure to support the Indie Comic folk! Yes, always buying comics from Marvel and DC is great, but once in a while, head over to Artist Alley and check out some of the self published stuff! You never know, you may just find a gem, or the work of an up and comer who will move on to working on huge comics soon after! Or occasionally, you’ll find an Indie comic that will soon be picked up and turned into a movie! And then you can brag to all your friends that you have a first printing of that story, signed by the artist and writer. “Yeah, I picked it up at Chicago Comic Con. Then it went all mainstream.”

Ok, we’ll take a break here and come back next week with Part 3!

As I take a break for the weekend, I think back to Wizard World Philly 2009, and the time I met Michael Papajohn (the guy who shot Uncle Ben in Spider-Man). Super nice guy. He mentioned that he had to get to the airport to catch his flight. I asked him, “if you don’t get there in 30 minutes, is the flight free?” He replied with something along the lines of, “I’ll show you how free it is”. And then he robbed me at fingerpoint.

I’m such an idiot. It’s Dominos that has the 30 minutes or it’s free policy, not Papajohns!

Oh well.

One day I’ll learn!

-Spat

Convention Pre-Planning – Part 1

Heading off to a convention can be an exciting, yet daunting task. There’s just so much to get done before the big day! Booking travel, hotels, con passes… Then there’s packing, getting your costume ready, gathering all your singables in one place…

It’s enough to drive lesser people mad! So how do you avoid that last minute burst to get to the con? PLANNING!!

First off, as soon as you spot a convention on the horizon that you might want to go to, BOOK THE HOTEL ROOM!!! Hotel rooms usually can be booked well in advance, and can be canceled up to a week (sometimes a day) before the show without penalty. Make sure about the policy at that particular hotel and BOOK THAT ROOM!! There’s no worst feeling in the world than finally deciding that you definitely want to do a con, and then finding out that the hotel is sold out.

Next, start looking at travel. Flights are trickier, and tougher to cancel, but there are some websites out there that can track airfares and will let you know if the price for the ticket will be going up in the future, or going down. So keep an eye on that scale, and when the price hits rock bottom, book it!!

Of course, if you’re driving, or the con is super local to you, then you don’t have to worry about it. Though parking is another expense that you’ll need to keep in mind in that case. Hotels usually charge anywhere from $10 to $30 per day for parking, so keep that in mind!

As for passes to the show, these can run anywhere from $10-$20 for the day, all the way up to over $1,000 for a super awesome VIP Package. As with booking a room, ordering your passes in advance can save you a lot of money, and a lot of hassle. Ticket prices are usually cheaper if you buy them in advance, and ordering them in advance generally saves you from having to wait on the dreaded Ticket Buyer’s Line!!!

So, now you’ve got your hotel set, your flight, and your pass to the show! What else do we need?

FOOD!!!

Don’t kid yourself, keeping fed and hydrated at the show is super important! And I’m not talking about just fast food that you can grab and go with, I’m talking about something a little more substantial.

Another great help at the show are Granola Bars. They come in all sorts of awesome flavors, they fit in your pocket, and they can help tide you over until your next chance to sit down and eat.

Bags, Tubes and rubber bands. All weekend long you’re going to be picking up freebie items, goodies, posters, magazines, toys, artwork and who knows what else! A BIG shopping bag will help you carry a lot of stuff, and some rubber bands will keep the posters at bay. Don’t forget to bring one of those Poster Tubes to hold them in so they don’t get destroyed! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up an awesome movie poster at a con, only to unroll it when I get home and find it’s been trashed! Poster tubes fix that problem!

Ok, we’ll take a little break here and come back and continue the list next week!

And to close this week, here’s a pic from when I met Doug Jones! He’s one of our guests at Chicago Comic Con in a few weeks. I met him at another show and just had to tell him how big a fan I was of him when he was on the Monkees!

Apparently, DAVEY Jones was a Monkee. DOUG Jones is a Lefty.

Until next week!

-Spat

Volunteering 101

Greetings Volunteer. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

Or something like that.

So, you say you love going to conventions but you hate standing in line? Well you know who doesn’t spend all their time at the con standing in line? The Volunteer staff. They’re the ones who make the lines!

And I know what you’re saying, “This elite team of super beings would never let me into their group, there must be a waiting list and a hell week or some kind of body altering hazing ritual where you get abused to no end to join”.

And you’re wrong! Well, except about the abuse. There’s plenty of abuse. But everything else is wrong.

The fact is that the average convention rarely ever has enough Volunteers! I mean, can you ever really have too much free labor?

So what are the perks of being a Volunteer (aside from being abused)?

Glad you asked! You get:

Free admission to the show.
A free Staff t-shirt.
A bag of swag.
A chance to hang out “behind the scenes” at the con with all the cool staff members, artists, and celebs.
Abuse, and lots of it!

And all it costs you is a minimum of 10 hours of your time!

Some things you might find yourself doing at the show include –

Line control, guarding tables while Artists and Media guests attend panels or take lunch, sitting with Celebrities while they sign autographs, escorting Artists and Media guests to and from their panels, organizing and running panel rooms, human pincushion, working at registration checking in attendees, crowd control, human punching bag, making gift bags for the VIPs, signing in new Volunteers, food tester, door duty, restocking the free swag table, human petri dish, and washing windows.

It’s hard work, but it’s very rewarding. Most people who Volunteer for conventions don’t enjoy going to shows as a paying attendee afterward. It’s just not the same. Being in the mix with the action and hanging out with the celebs and guests makes standing in line for an autograph or a panel just seem like a lot of work.

So, if you’re interested in becoming one of Wizard Worlds “Elite” Volunteer Strike Force Gamma 700 members (I just made that whole Strike Force Gamma 700 thing up, but it totally sounds cool, huh?), head over to the Volunteer Page and follow the instructions there. Just keep in mind that this is the Chicago Comic Con 2009 page. But there’s a new page for every one of our Wizard cons on the Registration Page.

Volunteer Page

Would you like to know more?

Just remember, getting close to the celebs at the show is not always a good thing. Like the time I met up with Luciana Carro from Battlestar Galactica. I made one comment about her wearing a white tank top (is that now known as a “Husband Beater”), and she took me out!

But don’t let that discourage you! Sign up to be a Volunteer! You’re our last hope!!!

-Spat