Ohayocon 2018
Ohayocon is Ohio's largest anime convention, and has a highly competitive dealers' room. This year it was held over the weekend of January 26-28, 2018 in the Hyatt Regency Columbus and the Columbus Convention Center, and I was actually able to get a booth at it.
I knew that it was not going to be easy for us to fit enough merchandise into a single 10x10 booth to make the trip worth the expense and the time. But I really wanted to see if we could get our foot in the door, let the decision-makers see our merchandise, and hope that we could get a larger setup in future years. So I decided to take the risk and go.
After having done Yoi-con the previous year, we now had a decent idea of the lay of the land. We knew how to find the convention center and where to park, so we wouldn't end up wasting large amounts of time looking for the places we needed to go.
Because setup began fairly early on Thursday and we didn't want to start the day tired, we decided to go to our hotel on Wednesday. After all, this was a fair-sized convention, so we felt confident that we'd be able to make a decent amount of money at it.
However, when it came time to actually take off, we were getting a nasty wintery mix. This made it interesting to carry our personal belongings out to the van and then to drive. As we were leaving the neighborhood, we just about didn't get stopped at the stop sign, which made it clear that no, the roads were not in good condition.
As a result, I had to take it slow and careful all the way to Columbus, and even so, I was pretty well wrung out by the time we finally pulled in at the hotel. Worse, it seemed that the place had gone downhill since we'd stayed the previous year. We were fortunate that we had a mini-fridge and microwave oven in our room, but management had apparently been having so much trouble with people stealing them from the first-floor rooms that those amenities were being removed as rooms were being redecorated. We decided we probably wouldn't be coming back there on future trips to Columbus.
At least the room was nice enough that I could relax and do some writing in the evening. We had supper, and turned in at a reasonable time.
On Thursday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, which was at least decent even if it wasn't spectacular. Then we sat around the hotel room until it was time for us to load in. I made some notes on one of my former JukePop Serials novels, trying to decide how to rewrite it to make for a better whole.
Finally it was time to go over to the convention center and load in. At least we didn't have to go in circles trying to find the entrance, but we were a little dismayed to discover that some people had been loading in and setting up for some time. At least we didn't have as much stuff to load in, since we hadn't brought any t-shirts, but we still had enough to make for a number of loads. Furthermore, it soon became obvious that even the amount of stuff we'd brought wasn't going to fit in the available space. We only had space for a few tea sets, and a lot of our figurines and other small stuff was so tightly crammed into their hutches that they looked crowded.
Worse, just as we were about ready to take off, our big gridwall structure just tilted over and collapsed with a horrible crash. We had to scramble to get it set back up again, this time differently so it would be more stable. Fortunately the baskets of fans weren't broken, but three tails got their clips smashed. I'm hoping to salvage at least some of them, but it was still rather shocking.
Finally we headed back up to the hotel and turned in for the night. We still had a little work to do in the morning, but at least we weren't way behind like we are so many times. However, with only the tiniest crumb of backspace, it was becoming clear that we needed to remove any unnecessary boxes. So I brought in the cart and hauled several boxes back out to the van before taking it to parking.
However, I did have a little time to look around before the doors opened. It was nice to not be still franticly setting up when people were already coming in, and to know we were losing sales with every minute that we weren't ready.
We did makes some Friday sales, but they were all small ones. I had a real feeling that the sheer crowding of our setup was inhibiting people from shopping with us. By the time we closed, it was clear we were still way behind where we needed to be in order to pay our upcoming bills and buy into several conventions before the deadlines for them. So I was feeling rather glum as I walked back to the van.
Then, while I was trying to pick my husband up in the circle drive between the hotel and the convention center, I got hassled by the police about parking not being allowed. I tried to explain that my husband was disabled and couldn't walk any great distance, but they were adamant -- but a lot of other people were picking people up, and weren't getting hassled. I really don't know why we were getting singled out, but I think that if my husband hadn't come struggling out right then, they would've told me to move on or risk arrest.
I was still annoyed when we got back to the hotel. I tried to get some work done on a short story, but I couldn't seem to focus on it. In fact, the story was looking worse and worse the longer I tried to get anything done with it.
On Saturday we headed back to the convention center and I put out some more merchandise, hoping to coax more sales out of this event. However, the bump we saw was not nearly big enough to bring us up to the place we really needed to get. By time time we finally closed up and I went to retrieve the van, I was feeling pretty downhearted. At least this time there weren't cops at the circle drive, and I was able to pick up my husband without any officious hassling.
When we got back to the hotel, I remembered what day it was, and decided to quick make my formal pledge and seal it with the Elder Sign. It's not as dramatic as saying it on the bridge over the Grand River up in Grand Rapids, and the fifty-first anniversary of the Fire isn't as big a deal as the fiftieth. But I still wanted to get it done.
Then I dug out a different novel and tried to get some headway on it. I'm dividing that one into two separate volumes because it's grown unmanageably large, but I'm still having trouble getting the idea hamster moving. I was almost just as glad to turn in for the night, because I didn't have to keep struggling to be productive.
On Sunday we got up to thick fog. As we ate the hotel's complimentary breakfast, we looked out over the parking lot at fog. Even as we drove downtown to the convention center, there was fog hanging in the air in thick sheets, giving a fantastical feel to an otherwise mundane Midwestern city.
When I got the van parked and arrived at the dealers' room, I immediately set to working on getting every possible thing out and crammed into our displays. We needed the sales, and people aren't going to be buying stuff that isn't on display. However, there simply wasn't room for all our tea sets, which really hurt us.
We did get some more sales, but not nearly as much as we needed. It didn't help that we had to start packing the figurines before the doors actually closed, if we were going to have any chance of getting out in a timely fashion. We still had far too many fiddly little things that all needed to be individually packed.
We had some excellent help, and all of them expressed interest in whether we'd be back next year. I told them that I wanted to come back, but given that this is a juried show, we'd be dependent upon whether our application was accepted.
At least we got back to our hotel in a reasonable hour, so I actually had some time to do a little writing However, everything I tried to write all felt like complete, utter crap. So I was rather glad to turn in for the night.
On Monday we had the hotel's breakfast, then packed our belongings and loaded them out to the van. At least we had better weather than the pouring rain we had when we left after Yoi-con, and we didn't have a lot of merchandise in the way that all had to be set down and then put on top of suitcases, etc. So we got out in decent time, but we were so tired that, when we reached the first rest stop, we just shut down for a while to nap.
We got back to Indiana in time to make the deposit at the branch of our bank in Greenfield. It was a lot smaller than I'd been looking to make, but at least it was something to help keep us afloat. Then we drove the rest of the way to the house, and I was very glad to pull into the driveway and shut down.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated June 21, 2019.