Grand Rapids Comic Con Summer Bash 2021
When Grand Rapids Comic Con announced they were doing a special makeup event after the 2020 November event had to be canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions, the promoters had intended to have it in April and called it the Spring Fling. However, when the time came, the restrictions still weren't lifted, so they rescheduled it for the second weekend in August. This was workable for us, but because we'd added Atlanta Comic Con after Tampa Bay Comic Con, it would make three conventions in three weeks.
Grand Rapids Comic Con Summer Bash was held over the weekend of August 13-15, 2021 at the Deltaplex, the smaller convention center where the November event had been held back in 2014 (our first time at the event). We went up on Wednesday, which gave me only one day at home to do all the necessary catch-up activities. As it turned out, I had to let some of them slide, especially when it became obvious that we were still going to be cram-packed, thanks to our consignor bringing us a bunch of new merchandise that replaced the empty boxes I'd removed after the previous two conventions.
On Wednesday morning I carried out our last personal belongings and we hit the road north. We made our usual stops at gas stations just north of town and at Grissom Air National Guard Base to make sure we didn't get caught in an awkward fix in an area with no services. The drive wasn't that bad until we were approaching US-30 at Plymouth, and a huge storm started moving in. Soon it was pouring almost as hard as it had in Kentucky on Monday, when we were coming back from Atlanta. Yet again I had to slow way down, which meant we got to South Bend later than we'd planned.
At least the worst of the storm had moved on by the time we got to the Walmart just off Michigan Road. I needed to pick up a few things, including some new zip-ties for setting up our mini-grid displays. Then we drove around South Bend and stopped at the Speedway north of town to buy gas.
It was only when we got into Michigan and were going up US-131 past Kalamazoo and into the Grand Rapids area that the weariness really started hitting me hard. We stopped briefly for a rest break at a gas station, then pressed on to the hotel. I was very glad to be able to pull into a parking space and power down the van.
We were able to pay cash for our stay without any trouble, and I was happy to find the bell cart finally had been fixed (in 2019 the tires were almost flat, and I had a lot of trouble carrying our personal belongings in and back out). The room was much as I'd remembered from past stays, although we'd ended up in a room with a roll-in shower rather than a tub-shower combo. There wasn't a shower chair, so the desk clerk grabbed one of the plastic chairs from the pool deck to provide a makeshift.
Speaking of the pool, it was open, but much to our disappointment, the hot tub was not. Apparently this was a COVID-19 restriction, rather than a mechanical issue.
Once I got all our stuff in and arranged, I got us supper. As day gave way to night, at least two rows of thunderstorms went through. I was surprised to discover that severe thunderstorms the previous night had knocked out power for large parts of the area -- a map showed big areas marked as having thousands of customers without power. At least our hotel had power, and it looked like most of Grand Rapids proper did as well, so I felt confident the convention would proceed normally.
I did some blogging, setting up posts to go up each day of the convention. Then I did some work on my latest Odd Prompts writing challenge before we turned in for the night.
On Thursday we went to the breakfast area and were happy to see one of the best breakfasts we'd had in the entire triple-header of three conventions in three weeks. There were nice big sausage and egg biscuits, single-serve yogurt tubs, muffins, and other delights. Of course they were all grab-and-go -- the tables had been removed from the breakfast area to make sure we didn't linger and eat. However, we were able to warm the biscuit sandwiches in the microwave oven in our room, then eat in comfort.
After lunch, we headed up to the Deltaplex, with the plan that we'd be ready to load in as soon as they opened the doors. It was a very different trip from the one we'd taken back in 2014, since we were coming up US-131 from the south and getting off at Ann Street, which had seemed quite familiar at the time. When we got to the bottom of the ramp, I realized why -- it was the location of the independent hotel where we'd stayed in 2015, the first year after the move to DeVos Place. However, it had now become a Raddison, and looked to be extensively renovated.
And that wasn't the only thing that had undergone extensive renovation. I remembered the Deltaplex as a rather run-down and grubby place, but as we drove up to it, I almost didn't recognize it. The whole exterior had received a coat of paint, and there were cable-stayed awnings over the entrances that I didn't remember from 2014.
As we pulled into the parking area by the roll-up door, I was surprised to find the door already open. We went in to see when we could start loading in, and discovered several vendors had already loaded in and set up. Once we double-checked where our booths were, I went back out to get the cart dug out and start hauling stuff in. Fortunately the ground had dried after the previous night's downpours and I was able to set boxes of merchandise out on the ground in the process.
Because it wasn't all that far from the roll-up door to our booth, I was able to get everything hauled in quickly. However, while I was getting the last few loads out, another vendor pulled a giant U-Haul right beside us, which made it very difficult to get the last few boxes out of the middle, or to get the van moved to a regular parking spot. So I just went inside and got to work on building structures, but periodically went out and checked to see if they had moved so I could finish and free up that spot in the loading dock area.
Thanks to the early start, I was able to get all the structures built and the t-shirts loaded into them before the vendor hall closed and all vendors were shooed out for the night. We still had some figurines and other small miscellaneous items that needed to be put into hutches, but on the whole we were in pretty good shape for starting on time.
When we got back to the hotel, we had supper and I did some online stuff. Then I made some more notes on my Odd Prompts writing challenge, but they were going off into the weeds of deep philosophy and metaphysics.
On Friday we got our breakfast, then headed back up to the Deltaplex to finalize our setup. Yet again we ran into a backup around the road construction just south of Pearl Street (where we'd get off to go to DeVos Place), which delayed us a little. But we still were able to finish setting up in good time, and even got to do a little looking around before the doors opened.
At first we were worried because we didn't seem to be getting all that much in the way of sales. We knew that attendance had been capped at 5000 people per day, and that tickets were close to being sold out, so it wasn't just low attendance.
As it turned out, it was the result of that Western Michigan tendency to be planners. People were scoping out the whole exhibit hall, deciding where they wanted to spend their money. Since it was a much smaller venue than at DeVos Place, by mid-afternoon we started seeing serious sales, especially as people got away from work or other obligations and the crowds started pouring through the aisles. There were even some times when we had so much business that we simply couldn't keep up, and customers started stacking up.
However, the last hour may have been a mistake. Although our previous conventions had closed the exhibit hall at 7PM, they were keeping it open until 8 -- but we really didn't have that much in the way of foot traffic or sales. It meant that we were that much more tired and had to drive back to the hotel in the dark. This time we followed the suggestion of a local to stay off US-131 until M-11, instead taking surface streets the way we had from DeVos Place the last several years. However, it was still a rather uneasy trip, since the Check Engine light had come on when we started the van.
When we got back to the hotel, we discovered that someone in a big rental truck had parked right behind the handicap spaces, effectively blocking us out. I went around to the back to find someone else in the spot we'd used the previous night. They were in the car and acting like they were ready to leave, but just sat there instead of pulling out, as if to spite us. Finally we parked under the awning and went to tell the desk clerk about the problem. While that was going on, I retrieved the code reader and discovered that the check engine code was the exact same one that Goodyear had found nothing on twice already, so I just went ahead and cleared it. By the time we had supper and I was able to get the van properly parked (the box truck having been moved elsewhere), there wasn't much time to do more than jot a few more notes towards my Odd Prompts writing challenge. Then we turned in for the night.
On Saturday we got our breakfast, then headed back up to the Deltaplex. This time they were charging for parking by the time we got there (they only started on Friday when the show opened to the public, so vendor setup didn't get dinged). Then we headed in and got our tables uncovered to be ready to sell.
I was planning to sign up for the November show and next year's fan event that morning. However, there were some problems with the printer which meant that I spent the rest of setup time waiting to no avail, and didn't get a chance to look around before I had to be ready to sell.
Saturday was much better than we had expected. Although we did have some slow times, we got a lot of business and were definitely in the black by the time the doors closed (this time at 7PM). Interestingly enough, we were getting a lot more cash sales than we had at either of the Imaginarium/FanX events the previous two weeks. Again, it may be a matter of the culture of Western Michigan being different.
When we got back to the hotel, we found that this time the desk clerk must've put the fear of god into the box-truck driver, because he'd parked it on the other side of the hotel. We were able to park without trouble, and I got our supper and did a little writing.
On Sunday we got breakfast, then headed north to the Deltaplex for our last day of the convention. I turned in both of my applications and wrote my check for both the November and April events. By then it was time for the doors to open, so I had to get busy selling.
Yet again, the day started slow, but quickly picked up. At the November show, Sundays are often slow, since most of the crowd will have done their spending on Saturday. But here business was at least as brisk as it had been on Saturday, if not more so. There were times I couldn't even get away to take care of necessities because we were getting so much business. When it came time to start packing the fiddly stuff, I was surprised to discover that it didn't even discourage people from approaching us with merchandise.
I'd been a little concerned about whether we would actually get the helpers who'd promised to come back, since we have had so much experience lately with being ghosted. However, we actually had two different people helping us when the time came. Once we had the big gridwall panels down and the t-shirts boxed, I started carrying stuff out while everyone else continued packing and breaking down the mini-grid displays. Midway through the process of carrying out t-shirt boxes, I was astonished to discover that we had one big box only halfway filled. So I grabbed the one small box I hadn't carried out yet and stuffed everything from it into the partially filled box so that it wouldn't get crushed from the weight of other merchandise on top of it. Discovering that yes, we had actually emptied a box was a really happy surprise.
It was still light when we finished and headed out. That was a good thing, because when I started the engine, the Check Engine light came on again. Given that everything sounded fine, we went ahead and drove back to the hotel in gathering twilight. When we got parked, I retrieved the code reader and discovered that yet again we were getting the same code, so I cleared it.
Then we had supper and I put through my Midwest Furfest application. I don't really expect to get a positive response, but I figured it was best to get my name in there. I also did a little more work on the Odd Prompts writing challenge and some blogging. Then I went to copy the SD card from the dash cam and discovered that we had a problem. The last file on each trip (to and from the Deltaplex) would not open, and when I checked it in the Finder, it said it had zero bytes.
I texted my brother the computer engineer, and after some back-and-forth with him, we determined that it looked very much like the SD card was corrupted. Apparently the file system they use isn't the most robust, but it should be reasonably easy to repair -- but because it's a Windows-native format, it would be best to do the repair on a Windows box (I have a Mac). So I finally decided to switch SD cards and see if the other one gave me problems. As a result, we got to bed much later than I'd planned for the night before the long drive home.
On Monday we got our breakfast, then gathered all our personal belongings and hauled them back out to the van. When we headed out, I was feeling pretty alert, but by the time we reached Kalamazoo and stopped at a branch of our bank to make the deposit, I was starting to feel the first tendrils of weariness tugging at me.
The rest of the drive home was a long slog against weariness. Although we were making good time, and our stop at one of the gas stations by the base was even a bit ahead of schedule, I was needing more caffeine than usual to stay reasonably awake. Furthermore, we wanted to get home before the rest of the family left for the free community meal, since I did not feel up to driving the van all the way down to Greenwood, and the traffic app for Indianapolis was showing a lot of backups on our usual route.
As it turned out, we got home in time and I was even able to carry in our computers and a few other essentials before we needed to hit the road. When we got back, I pulled out a bunch of store fixtures and as much of the consignment merchandise as I could reach, because at the time I was hoping that our consignor would be coming on Tuesday to pick it up. And when I copied the dash cam data to the laptop, it was fine, which indicated it was just that one SD card corrupted. On the whole, it was a very successful convention.
Copyright 2021 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated August 30, 2021.