InConJunction XXXIV
InConJunction is the longest-running science fiction convention in Central Indiana, held over the Fourth of July weekend. This year it was held over the weekend of July 4-6, 2014 at the Marriott Indianapolis East, just a few miles down the road from us.
This year it wasn't quite as brutally hot as it had been in 2012, but it was still hot enough to make it preferable to load the van in the evening rather than the heat of the day. As it turned out, it was just as well we planned for an evening load-up, since we spent most of the afternoon dealing with the plumber who was fixing a broken bathroom sink.
On Thursday we headed over to the hotel and got the van into position near the loading dock. I had to run some errands in the car, so it was almost time to begin load-in when I got back. At least by getting positioned by the door, we were able to get loaded in fairly fast.
However, it still took enough time to set up that we weren't finished when the dealers' room closed for the evening. We headed over to the con suite for the ice cream social, then headed home for the night.
On Friday we finished setting up, and then took a look around the dealers' room before settling in to do business. Sales came at a fairly good pace, and by the end of the day I was pretty sure we were in better shape than we had been at the same point at IndyPopCon, which was supposed to be much larger. However, we were also getting a lot of requests for ramune and pocky, which I'd left out because I ran out of room in the van.
After the dealers' room closed for the night, we went to the con suite to hang out for a while with friends. Then I went up to the storage unit to retrieve some merchandise. I also picked out some ramune and pocky to take with us, as result of all the requests.
On Saturday we headed back to the hotel and got set up for the day's sales. We added the additional merchandise in and actually sold a decent amount of it. So that trip up to the storage unit was definitely worth it.
After the dealers' room closed for the night, we headed over to the con suite and hung out for a while. Then we looked around in search of any parties. The only one we found was Barfleet, and we really weren't interested in a drinking party, so we headed home and turned in for the night.
On Sunday we headed back to the hotel for the final day of sales. We went to the con suite to get some breakfast food, then headed over to the dealers' room and got our tables opened. We had some pretty good sales, and I felt like we'd done well for a small con. However, I was really disappointed at how poorly the books had done, and decided we probably wouldn't bring nearly as many in future years.
Then we packed up and loaded out. It actually went fairly quickly, although the heat was a nuisance. Because the weather forecast was not promising, we went ahead and unloaded everything back into the storage unit that evening so we wouldn't have to worry about it later.
Copyright 2014 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated August 9, 2014.