Archon 25
Archon 25 was held over the weekend of October 5-7 at the Gateway Convention Center and Holiday Inn in Collinsville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Since this year's convention was a major milestone, they got Robert Jordan, bestselling author of the Wheel of Time series, as their guest of honor.
We arrived the night before in order to be ready as soon as the doors opened. Since the Holiday Inn has been growing more and more expensive, we stayed at a Day's Inn just a little way down the road.
This year they were supposed to have the dealers' room open for set-up at 11AM, but because of various problems, we couldn't actually get in until 11:30. However, we still were able to get things in and set up before the doors were opened for shopping. I also got my art on the art show.
Sales were actually pretty good. Since the dealers' room stayed open fairly late that night, we carried in sandwiches for supper. After the dealers' room closed, we went around to the parties. There were some pretty good ones. We also attended the artists' reception in the art show, which gave us a chance to look at some of the art.
When we decided to turn in for the night, the van wouldn't start. We had a really frightening time, but just when we called the tow truck, the dratted thing decided to start. So we were able to get back to our sleeping quarters for the night, but with no idea how long it would be before we had more trouble.
Saturday the van did start, and we were able to get over to the Convention Center again. We decided we wouldn't try to go anywhere until time to turn in for the night. We got into the dealers' room and opened our tables for business. Sales continued to be good, although not totally spectacular. I was rather disappointed not to be getting bids on my art.
After the dealers' room closed, we walked over to the Ponderosa restaurant to get supper. They were really busy, and we ended up standing in a real long line, and we decided to share a table with another Archon dealer who was just ahead of us in the line, in order to get a table that much sooner. The food was really great, and I ended up really full.
After we were done eating, we headed over to the Holiday Inn to the parties. However, we couldn't find any, so we visited the con suite for a little while before deciding to turn in for the night. The van did start and we got back to the Day's Inn.
On Sunday, we got up and got cleared out of our sleeping room. However, we held off on actually checking out until we saw that the van would actually start, in case we ended up stranded. Fortunately it did start, so we were able to get over to the Convention Center for our final day of the convention.
We got our dealers' tables open, and sales were steady, if not phenomenal. I got my art off the art show and discovered that two of my pieces had sold. The purchaser also stopped by our tables and got me to personalize one of them.
In the afternoon we packed up and loaded things out. Then we had another tense moment seeing whether the van would start properly. Fortunately it did and we were able to get safely back to Indianapolis.
Copyright 2012 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated October 21, 2012.