AnimeZAP 2019
AnimeZAP is a small anime convention held near the beginning of each year in the Peoria area. This year it was held over the weekend of January 4-6, 2019 at the Embassy Suites and Convention Center in East Peoria, right off the riverfront.
Because we have family in the area and wanted a shorter drive on load-in day, we drove over to my dad's place on Wednesday. After the forced-march nightmare of Con+Alt+Delete, I was a little apprehensive about getting over there, although two of my brothers had said they would help if they were able.
Our plan was to take off from my husband's physical therapy session (he'd had total knee replacement surgery in November, and was still recovering). However, it took me so long to pack that another family member ended up driving him over there in the car while I got the last things in, and then I drove the van over to pick him up.
The trip west turned out to be not nearly as bad as I had worried it might, after my last long-distance drive. It helped that the weather was unusually warm for a January -- had it been bitterly cold as it had been this time last year, we would've had a lot harder time of it. We stopped several times on the way, including some stores in Champaign, before arriving at my dad's place.
Dad was out doing errands when we arrived, so we let ourselves in and I started carrying our personal belongings into the house. Fortunately I was able to get everything in before Dad got back, since the process of moving things involved having some of them on the driveway where he would've needed to have taken the car.
Then we had supper and I got some food cooked for our weekend. Dad got a call from my youngest brother, who'd been supposed to fly back home to California that day but was stranded at the airport because the plane couldn't fly into the bad weather in Dallas. Since the plane they'd rebooked him on wasn't going to fly until the next morning, Dad went up to the airport to retrieve him so he could get some sleep in an actual bed. As a result, we got to see him one more time at the very end of his Christmas visit.
On Thursday we had breakfast, then carried our stuff back out to the van. Dad helped me with some of the lighter stuff to speed up the process.
Even with stops along the way, we actually made pretty good time driving over to Morton, a smaller town east of Peoria, where we would be staying at the Day's Inn. I'd lived in an apartment not far from there during the summer of 1996, so it was interesting to see how much things had changed in the intervening decades. At first I thought the apartment complex had been torn down, but after I looked more closely, I realized I'd just forgotten how far it was from I-74.
Our room was surprisingly spacious, and it had two doors. One faced outside, right onto the handicapped parking space where we could park. The other door faced a hallway which led to the breakfast nook, so we would be able to go to breakfast without having to put on our coats. The layout was reminiscent of a room where we'd stayed in Chamberlain, South Dakota, on the way to Spokane for Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon.
Because we'd made such good time, we actually were able to take it easy for a little while and eat lunch after we had our personal belongings carried into our room. Then we drove over to the main hotel to be ready as soon as the doors opened for us to load in. I'd just pulled in when I got a text message from one of my brothers who live in the area. The two of them had just arrived, and were over at the nearby Steak 'n Shake, grabbing a late lunch.
I texted back that we'd just arrived and didn't even know which room would be the dealers' room, or whether we could load in early. Then we headed inside to find out what was going on.
As it turned out, we were actually able to start carrying things in early, so I loaded up a cart with lightweight stuff and hauled it in. Soon my brothers were able to join us, and they were able to get everything carried in a lot more quickly than we could've by our own efforts. They even helped us get a lot of our store fixtures set up, and even put a bunch of the merchandise in them. They had to leave early for family obligations, but even without their help during the last part of early setup, we were a lot further along than we'd been the same time at Con+Alt+Delete.
When the staff shooed us out, we headed back to our hotel and I fixed our supper. Then I did a little writing before we turned in for the night.
Friday morning came earlier than I would've liked, even if I wasn't sore from lugging a whole store's worth of merchandise in. We had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, and discovered in the process that there are two small steps down to the breakfast room. Fortunately my husband is now steady enough on his feet that he was able to navigate them, because the alternative would've been to go back to our room and get our coats so we could walk around the front of the building to a second door on the outside of the building.
Then we went back to the main hotel to finish setup. We were able to get done in good time and even got to look around before the doors opened.
Sales were a little slow, but this is a smaller con, so it's necessary to dial back one's expectations accordingly. It didn't help that I was so tired I had to fight drowsiness, and my joints were bothering me enough that I had to pull out a chair and sit down. If I'd been more energetic and able to interact with the crowd, I might've done better. Even so, we had a decent showing for a Friday, especially after the disaster we'd had at Con+Alt+Delete.
When the dealers' room closed for the night, we headed back to our hotel and had supper. I did a little writing, but my husband and I were both pretty much worn out, so we decided to just turn in early.
On Saturday we got up and got the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we drove back to the other hotel to get our setup open for sales. In spite of hurrying to get moving, we still wound up arriving late, although not so badly that I didn't get time to look around.
Once the doors opened, I was back to fighting to stay awake. Worse, my hand started cramping really painfully, so I ended up having to try to massage the muscles for some relief. Because of all those miseries, I was glad when the doors closed and we could go back to our hotel room to rest, even when we were making money.
As we pulled into the hotel parking lot, we saw a fox running alongside the road. I wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad omen. In Japanese tradition the fox or kitsune is often a spirit of mischief that can possess people.
Back at our hotel room, we had supper and I did a little writing. I'd wanted to do some more, but I was so tired I just lay down and took a nap until it was time to help my husband get ready for bed. I needed a whole lot more sleep than I was getting.
On Sunday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we had to get our personal belongings out to the van, which seemed to take forever. But we got checked out of the hotel in reasonable time.
Then we got over to the main hotel, hoping for a strong finish to the con after two very poor ones. However, there was a major safety issue that was very badly handled, and which cast a pall over the whole day.
We did have some decent sales, but I still started packing early. My brothers came over a little before closing, which sped the process up considerably. We ended up with a number of empty boxes, which was certainly a good sign. However, we were missing one of the boxes for our minigrid units, which was a real puzzle because I was pretty sure nothing was thrown away. We found a box that could at least make do for a while, and then we began the process of loading out.
My brothers were able to get us loaded far faster than we've been able to even when both of us were in good condition. But they're younger and stronger and both used to physical labor, and they both have a good eye for how boxes fit into a space. They just needed a little direction to make sure that heavy things and fragile things were properly identified and placed, and they actually got the van packed tighter than I'd had it on the way out.
We made good time getting to Dad's place, a huge change from the previous year's nightmarish drive. I carried our personal belongings in and then got our supper fixed. My husband was so tired that he wanted to go to bed immediately after supper, but I stayed up a little while to text with my brothers and to do a little writing.
On Monday we visited with Dad some. I was tired enough that I didn't manage to get anything carried out before lunch, which put us behind. After getting everything carried out, we said good-bye to Dad and hit the road back home. It took longer than expected to get home, so the bank was already closed by the time we passed the branch in Brownsburg. We got to the church on our side of town before they stopped serving the free community meal, but I was so tired and sore that my stomach had knotted up to the point I couldn't even get my portion down. I finally had to admit defeat and we finished the trip home, where I was very glad to pull in the driveway and shut down.
When I got my computer up and running, I discovered that the incident on Sunday had blown up a lot worse than we'd realized. We decided that we no longer wanted to do business with a promoter who preferred to shoot the messenger than to resolve a problem.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated June 24, 2019.