Convention Pre-Planning – Part 1

July 16, 2009 on 5:15 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

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