It's Not a Con 2021
It's Not a Con is a new gaming convention in Indianapolis, sponsored by a local gaming store. This year it was held over the weekend of October 29-31, 2021 at the Indianapolis Marriott East. Because we'd been dumped by the convention we usually went to over Halloween weekend, we decided to go to this one because it responded to our query while we were still waiting for another event, which would've been a trip to Chicago, to answer us.
The name is a pun in the good old fannish tradition, playing on "con" as short for "convention" vs. "con" as short for "confidence game." However, there is a certain dark element to that humor, since there have been some conventions that have been rather sketchy, although often it's been more a matter of good intentions and enthusiasm outstripping actual ability to deliver rather than a deliberate attempt to scam attendees.
There had been some questions about whether we would have Thursday setup hours, but about a week before the convention, we got an answer in the affirmative. However, the hours were fairly late, which made it possible to still keep a dentist's appointment that we'd made when we thought we might not have anything for Halloween weekend. On the other hand, it meant that we had to drive the van up to the dentist's office, in the rain.
At least the rain had slacked up by the time we were driving back, because we decided to stop at the storage unit on the way to the hotel and pick up some additional tables. However, slacked up did not mean stopped altogether, so I had to hurry in and out so that we didn't get rain on the merchandise that was still in the unit.
Finally we got to the hotel and got the van parked in one of the parking spots right behind the ballroom that would be the vendor hall. This was the ballroom that had been the dealers' room for InConJunction back in the 1990's, before the construction of Liberty Hall and the Patriot Tower.
We headed inside to find chairs so we could wait for the sponsor to arrive and get the vendor hall open for us to load in. I got out my Dragon Touch tablet and tried to work on a writing challenge, but discovered that the words just didn't want to come. The harder I tried, the more I could tell that I'd picked the wrong point of view character, and quite possibly the wrong place, to start the scene.
Then we finally started carrying things in, and there was no time to worry about anything else. We were still getting just enough rain that I had to use a tarp to cover all our merchandise and protect it from moisture damage. At least we were able to use one of the hotel's flatbed carts, which enabled us to carry a lot more merchandise out on each load, but we were having all kinds of trouble with the hotel's door wanting to lock on us and make it impossible to get in or out. Finally one of the hotel security people came by and propped it open so we could get in and out without risking breaking the glass with an awkward cart.
By the time I finally got everything in, I'd tracked a fair amount of rain into the van, and had discovered a number of items I'd failed to pull when switching over from our load out for Indiana Comic Con. However, given that I'd been fighting a con crud at the time and was dealing with weather difficulties, it's probably unsurprising.
Once we got all the merchandise in, I set to work on building our structures. We were sharing the hotel with an FFA group, and I got an earful of the hoedown they were having in Victory Hall, complete with a lot of 80's music and country music. At least it made the work more pleasant to have something to listen to.
When the vendor hall closed for the night, I headed back home and got things ready for Friday's big push to finish our setup. Then I turned in for the night, knowing that I'd have to get up far too early the next day.
On Friday we got up early and headed straight over to the hotel to finish setup. I was able to finish the structures fairly quickly, then got t-shirts loaded into those structures. As it turns out, we have a lot fewer t-shirts than we did back in August, and I had to dig pretty deeply just to get a single side structure to look properly filled. It looks likely that we may not even need any side structures at Grand Rapids Comic Con.
Once we got everything set up, I got the signs put up and we settled in to sell. Given that this was a first-year show and there were only about two hundred pre-registrations, I wasn't surprised that foot traffic was slow. We did have a few customers, but I got to spend a lot of time fiddling around on my phone. However, I was also surprised at just how many t-shirts we sold, including a number of discontinued designs, which helps us clean them out of inventory so we can start offering new ones.
After the vendor hall closed for the evening, we headed home and I warmed up supper. Then I focused on getting a bunch of stuff caught up from when I'd been battling con crud. I also tried to actually get at least a bit ahead on things.
On Saturday we got up early and headed over to the hotel to get our tables open. However, our third family member wanted to get some stuff done at home, so he took the car back, promising to return at lunch time.
However, that return ended up being later than planned, which created some difficulties because I was supposed to go to a couple of fast food places and pick up our lunches. I really didn't want to remove the van from our excellent parking space, and as it turned out, it was just as well I didn't try to take it through either restaurant's drive-thru, because I could've gotten it hung up somewhere.
Once I got the burgers collected and we had lunch, I pulled out my Dragon Touch tablet and tried to get some more work done on the writing challenge. Maybe it was a big mistake, given that I had a good idea that I didn't have the right starting place, but I wanted to actually get some writing done when we were just standing around between customers, as opposed to fiddling around on the Internet with my phone.
When the vendor hall closed for the evening, we headed home and I got supper ready. Then I put together two orders in preparation for Grand Rapids Comic Con.
On Sunday we headed back to the hotel for the final day of the convention. When we first got there, I thought sure I'd forgotten the breakfast bars, but later, when I was looking for an energy drink, I discovered that I'd put them in a different place than I'd been thinking. So we had them, if a little later than we'd planned.
We had slow but steady sales, decent for a small convention. However, by 2PM I really couldn't put off packing any longer. Because we really didn't have that much out, I was able to get stuff packed fairly early, and decided to just go ahead and start carrying stuff out. Several other vendors had already left, since everything had pretty much come to a halt.
We had some really great help loading out, and I got everything in quickly. However, we were still the last people out, and by the time I finished loading everything, hotel security had closed all the back doors. So rather than walk all the way around to an open door to get my husband, I decided to just drive the van around to the east parking lot and get him there.
However, as I started the van and put it in gear, it became obvious that something was wrong. The brake light on the instrument panel wouldn't go out, and the brake went all the way to the floor. I pumped it a couple of times and was able to carefully creep the van around to a parking space, then tried to put brake fluid in the reservoir. However, I was still getting no brake response, so rather than try to hobble it home, we decided to call our other family member back to retrieve us and have the van towed.
Fortunately, hotel security was cool with us leaving the van overnight, locked up. I pulled all the essentials out of the van, including some merchandise we were also selling on eBay, and we headed back home for supper.
The next day I returned to the hotel to call AAA and get the van towed. As soon as the tow truck driver tried to start it, he said we wouldn't have even gotten a block with the brakes that bad. He ended up pushing it into position to winch it onto the back of his flatbed, rather than try to move it under power and risk not being able to stop. Then I went down to Beech Grove to meet him at the Goodyear store. As it turned out, one of the brake lines had rusted through and caused the entire system to lose pressure. Although there's no good time to have a breakdown, it was probably the least bad situation we could've had. If we had gone to Youmacon as we would've in years past, it could have failed on the road and caused a wreck, or failed while we were at the TCF Center, leaving us having to get a tow to an unknown shop for repairs and possibly having to spend extra nights in the hotel, in addition to Ubers back and forth from the shop.
Copyright 2021 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated November 6, 2021.