Grand Rapids Comic Con 2022
Grand Rapids Comic Con is Western Michigan's biggest nerdy event. This year it was held over the weekend of November 11-13, 2022 at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids.
Because we need to be in place and ready to load in shortly after noon on Thursday, we drove up on Wednesday. We carried our personal belongings out to the van and hit the road that morning. Because we knew that the weather was going to become markedly colder over the weekend, we made sure to take both light and heavy coats with us. We most certainly did not want to get caught up there in dangerously cold weather without adequate winter gear.
As it turned out, the most remarkable point of the trip was the discovery that the extension of US-31 to I-94 was just almost finished. When we got to Exit 24, we could see traffic coming down the freeway from the south, but the road crews were still working on the barriers that had guided traffic onto the exit. As it turned out, the entrance ramp on the other side of the road was no longer barricaded, and we could've gotten back on and driven the new road all the way to I-94. But because we weren't 100% sure, we went ahead and followed Napier Road to the old interchange as we had for so many years.
As we were driving across I-94 to Kalamazoo and US-131, my husband mentioned not having printed up our reservation, and decided to go online and pull it up. That was a fortunate decision, because we soon discovered we didn't have a reservation. Somehow we'd never quite gotten around to making it, probably because we thought we already had it lined up when we did our JAFAX reservation.
Fortunately a broadband-capable tablet made it easy to correct that oversight, and we soon had a suitable reservation. When we arrived at the hotel, we were able to check in without drama and I started carrying in our personal belongings. At least it was still warm, so I could leave some temperature-sensitive items in the van that we were going to take in to our booth for the weekend.
Once we were settled in for the night and supper was eaten, I got to work on my latest Odd Prompts writing challenge. I got it pretty well sketched out by the time we were ready to go to bed for the night.
On Thursday we went to the breakfast area and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we went back to the room to rest until it was time to go, and I ended up falling asleep. I figured I probably needed the nap.
When we got to DeVos place and parked in their underground garage, I thoroughly expected at least an hour of waiting. So I pulled out my writing tablet and its Bluetooth keyboard and set to work. However, I got only a couple of sentences written before the freight elevator arrived, so I ended up putting it away and just getting to work. We were able to get everything upstairs fairly quickly, between our own cart and one of the venue's carts, and some help from a couple of strong young men. Then it was a matter of getting our displays assembled and merchandise in them.
However, I also had a box of merchandise inbound from one of my wholesale sources, to be delivered to the FedEx Office a few blocks south of DeVos Place. I'd halfway hoped it would come in early, but for most of the afternoon the tracking continued to return the answer that it was on the vehicle for delivery. That evening, a little after 6PM, it finally changed to awaiting pickup. Since the FedEx Office closed at 7PM, there'd be just enough time to get down there.
So I grabbed our handcart and headed off. In the process, I made a wrong turn, and when I tried to correct it, I made things worse. I ended up wandering lost through the streets of downtown Grand Rapids for over an hour, and somehow ended up on the other side of the Grand River, somewhere on the campus of Grand Valley State University. Finally two nice young men from the university got me straightened back out, but by that point the FedEx Office was closed, and there was nothing to do but walk right on by it and back to DeVos Place to get as much setup done as I could manage in the remaining time.
So it was footsore and weary that I finished the last hour of setup, then returned to the hotel for the evening. Except when we got to our room, our key cards weren't working. Apparently the desk clerk had automatically coded them for a single night -- but the night clerk promised us he'd get them correctly coded for the remainder of our stay.
Because we were so tired from setup, we didn't stay up much beyond our very late supper. I did a few things online, including a little writing, just to say I'd written for the day. Then we turned in for the night and hoped to recover from our toils.
On Friday we got and went to get the complimentary breakfast and ran afoul of a very cranky desk clerk. She had the nerve to scold me about my voice mere minutes after she'd been yelling at another guest to leave their keys on the front desk. So when we returned to our room only to discover that our keys still weren't working (apparently the night clerk had made a mistake coding our keys, and we'd been too tired to think to test them), I could tell that I'd just get into a fight with the bitchy desk clerk. So my husband had to deal with her, but at least it got us working keys so we could finish getting ready and get back to DeVos Place to finish setting up.
Once I knew the FedEx Office would be open, I got the cart and set out once again to pick up our box of merchandise. At least this time I didn't make the wrong turn that got me lost the previous night, but as I was nearing my destination, I was feeling as if I were about to get lost yet again. Fortunately, a helpful worker at the nearby hotel set me straight, and I was able to pick up my package and return to the vendor hall without too much trouble. However, my feet were sore once again, which did not make the rest of setup overly pleasant. I did get the new product inventoried and integrated into our existing lineup, ready to sell.
Fortunately Friday is almost always a slow day at this show, so I didn't have to be on my feet too much. However, I was so tired that I was having trouble staying awake, and while I was sitting down, it was all too easy to just doze off, and the next thing there was a customer wanting to buy something.
By the time we closed for the night, I was feeling rather down about how little business we'd done, but hopeful that Saturday would be better. Although I was still footsore, I made my usual observance for Apollo 1 astronaut Roger Chaffee, a Grand Rapids native, as I crossed the bridge over the Grand River on the way to retrieve the van from the parking lot under US-131. Then we headed back to the hotel to have supper. I spent some of the time catching upon things I hadn't gotten done on Thursday, and we managed to get to bed at a reasonable time.
On Saturday we got our complimentary breakfast without hassle, since there was a different desk clerk on the morning shift. Then we finished getting ready and headed downtown to get things open for the big sales day. I had a very scary moment after I parked the van and was walking back to DeVos place. I had to cross an intersection, and suddenly heard the screech of tires. I looked over to see a big pickup truck stopping just short of the crosswalk. Apparently he'd planned to run the red light and saw me just in time to prevent an ugly accident.
Sales definitely did pick up -- but my feet didn't want to. Although they'd felt better in the morning, by afternoon it was back to the point where standing up to deal with customers was actively painful. It's quite possible that we lost some sales because I simply couldn't bounce over to them, all bright and sparkly. On the other hand, it's also possible that the contentious mid-term election only days earlier was weighing on their spirits, and thus their willingness to spend money on non-necessities.
However, I most certainly was glad to be done and go back to the hotel, even if walking from DeVos place to the parking lot was painful. Once we got back, I propped up my feet and settled in to get my newsletters written. I had a little trouble with the dash cam's SD card not wanting to read, but it appears that the adapter has gone bad and isn't making a good interface with the computer, because when I switched adapters, it worked fine. However, I'm thinking I'll use a USB adapter from now on. Then I did a little work on a novel I want to get written over the winter break.
On Sunday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we headed back downtown for the final day of the convention. This time we parked in the underground garage beneath DeVos Place so we would be in position for load out.
My feet were feeling better, but it still wasn't fun to walk clear through the garage to get to the elevators we needed to use to get to the vendor hall. We got everything open and had a little time to look around before the doors opened for our final day of sales.
The first hour or so was slow, but it soon picked up, and we actually had some big sales. Then we had an annoying customer who bought our only big umbrella. I brought it down off the top of the t-shirt structure and handed it to her, so she had plenty of chances to inspect it. But apparently it was only later that she looked closer and found two tiny flaws, both up near the top -- and then sent a friend to get a refund out of me, perhaps because she didn't want to have to admit she hadn't inspected it before purchasing it. Although I was annoyed, the umbrella was still salable, so I decided to just refund her money rather than make a fuss about it.
Still, I was less than happy about the situation as I began to pack the unsold figurines and other fragile, fiddly items that take a lot of time and effort to put away. We'd had some offers of help earlier, but as closing time approached, I wasn't seeing them back, so I texted to remind them they'd promised to help. Just as I was beginning to think that we were going to be left to our own devices, they showed up and pitched right in with boxing the t-shirts and other things that don't need a whole lot of direction.
Then they grabbed some big carts in addition to our own hand cart and once the line for the freight elevator was down to a manageable level, we were able to get everything down so quickly that I had to check and make sure nothing had been forgotten. I did have some waiting time, both for the elevator and down on the parking deck when I needed a specific item and it hadn't arrived, but I couldn't put anything else in before it. I'd taken my phone with me, and I was able to get some writing challenges done in the down time.
As a result of the excellent help, we were out of DeVos Place and on the road back to the hotel before 10PM. Once we got back to the hotel, we had supper and I finished and posted the writing challenges. It was really nice to have those done on time, and to even have a little time to relax before turning in for the night.
On Sunday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we packed up our stuff and got it back out to the van. Because someone had parked right beside us, I pulled the van out, got it turned around, and pulled it under the awning by the entrance. That way I was able to load without having to wrestle with the doors in a confined space, and we were on the road in good time.
The drive wasn't too bad, but I could tell I was still tired from the convention. It wasn't too bad when we stopped in Kalamazoo to make the deposit (not as big as we might've liked, but better than nothing), and even as we were driving across I-94 and able to jump straight onto US 31 without the jog onto a two-lane highway. But as we were going around South Bend and heading down US 31 toward Peru and Kokomo, I was really feeling the need for more and more caffeine. We ended up stopping at a gas station north of Grissom ANG Base, partly because they had cheap gas, but also because the caffeine's diuretic effect was really telling on me.
So I was just as glad when we finally got home and pulled into the driveway. Then it was just a matter of carrying our personal belongings back into the house and getting supper, and I could call it a day.
Copyright 2022 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated December 16, 2022.