JAFAX 2019
JAFAX is an anime convention held every year in the Grand Rapids area in late spring or early summer. This year it was held over the weekend of June 7-9, 2019 at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids, on the banks of the Grand River.
Because we wanted to be rested and in position to load on Thursday evening, we drove up on Wednesday. The first part of the drive went smoothly enough, but just north of Kokomo, traffic suddenly slowed to a crawl without any warning at all. Just to put the cherry on top of the mess, we had passed our last opportunity to get off US 31 only moments earlier, leaving us well and thoroughly stuck.
So we spent the next hour inching along for about two miles, until we finally got past the little bit of construction by Indiana 18 that had everything jammed up. By that time we were in desperate need of a stretch, so we stopped at one of the gas stations by Grissom Air Force Base to loosen our stiffened muscles and joints, and to make use of their facilities.
Then we continued northward through South Bend, passing places that brought back memories of my year in the area back in the early 1990's. We stopped and got gas at the Speedway at the north end of town, then continued into Michigan. We made pretty good time the rest of the way to the hotel. This one was a new one for us, and was located on the north side of town, not far from where we'd stayed back in 2014 when Grand Rapids Comic Con was held at the DeltaPlex.
The hotel looked nice enough, and our room was a pleasant one, complete with handicap accessible features that my husband needed. However, they had one very annoying problem -- a policy that they would only take cash payments at check in. If we checked in with a credit card, the money had to stay on the credit card at checkout. Since our system is to pay on checkout with cash from our sales at the convention, this pretty much ensured we'd never stay at that hotel again.
Once I got everything carried in (a much easier process now that I've regained most of my pre-hypothyroid strength), we settled in for the evening. I heated up our supper, and then we did some online stuff. I also did a little writing before turning in for the night.
On Thursday morning we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, which was actually pretty nice with a reasonable number of protein items along with the carbs. Then we got ready for the day and went out to sit in the lobby for a while to give the maids a chance to clean our room. Once it was done for the day, we went back to hang out until load-in, which didn't start until evening. I did some work on a book review for The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf.
Finally it was time to head downtown to load in. We'd been warned in advance that we would not be driving onto the exhibit hall floor as we had in previous years, but as the dockmaster directed me to park on a ramp right by the entrance to the exhibit hall, I saw why. Instead of having the easternmost third of the exhibit hall vacant and used for dealer parking as had been the case in previous years, they had the vendors set up there and the middle and western halls apparently used for other things.
However, it actually meant that we were even closer to our booths than we had in previous years. So I got out the little step and set to work loading the flatbed cart my husband had managed to snag for me. I was quite happy to notice how much more easily I climbed in and out of the van, and how much easier it was for me to lift and carry the boxes that had seemed almost unbearable burdens only a few months earlier. It did take me almost three hours to get everything unloaded, but it was still good to be able to do it myself without having to beg and plead for help with boxes that felt like they weighed a ton.
Once we got the van unloaded, I had to get it out of the loading dock and into regular parking. Although dock security had directed me to the lot under DeVos Place, I knew I could get a much better deal by going over to the Schribner Street lot, under US 131. So I parked there and walked back, trying to make myself walk faster instead of just ambling along the way I'd gotten used to when I was so sick and weak I could barely put one foot in front of the other.
As soon as I got back, I set to work putting together the minigrid units into display structures. I had two finished and was making progress on a third when the staff came by and shooed us out for the night.
On the way to retrieve the van from parking, I stopped on the bridge over the Grand River and made my pledge to Roger Chaffee, as I had been doing every time since Grand Rapids Comic Con first used DeVos Place. Then we headed back up to the hotel to turn in for the night. We had an interesting moment when we missed the road to our hotel and ended up by Meijer corporate headquarters, but we were able to get turned back around and find the right place. Apparently that street light doesn't light up properly, so we had to remember landmarks to be able to turn at the right place.
On Friday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we headed back downtown to DeVos Place to finish setting up. We got there at a reasonable time and I was able to get the sales structures built and filled. Another dealer was finished early and looking for something to do to feel useful, so we had him help putting some of the easier stuff up while I took care of the tricky stuff. We were almost ready when the doors opened, and didn't lose all that much sales time to finishing up.
Sales were decent for a Friday at a smaller convention. I had some time to go online during lulls in traffic, and saw that we'd made the right decision to pass on Indy PopCon in spite of it being a hometown event. From the reports I was getting from other vendors who'd gone there, sales were not anywhere in line with the expense of booths at it, and we probably would not have come out well.
In the evening we headed back to the hotel to have supper. Then I did some work online and a little writing before turning in.
On Saturday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, then headed back downtown to DeVos Place for another day of sales. We finally got the rest of our big wall fans unpacked, which we'd run out of time to deal with. We also got signs up and hoped they would help encourage sales by reducing the need to ask for prices.
Sales were decent, but almost all small -- one emoji mask, three Japanese bells, etc. Even drips do add up, but it's a slow process and we had limited time, so I was worrying that we might have yet another flop on our hands. Although we'd gone through several pages on our ledger by the time the vendor hall closed, it's not hard to do when you've got a lot of people buying tiny things.
We drove back to the hotel and had supper. Then I did some stuff to get ready for the end of the convention, including stomping a bunch of pop cans we were saving for recycling.
On Sunday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, then headed downtown one final time to DeVox Place to get open for business. I had hoped I'd finally get an opportunity to look around, but by the time I got the van parked and I walked back, the VIP members were already filtering through the aisles, so I had to get to work.
At least now sales were starting to get bigger, even if we weren't having any truly huge ones. We might've sold even more if I hadn't needed to start packing relatively early. However, we wanted to make sure we were out in good time and didn't get crosswise with the venue like we had at Visioncon.
Once I had the t-shirts boxed up, I went over to the parking lot and retrieved the van. When I pulled it into the loading dock, the dockmaster originally parked me beside one of the big bucket lifts. As I got an Ace bandage out and wrapped my trick knee, we commiserated about the problems of getting older and having knee trouble. Then I started hauling t-shirts down, and he suddenly got some of his people to help me deal with the heavy loads. Later, as other vendors left, he let us drive the van right up onto the floor and load directly into our booth, and his people handed stuff up to me. I packed tight enough that I kept having a weird feeling that we were missing something, that I ought to have more merchandise to put in there.
With their over-and-above help, we got out in record time and headed back to the hotel to have supper and wind down for the night. I did a little writing, and even a little of my bookwork for the con.
On Monday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast for the last time, then packed our things and carried them out to the van. We got everything loaded reasonably quickly, although we'd gotten a late checkout just to make sure we wouldn't have a nasty surprise.
We stopped in Kalamazoo to make the deposit, then got gas at the Shell station across the way, which was lower than what we'd seen in South Bend. Then we continued the rest of the way home. In spite of having a good start, we still ended up running behind, and were only down to Grissom Air Force Base by mid-afternoon. At least part of my problem was the incessant weariness dragging at me, which meant I needed a lot of caffeine, and thus a lot of stops along the way I was very glad to finally get home and pull into our driveway.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated July 21, 2019.