Archon 45
Archon is the St. Louis area's biggest and oldest science fiction convention. This year's convention was held over the weekend of September 30-October 2, 2022 at the Gateway Center and DoubleTree Hotel in Collinsville, Illinois, one of the Metro East suburbs.
Because we wanted to visit my dad on the way, we left on Wednesday. My husband had a chiropractic appointment on the way out of town, so our plan was to go to it, then continue to my dad's place. However, as we were driving to the west side of Indianapolis, we got a call from my brother-in-law, who was housesitting: we'd forgotten the cash box.
We talked briefly about the possibility of just buying a new cash box and the necessary change to fill it up. But on reflection, we decided our time and gas probably wasn't worth all that much. So when we were through the chiropractic appointment, we drove back home to retrieve the cash box and a couple of other items we'd forgotten, then resumed our journey.
It meant we arrived in Champaign later than we'd planned, so our shopping there ended up being a little rushed. But we were able to get to my dad's place in time for supper, and to get all our laundry done. There was time to visit and time to work on my Tuesday writing challenges.
On Thursday we knew there was no use hurrying down to Collinsville, since the hotel wouldn't have our room ready until the afternoon. So we were able to enjoy breakfast before carrying our belongings back out to the van and hitting the road.
The drive went smoothly, although we were still having the intermittent odd sounds that had led us to take the van to the shop the previous week, without results (they couldn't replicate the fault on a test drive, and thus couldn't diagnose it). The weather was beautiful, just warm enough to be comfortable but not too hot. We made a couple of stops along the way but still arrived in good time. In fact, when we pulled in at the hotel, our booking wasn't quite ready and we spent some time waiting.
When we had made the reservation, we were under the impression we were getting a suite, which to our minds indicated at least some separation between the sleeping area and the living area. However, when we got in, we discovered something more on the order of a giant room with a sofa and chair arranged around a coffee table beside the beds. However, given that the hotel was fully booked, there really wasn't much of an option for doing anything about it except giving a negative review. So we just brought our personal belongings up and settled in for the weekend.
After supper, we headed over to the convention center to pick up our badges. At first we thought we were going to have to wait an hour before Registration would be ready, but as it turned out, they were able to get our badges in our hands right away. So instead of sitting around and doing my writing challenges on my Dragon Touch tablet, I went back to the hotel, where I got the hotspot out so I could upload my new e-book "Lunar Surface Blues" on KDP in time. I also spent some time working on a story I'm writing for an anthology before turning in for the night.
On Friday we got up early and headed down to the central atrium for the hotel's complimentary breakfast. However, it was not ready when stated, and even as we were picking up what was available, the hotel staffer arrived with the scrambled eggs and hash browns. It really looked like management considered food prep a zero-time action and wouldn't let the cook clock in before the time the breakfast was supposed to open to the public. So we decided to adjust our plans accordingly for Saturday and Sunday.
After breakfast we headed over to the convention center to load in. It was chilly and things were running late because several dealers had suddenly canceled, requiring some last-minute rearrangement of tables. However, once the doors actually opened, we were able to get things hauled in pretty quickly. In fact, our biggest problem was getting things up, since our mini-grid hutches didn't want to stay together, and I dropped a couple of panels of the big grid wall on my foot while trying to unload one of the big flatbed carts so we wouldn't be monopolizing it.
However, we did get our tables reasonably set up in time for the doors to open. I would've liked to get some finishing touches up, which would've helped make them look more professional, but at least we weren't scrambling to get boxes out of the aisles as the doors opened, as we have at some places.
Friday was very slow, although we did get a couple of very large book sales, mostly because one of the largest booksellers in sf fandom was at another con that weekend. However, I spent a lot of time struggling to stay awake, and by the end of the day I was worried about how we were going to make expenses.
On an even worse note, one of our neighbors had to break down and leave early, due to a family emergency. It was sad to see, and I made a point of letting the dealers' room co-ordinator know I would be thinking of them.
Unfortunately the art show still wasn't able to hold its traditional reception this year. I was rather disappointed, but I understood why it would be necessary. So we just headed back to the hotel, where I did some work on the story for the anthology before we turned in for the night.
Saturday we managed better timing, and arrived at the breakfast area after everything had been set out. However, it appears that the hash browns are served only on weekdays, because they were nowhere to be found. Even so, we were able to get a decent breakfast before heading back over to the convention center for our big sales day.
However, while we were in the room making last minute preparations, we had two uncomfortable discoveries. First, I stomped a cockroach. I'd no more than gone down to the front desk to let the clerk know about that than I returned to discover that one of our roommates had discovered a bedbug. Just one, but given how nasty they can be and how fast they reproduce, it was not a welcome discovery. We're hoping we don't end up carrying unwelcome hitchhikers home in our merchandise and personal possessions.
When we got over to the convention center, we immediately set to work on putting those final touches on our setup that we hadn't been able to do on Friday. We got signs up, and I got the strings of blinking lights onto the tops of our displays. Then we settled in to sell.
We still had a fair amount of down time, but we had some fair-sized book and t-shirt sales, and even sold a few of our figurines. It's nice to see those go, because they sell so slowly and they're such a hassle to get unpacked and re-packed, with a constant risk of breakage.
After the dealers' room closed for the evening, we went back to the hotel to have supper. Then I took some stuff down to the van, and had a frightening moment when I saw liquid under the side door. However, it appeared to be water, so I tried to calm my worries by focusing on the work I needed to get done. I got my cosmic horror newsletter finished and out, and scheduled my retail newsletter. Then I tried to do a little more work on the story I was preparing for an anthology submission before we turned in for the night.
On Sunday we got up and got our breakfast. Then we had to get everyone packed and out of the hotel room in time to get checked out and still get over to the convention center in time. It was tighter than I would've liked, but not so bad that I didn't have time to finally walk around the dealers' room and take a look at the other vendors' displays. It was a quick one, just a glance, but better than 2019 when I didn't even get that.
Then the doors opened and we started focusing on a strong finish for the convention. Sales continued to come in spurts, with lulls punctuated by big purchases. However, we made sure that both of us got to eat lunch. I hadn't forgotten the year when my lunch got crowded out by busy until I got so weak and famished I was about to fall over.
After lunch I started packing the remaining figurines. We're actually down to the point where I was able to get that done before the doors actually closed -- and I still made a few last-minute sales.
Finally the doors closed, and the big roll-up door to the loading dock was opened. I grabbed a cart and retrieved the t-shirt boxes, as well as some other boxes that had been taken out to the van during setup. From then on it was a non-stop process of packing up t-shirts, breaking down structures, and getting everything hauled back out to the van. Having so many helpers, as well as a dry day, meant we could just pile things beside the van and I could sort through them to get them in their proper places. We actually got finished almost an hour before we were required to be out.
Then it was just a matter of getting back to Dad's place. At first I was doing fine, but somewhere between Springfield and Lincoln, I started getting incredibly weary. Even caffeine wasn't doing much to push it back. By the time I pulled into Dad's driveway and powered down the van, I was honestly relieved to not be driving any further.
Carrying our belongings in and getting supper actually perked me up. I was able to get laundry done and complete my Sunday writing challenges, although I still was tired enough that I fell asleep pretty much as soon as I crawled into bed for the night.
On Monday morning we got up and had breakfast, then got ready to head home. I carried as much out as I possibly could before lunch, since we needed to get back to the Indianapolis area in time to make our cash deposit. Then we had lunch and carried the last few things out. I ended up forgetting a food item I'd wanted to take home with us, but by then the cooler was pretty much buried and we didn't want to take the extra time to get everything off it. So we decided to leave that behind and just said good-bye to Dad before hitting the road.
Traffic wasn't terrible, but we did have a fair amount of road construction slowing us down. When we stopped to get gas at Sam's Club in Champaign, I noticed that one guy had several jerry cans as well as his vehicle. I wondered if he knew something we didn't, not that it made any difference for us.
We got to Brownsburg in time to make the deposit at that branch. Then we drove the rest of the way around town to home. It felt good to get the van back in our driveway and be back home again.
And the intermittent noise the van was making -- later that week, with the knowledge that it happened only at very low speeds, the techs at the shop were finally able to track it down. It was an ABS sensor going bad, which wasn't all that expensive to replace. So at least that worry is off my plate.
Copyright 2022 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated October 9, 2022.