InConJunction XXXV
InConJunction is the literary science fiction convention held in Indianapolis every summer. This year it was held over the weekend ofJuly 3-5, 2015 at the Indianapolis Marriott East. That hotel is right in our neighborhood, so close it would be in walking distance if the area were walkable. However, the lack of sidewalks makes walking a risky proposition, so we drove.
This convention allows the dealers to load in and do some set-up on Thursday evening, so we went over to the hotel right after lunch to get into position. We sat around the big atrium and visited with some friends. I also did some work on my novel.
Once load-in commenced, we got our cart out of the van and started hauling stuff in. We soon had massive piles of stuff in the aisles by our tables as we got everything in and started setting up our structures.
However, there simply wasn't enough time to get everything set up before they closed the dealers' room for the night. So we headed home to wind down and try to get a reasonably good night's sleep.
On Friday we had to get up early to make sure we'd have as much time as possible to finish setting up. Even so, it took us so long that I never got around to getting my art onto the art show.
When the doors finally opened, we really didn't get that much traffic. I knew we couldn't expect the level of sales we'd get at a big comic con or anime con, but there were so few people walking around that it felt like attendance was down.
When the dealers' room closed for the night, we headed over to the con suite to grab some snackies. We got to talk with some friends we hadn't seen since ConGlomeration.
There weren't any parties, so we just headed back home. I tried to get some work done on my novel, but couldn't get much traction on it. At least our cat seemed to appreciate having me home to feed and pet her.
On Saturday we got up early to drive back to the con hotel. We headed over to the con suite for second breakfast and visiting with friends. Then we headed back to the dealers' room to get our tables ready for business.
Sales continued to be slow. We had a couple of really big sales that did bring things up to the level we needed to cover our expenses, but you just can't count on things like that. So we soon began thinking about looking for a larger convention for next year.
When the dealers' room closed for the night, we headed over to the con suite to have the supper we'd brought with us and grab some munchies. We stuck around in hopes of finding some parties, but no flyers appeared. My husband wanted to get into an Artemis game, but there weren't any other players.
We finally headed back home. I did some work on my novel, feeling rather dispirited.
On Sunday we headed back to the con hotel and got second breakfast at the con suite. Then we went to the dealers' room and tried to get some more stuff sold. We started packing fairly early, but were still packing when the dealers' room closed. I started loading stuff out while myå husband and brother-in-law continued to pack, so we were able to get loaded out quickly enough to have some hope of getting to the dead dog party.
When we did get there, we saw some remnants that suggested they'd had pizza brought in, but it had all been eaten while we were slogging through the process of loading out and struggling to get everything to fit back in our vehicles. We noshed a little on the munchies, but finally we had to head home and scare up a real supper for ourselves. Because we'd reduced our merchandise volume so little and things didn't want to go in the same way, I ended up with a very awkward pile of boxes on the passenger seat of the van. I don't think I would've wanted to drive it even just back from the convention center downtown, but I could barely manage the mile back home. Still, it was dispiriting to work so hard for so little.
Copyright 2015 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated September 24, 2015.