Visioncon 2018
Visioncon is a media convention held in southwestern Missouri every year in late winter or early spring. This year it was held the weekend of February 23-25, 2018 at the Branson Convention Center in Branson, Missouri.
Because it's such a long trip down there, we began the journey on Tuesday after lunch. When we left Indianapolis, it was so hot that we didn't even wear our coats, and I took off my sweatshirt. However, the wind was so strong that I had to struggle to hold onto the road. Ass we continued, we started getting rain, and it soon became heavy enough that I had to be careful about driving. We made the trip safely and arrived at my dad's place in time for supper. We visited for a while, and it felt a little strange because last year's trip to and from Visioncon was the last time I saw my mother alive.
Maybe because of those emotional connections, I came very close to forgetting to do my cooking. When I realized my error, I had to hurry to get everything in the oven, but I got done in time to still get to bed at a reasonable hour.
On Wednesday we got up and had breakfast, then carried stuff back out to the van. Without the laundry basket, we were a lot less crowded, which made for a more comfortable trip. We stopped in St. Louis to visit a branch of our bank and buy some change, since our last convention had left us pretty well denuded of coinage. Then we continued into the Ozarks. I noticed the van's engine pulling a little harder, but it seemed to be handling things well enough and certainly wasn't making the level of noise it did last year, when it turned out we had a loose bracket on the front bumper.
We stopped at the station near Fort Leonard Wood that has the best gas prices. Then we stopped at the Route 66 themed rest area, where my husband looked at a radar and saw a wall of pink (ice or at least freezing rain) rapidly approaching Springfield. So we hurried the rest of the way to Springfield, taking just long enough to get some gas at the Sam's Club on Sunshine Road before heading to our friends' place. When we pulled in, the rain was already starting to come down, which made it a little interesting to carry in everything. I also didn't know how to get the garage door closed, and we had a very close call with one of the cats, who is a curious beast and a determined escape artist.
We visited for a while, and we had some soup our friend made for us. Then I worked on my story, and I actually got some movement on it again.
On Thursday we got up early and got our stuff carried back out to the van. Then we briefly said good-bye to our friend before heading off. The drive went pretty well, even through some of the steeper terrain, but we had some pretty thick fog, especially once we actually got into Branson.
Because load-in started so early, we went straight to the convention center and started carrying stuff in as soon as we'd located our booths. Although they were all inline instead of including a corner, we figured out how to work with them. We actually had some decent help hauling things in, so we got everything in reasonably quickly. However, once they moved us up onto the ramp, we had to be very careful with our carts so we didn't have one run away from us and possibly hit someone or crash into another vehicle.
Once we got everything inside, I took the van over to a regular parking place, then dug in on the process of setup. I built all four figurine hutches and an additional t-shirt hutch, and then set to putting things in them. I had all the t-shirts in place and a few of the larger figurines when they came around to shoo us out.
Then we went over to the hotel and got checked in. Carrying in our personal belongings was simplified because we didn't have a whole bunch of merchandise to move in the process. Once we were settled in, we had supper and I did a little more writing before we turned in for the night.
On Friday we got up and headed into the breakfast nook, expecting everything to be ready at the appointed hour. Instead, we discovered that the new management seems to think that prep is a zero-time action, and was not letting the cook start getting things ready until the nominal time food was supposed to be ready. So there was nothing to do but return to our room and try to do some other things to get ready, then get breakfast when it was ready.
We still got to the convention center in good time and were able to set up our remaining displays and get the merchandise in them. We had an oopsie when a fairy figurine fell from her hutch and broke, but the damage looked repairable with the appropriate glue, so I wrapped up the pieces to take back home. We even managed to get all our signs up and were completely ready to go when the doors opened. However, sales were slow, although we did get a lot of people looking at the merchandise.
Later that afternoon our friend came by, having had her doctor's appointment and getting some very bad news. She's going to need to have life-changing surgery that is likely to severely limit her ability to attend large gatherings where she'll be exposed to random people who may be carrying a variety of germs. However, she's hoping that it will enable her to see her daughter grown up, which is very important to her for a variety of reasons.
After the dealers' room closed for the night, we had to drive back to the hotel in rain. Then I fixed supper and got out my notes on a story to sort and see where I still had gaps in the storyline.
On Saturday we had breakfast, this time allowing for the new management's ideas about prep time. Then we headed over to the convention center only to discover that they've suddenly decided to charge for parking. We got lucky because we need a receipt for business purposes, and they didn't have their receipt printer ready.
We got our setup open and I sorted through our backspace, trying to get it organized better so that we wouldn't be climbing over merchandise, or worse, tripping over it and risking breaking it or injuring ourselves. Then I went around to see who else was there. We had a lot of dealers who were most decidedly Not Happy about this sudden decision to make us all pay for parking. Some of them simply weren't used to venues that charge for parking, while others weren't opposed to parking fees in principle, but did not appreciate having it sprung on them when previously parking had been free.
We had some decent sales, but most of them were rather small. We also had a very frightening moment when it appeared someone had stolen a knife. We even went to security, since we wanted to make sure that nobody got hurt as a result of the theft. Later we discovered the knife lying on another table within our store, so it looks like we were dealing with an Incredibly Sloppy Shopper instead of an actual thief.
In the evening we headed back to the hotel, where I had to straighten out a misunderstanding. Then I did some more work on my writing before we turned in for the night.
On Sunday we decided we were going to get over to the convention center before they opened their little parking booth. So we left straight from breakfast instead of going back to our room -- and we actually made it. We had to sit in the van for a while, and I fiddled around with some writing during that period.
Once we got inside and got our tables uncovered, I went around and talked to some of the other vendors. Then I hurried back to begin selling. At first sales were slow, but after a while things really picked up and I was surprised at just how much we actually managed to sell.
After lunch I started packing the fragile things such as fairies and dragons. Once the dealers' room closed, we had some really good helpers to get stuff packed up and hauled out to the van. I was even able to get the two boxes of books into the back which had been in the middle earlier, although it meant I didn't have room for all the bedding from our overnight at our friends' place.
We actually got back to the hotel in decent time, although we were the last vendors to leave. I made supper and then did a little more writing before turning in for the night.
On Monday we packed up our personal belongings and got checked out of the hotel. Then we headed back through Missouri, making another stop at the cheap gas station near Ft. Leonard Wood before continuing to St Louis. There we made a deposit of decent size at our bank, and still had a reasonable amount to carry us through on laundry and other incidentals.
The last part of the journey was actually the most difficult. Once we passed Springfield, Illinois, I was really battling weariness. I was very glad to pull into the driveway at my dad's place and shut down. I carried stuff in and had supper before running some laundry and getting some writing done. Dad told me about some interesting experiences he and my middle brother had gone through with potholes in Bloomington of late.
On Tuesday I carried stuff out to the van to be ready to hit the road. My brother had come over for lunch and he and Dad were going to head into Bloomington to see about some vehicle repairs related to the potholes. We got on the road in good time, and actually did well clear across Illinois and Indiana. But once we got into Indianapolis, we hit a gigantic backup just north of the Split, and ended up losing all our time.
Still, I was very glad to pull into our own driveway at home and shut down. Much as I love going to conventions and seeing old friends, it's still good to be home.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated June 21, 2019.