Archon 43
Archon is the St. Louis area's long-running science fiction convention, which over the years has increasingly taken some of the aspects of a media convention. This year it was held over the weekend of October 4-6, 2019 at the Gateway Convention Center and DoubleTree Hotel in Collinsville, Illinois, one of the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis.
Because I wanted to visit my dad in central Illinois and because load-in for the convention starts very early Friday morning, we left home on Wednesday and stayed the night at my dad's place. I was able to carry our last few personal belongings out relatively quickly and we hit the road west in good time. We stopped in Champaign to make two shopping visits, and still got to my dad's place in time for supper. I also got laundry done and food cooked for the weekend before turning in for the night.
On Thursday we got up and joined my dad for breakfast, then carried our stuff back out to the van for the next leg of the journey. The traffic wasn't that bad on I-55, but we did have to deal with fairly strong crosswinds most of the way. We got to Collinsville early enough that we decided to go to Walmart before checking into the hotel. However, that Walmart didn't have a gas station, so we ended up taking a long side trip and finally returning to the QuikTrip right by Walmart to get gas.
However, by the time we got done with all that, we could check into our room without any hassle. My biggest problem was the sheer number of trips I had to make to get all our personal belongings into our room, since some of the stuff that needed to go in first didn't make a good, stable load on the bell cart.
Once I was done, I got my computer out and settled in to make some final blog posts for the weekend, arranging them to auto-load each day. Then we headed over to the Gateway Center to scope out the dealers' room and get our badges. While we were waiting, I did some work on a book review. However, I found that the stories in the anthology hadn't produced that compelling of memories in my mind, so it was tough going.
When we returned to the hotel, we had supper. Our friends got their belongings into the room, and I did a little more writing, this time on fiction, before turning in for the night.
On Friday we got up bright and early to have the hotel's complimentary breakfast before we headed over to the Gateway Center so we could be ready the moment they opened the roll-up door and let us in. I was getting merchandise out so that we could get at our cart, but as it turned out, my husband was able to get one of the convention center's flatbed carts, which did simplify the process of loading in. However, our friends seemed to have gotten lost on the way between the hotel and the convention center, and didn't show up to help us until we'd gotten several loads in. Although this was annoying, I had to consider that one of our friends was under the weather as a result of a nasty head cold, and really wasn't going to be up to much physical work.
In fact, once we got everything in and it became increasingly obvious that she was not going to be up to helping us build structures and work merchandise into them, I told her to just go back to the room and convalesce so that she would feel up to working when it was time to load out. Then I focused on getting everything done as quickly as possible without making a mess of it. However, as the time to open to the general membership approached, we just grabbed everything and got it behind our tables so we wouldn't get yelled at about having stuff in the aisles. Although there were some things I would've liked to have gotten out, we decided to just go with what we had up and sell what we could.
Sales were fairly decent for a smaller convention, although I had to consciously reduce my expectations that had been set by the really huge comic and anime conventions we do. However, I was astonished at getting several sizable hardcover book sales. Usually we do well to sell one or two hardcovers throughout the weekend, but we had several go in those four hours.
By the time the doors closed, my legs and feet were in misery. There was no way I was going to be able to haul our little cart all the way back to the van and set our personal belongings in it, then walk all the way back inside for the art show. So I ended up taking everything in with me and putting it in the checked-bags area while I got some of the refreshments, including one of the mini-cheesecakes. Once I probably would've taken one of each variety, but now that I have medical reasons to watch my diet, I restricted myself to one and had more of the little chicken bites and the meatballs for protein.
Then we headed back over to the hotel for the evening. We had our actual supper, and I tried to get a little more writing done before we turned in for the night.
On Saturday we got up early and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we headed over to the convention center to finish setting up properly. In particular, we wanted to get our signs out, but there were also some items of merchandise I wanted to get out.
When the doors first opened, things were really slow. However, after an hour or so, traffic really started picking up and we began getting serious sales. We sold so many hardcovers that I ran out of hardcover back stock, and discovered that we didn't have any second copies of things we didn't already have in first level. So when we sold more hardcovers, I had to rearrange the books in the boxes to prevent unsightly gaps.
During the afternoon, my feet and knees began to have real problems with my standing on them for so long. When it got too bad, I'd sit down to give them some rest, only to be pressured to stand up again in a matter of minutes. Finally my feet started cramping to the point I thought I'd literally fall down if I couldn't stay seated until they recovered. I finally texted our friends and asked them to come help us before I collapsed completely.
We managed to get through to the time the dealers' room closed, and then we got back out to the van and drove back to the hotel. After supper, I pulled out our plastic basin and soaked my feet until they were no longer in anguish. However, I was simply too tired to do the book reviews like I'd planned. I did well to get some fiction written before we turned in for the night, very glad to be able to put our feet up on some spare pillows.
On Sunday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we got our stuff out of the room and got checked out. It took longer than we'd expected, and we were late getting to the convention center. I'd thought I'd finally get to look around the dealers' room, but then my husband had a nasty case of digestive upset, and dealing with the resultant problems pretty much took the rest of our prep period. So I had to start dealing with customers right away, and never got to look around.
Sales were slow at first, but they started picking up right about the time we needed to start packing. However, we never had any of the huge last-minute paperback sales where someone buys a whole pile of books and I have to scramble to get them marked off and second copies moved into place. In fact, we sold relatively few paperbacks all weekend long, which was remarkable compared to how many hardcovers moved.
When the doors closed and it was time to load out, we assembled our whole team and secured a flatbed cart. I brought in the t-shirt boxes and some other empty boxes that we didn't have room for under our tables. However, we didn't get as good of a job packing the t-shirts, because we ended up with a stack that had no place, and I had to scramble to find a place for them.
Actually getting loaded went fairly quickly with good help, and I told our friends who were ill to get home safely and rest so they could feel better. For a change, we were not the last people to leave, even with talking to the dealers' room coordinator about next year's show. We headed back north to my dad's place, and at first I didn't seem to be doing that badly. But after we passed the closed rest area just north of Springfield, I started getting super sleepy. It was all I could do to hold my eyes open part of the time, and I was extremely glad to pull into the driveway and power down.
We carried in the essentials and had supper. We visited a little with Dad, who decided to turn in early, and I did some laundry. I also got a little writing done.
On Monday we slept in, and not having to get up to an alarm was quite welcome. However, I slept so soundly that I didn't take an important prescription until I got up, so I had to shower first and then eat breakfast. As it turned out, it worked out just fine because my dad was also sleeping in, and delaying breakfast made it possible for him to join us.
Then I did another load of laundry and tried to carry as much as possible of our personal belongings back out to the van. Then we had lunch and carried out the last few things before taking off.
At first I didn't feel all that tired, and was still going well when we crossed the state line. However, as we got to Indianapolis, I started feeling tired. I was able to get the deposit made at the branch of our bank in Brownsburg, but as we drove across town, I started really struggling to stay awake. I was very glad to get home, and I just carried in the essentials before taking a nap. Only after I felt more awake did I bring in the rest of our personal belongings and call the trip finished.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated October 17, 2019.