Archon 24
Archon 24 was held over the weekend of September 29-October 1, 2000 at the Gateway Convention Center and the Holiday Inn in Collinsville, Illinois (one of the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis). This is one of the larger conventions in the Midwest.
We arrived early on Friday morning, hoping that we could get in to set up our dealers' tables a little early. However, due to some security problems the previous year (apparently a number of valuable items were stolen from one dealer's tables), the dealers' room people held strictly to the set opening time, since they didn't have security in place before that time. So we sat around on the loading dock with several other dealers and chatted. I used my new Palm VIIx (which I had won in a contest for participants in an online survey earlier this year) to write a number of book reviews.
When we finally were able to get into the dealers' room, we brought in all our stuff and set up our tables. We were able to get everything set up by the time the dealers' room opened to the con-going public, and we made some relatively decent sales.
I also got my art on the art show, although we had a little trouble when we discovered that my membership and panel space money had gotten stuck in the works. But with a quick discussion between the art show head and the registration head, everything was satisfactorily resolved and I was able to get my badge and program book.
After the dealers' room closed, we went to the Art Show reception, where they served some excellent cheeses and munchies. It was the one chance we got to make a complete tour of the art show and admire all the works up for sale. We also went over to the Holiday Inn and visited several parties before turning in for the night.
Saturday we got up early and got our dealers' tables opened for business. Sales continued to be fairly good. I also checked my art in the art show several times, and was happy to note that we had some good sales.
During the afternoon I took some time from the dealers' room to attend a panel on long-form fiction. Jim Baen and several of his authors talked about how the novel differs in scope and structure from short stories.
After the dealers' room closed for the evening, we attended a reception held by a gaming company that was releasing new products, and were able to get free pizza. Then we made the rounds of the parties before turning in for the night.
Sunday we got up early to get our personal belongings out of our sleeping room. Then we headed back to the Gateway Center to get our dealer's tables opened for last-minute sales. We had a fair amount of sales, even as we were packing up our merchandise for the trip home.
When the dealers' room closed, it was time to load everything out. Fortunately we had a gopher to help us, so the process went more quickly than we had anticipated. So we hit the road in good time, with plenty of hours of daylight to drive home. We stopped on the way at a Chinese buffet to have an excellent supper.
Copyright 2012 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated October 21, 2012.