Grand Rapids Comic Con 2021
Grand Rapids Comic Con is Western Michigan's big fannish event, held every year in the fall. This year it was held at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids over the weekend of November 12-14, 2021.
Grand Rapids Comic Con had been our final event in 2019, and when I finished it, I was anticipating a gap of about five months without any events. I had never expected that it would be our last event for almost eighteen months, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated closures and restrictions which effectively shut down the entire convention scene. Even when we did start having conventions again in July of this year, I was still apprehensive right until we were actually loading in, lest the events be canceled at the last minute. However, by November I was confident that our convention would actually happen, and hopeful that we would have a reasonable level of success.
Because of the distance up to Grand Rapids, we left on Wednesday in order to be downtown at DeVos Place and ready to load in the minute the doors opened for setup on Thursday. Because our consignor had brought a fair-sized load of additional merchandise at the last minute, after we'd received a sizable order of ceramics and other East Asian goods from another of our wholesalers, I had a little trouble getting all of our personal belongings to fit. I ended up having to pull a box of low-priority merchandise and store it in the garage, just to avoid having a box sitting between us all the way up.
We had to go slightly out of our way to get to Sam's Club in Castleton, which had the best price on gas. However, given that I-465 was starting to jam up as we got off, going across 96th and 106th to Keystone may actually have been our best bet.
The drive was uneventful, if a bit dreary, with a heavy layer of clouds overhead. We made our usual stops on the way, including the one at the Speedway on the north end of South Bend to get the best price for gas. We also stopped at the branch of our bank in Kalamazoo to pick up the necessary cash to pay our hotel in advance (unlike in August, we had enough time between our previous event and this one that I didn't want to be carrying around that much money).
We arrived at our hotel in good time and were able to check in without difficulty. The bell cart was still in good repair, and I was able to get everything brought in with only three trips. Once we'd settled in, we had supper and I pulled out my latest Odd Prompts writing challenge, starting to feel my way into it.
We made an especial effort to get to bed early, because we wanted to catch up on our sleep before the convention. However, I ended up sleeping only fitfully, which was not exactly how I'd wanted things to go.
The next morning we got up and collected our breakfast to eat in our room, since the hotel still didn't want people congregating in the breakfast nook. Since we had some time before we needed to be downtown, we could actually afford to have a more leisurely morning. I even had time to do a little work on my Odd Prompts writing challenge, which had turned out to fit fairly well in a story I'd started earlier in the year, as a response to a couple of other writing challenges.
Then we headed downtown and got ourselves a good parking space in the garage under DeVos Place. I was going to do some reading while we were waiting, since I had a book that needed to go back to the library. However, the light wasn't that great down there, and I ended up talking with some other vendors, right up to the point when I needed to start getting merchandise out and ready to load. We were hoping that the venue would bring down carts on the freight elevator, since we can get a lot more done on the big flatbed carts, but we wanted to have our own cart out and available if possible.
As it turned out, we were able to get a flatbed -- and a vendor acquaintance of ours was lending us his local crew until he arrived, since he would be running late (and having a much smaller setup, being late wasn't as much of a problem). With multiple carts to take merchandise up, I was able to just stay at the van and load carts in an endless round-robin. Only when we were finished did I just have to worry about the need to make sure our own cart got safely back into our van. Then I caught the freight elevator up and dug into the process of getting set up.
With all that excellent help, we were well ahead of the game by the time the vendor hall closed for the evening. We caught the freight elevator back down and got out of the parking garage, then headed back to the hotel for a late supper. I was just as glad to turn in for the night, knowing that I'd already done my writing for the day.
On Friday we got up and got our breakfast, then headed back downtown to finish setting up. Because of the excellent help on Thursday, we were set up in good time and I even had time to go over to the FedEx Office and pick up a box of t-shirts. If I'd known a couple of things about the FedEx Office (namely parking situation and opening time), I would've just parked the van and returned to DeVos Place to get some work done, then gone to pick up the box. Instead, I ended up losing some time to trying to find the parking lot, then waiting for the place to open. Mostly I just read on my phone.
Once we were set up and the doors opened, we settled in to sell. We were used to the problem of Friday being a slow day, but this time it seemed even slower than usual. Unlike the other conventions this year, we had a fair number of lookie-loos. I hoped at least some of them were just scoping out the territory for later purchases, and that the snow was just discouraging people from coming after work, but it was still rather disheartening after the rousing success we'd been having at our previous conventions (including a small one that turned out to come in well above expectations). However, there was nothing to do but carry on and hope for the best.
When the vendor hall closed for the night, I made my pledge to Roger Chaffee while standing on the bridge over the Grand River on the way back to the parking lot to retrieve the van. Then we headed back to the hotel and had supper. I did a little more on my story before turning in for the night.
Saturday morning repeated our usual process of getting breakfast and taking it back to our room to eat. Then we headed back downtown for the big sales day. Since we were making good time, we actually had a fair amount of time to look around, once the promoters had clarified things with DeVos Place security.
Saturday sales were actually fairly decent, although we still weren't selling much in the way of books or figurines, both lines of product that we were hoping to clear out to make room for new merchandise. At least I was no longer quite so worried about making book, even if we weren't going to be making our more hopeful sales targets. For some reason, this event just seems to be more difficult to sell at than ones at the DeltaPlex. I don't know whether it's just the atmosphere of the venue, or the higher prices of parking and concessions, but people just don't spend as freely.
After the vendor hall closed for the evening, we headed back to the hotel and had supper. Then I did a little more work on my story, although I didn't have as much time as I would've liked.
Sunday morning was another breakfast in our room, then back to DeVos Place to get our booth opened and then walk around a little before the doors opened. Because we weren't likely to be able to get the helpers who'd helped us load in, we put our help wanted signs up and hoped for the best. I also made contact with people from some other conventions in the area, although one of them's not going to be a possibility because of their policy of requiring every vendor to get two room nights at the con hotel with their booths. We prefer to stay at a hotel away from the convention, both for lower prices and because it tends to be quieter and more conducive to good sleep.
Sunday sales were slower, probably because most people had already made their purchases on Saturday. However, we did make some reasonably good sales, although things started picking up right about the time I needed to start packing all the figurines, which are a painstaking and time-consuming job.
Thankfully, we were able to acquire two helpers for the process of loading out. As a result of their help, we were able to get out in a reasonable time. Of course it was still pretty late, and we just had time enough to eat supper and wind down before turning in for the night. I did manage to scribble a few sentences toward my story, which was better than nothing at all.
On Monday we had breakfast, then got our personal belongings packed and out to the van. Thanks to poor sales, along with the additional box of merchandise we'd acquired, we ended up with a couple of empty boxes sitting between us on the way home. At least we were doing better than one vendor, who'd had to abandon some boxes and still had to ask another vendor to carry a couple of his items back home.
At least the trip home went reasonably well. We stopped at the branch of our bank in Kalamazoo and were able to make a reasonable-sized deposit, if not as big as we'd hoped. The rest of the trip down was uneventful, and certainly much more pleasant than the horrible snowstorm we'd had to drive through on our return trip in 2019. We got back home in good time, and even had time to carry in some of the most critical items before heading off to a free community meal. When we got back, I finished getting our personal belongings and most of our consignment merchandise out of the van.
Copyright 2021 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated November 25, 2021.