Tampa Bay Comic Con 2022
Tampa Bay Comic Con is western Florida's big convention. Until 2021 it had been run by the Imaginarium Agency, but as a result of some financial difficulties due to a failed expansion followed by the COVID-19 shutdowns, they have sold it and their other conventions to FanX, the company that runs Salt Lake City Comic Convention. This is the last year that they had old contracts still outstanding that had to be honored, but already we could see some changes as the new management made it more and more like their flagship convention.
This year's convention was held over the weekend of July 29-31, 2022 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. Because of the distance, we left home on Tuesday, the day after we got home from AnimeIowa. I carried out our personal stuff and added several boxes of merchandise that really didn't fit with an anime convention but would go well at a comic con. Then we hit the road and the first part of the journey went pretty smoothly.
However, as we got through Kentucky and into Tennessee, I started becoming weary. We had a very close call just past Chattanooga, when we crested a hill only to discover the traffic had completely stopped. I slammed on the brakes and was barely able to stop in time to avoid rear-ending the big truck in front of us. Fortunately everything was packed tightly enough that nothing came flying into the cockpit with us, but it was still a very frightening moment.
We spent the next half hour or so creeping forward, and eventually came to the place where several cop cars were. We saw what looked like a badly banged-up motorcycle, so we wondered if a biker had been hit by a four-wheeler.
Then we continued to our hotel, where we encountered some difficulty with a hotel desk clerk who wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the butcher block. Because we're frequent travelers and know the drill for check-in, I had ID and credit card in hand when we walked into the office. Somehow she got it in her head that we were walk-ins, and was insisting that the handicap room was already reserved. It took quite a bit of effort to disabuse her of that notion and get it across that yes, we actually did have a reservation for a handicap room. Then she finally gave us keys for the room we were supposed to have all along -- but we still had trouble with the keys and she had to re-code them.
By the time we finally got checked in and our belongings into the room, we were pretty well fed up with that hotel. It didn't help that the air conditioner was turned off when we got in and it took forever to get the overheated room cooled down. We had supper and I did a little more work on my writing challenges, but we both agreed we would never, ever stay there again. I did get my Tuesday writing challenge done and up, although I was very tired by that point.
On Wednesday morning we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, which was pretty much all carbs. It was a pretty disappointing one, and cemented our resolve never, ever to stay there again. Then we carried our belongings back out to the van and hit the road, glad to put it behind us for good.
At first I thought I was doing fairly well, but after our stop at Macon to get gas and some additional supplies for our vendor-hall food box, I started feeling unbearably tired. Even a Java Monster couldn't push back the weariness, so I pulled in at the last southbound Georgia rest area and declared a break. We'd stay there until I felt able to continue safely.
I ended up falling asleep for almost half an hour, but it was enough to rest and refresh me. That was a good thing, because once we got into Florida and down on the peninsula, we ran into some heavy rain. Apparently some heavy thunderstorm cells were coming in off the Gulf of Mexico, one after another. Sometimes the rain was so heavy and the visibility so bad that I slowed down to about 20 MPH with my emergency flashers on so people wouldn't run into me. The last storm, just north of Tampa, had some really strong wind as well.
Fortunately it cleared as we actually entered Tampa. We stopped at the Walmart just north of the hotel to get gas and some critical supplies. Then we went onto the hotel and got settled in for the weekend. We even got the same handicap room that we'd used back in 2019, and were able to park in the same parking spot.
Once we had supper, I took care of a number of things. I wrote out some of my thoughts about my latest writing challenge, trying to figure out where I wanted to take it. Then we turned in for the night, since I knew we'd have a very busy day ahead of us and needed our sleep after the long drive.
On Thursday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. It was as good as I remembered it from 2019, complete with hot bacon and scrambled eggs. It was nice to have so much protein to start what would be a long and toilsome day.
I'd planned to do some writing in the morning, but we were both so tired we ended up taking a nap. That nearly turned into a mistake, because we fell asleep so soundly that we almost missed the time we needed to hit the road for the convention center. As a result, we ended up scrambling to get out of there in time, and arrived to discover the line somewhat longer than we'd expected for that early.
At first we were comfortably under the shade of the elevated ramp to one of the tollways, but soon we had to tighten the line, moving all the vehicles closer to one another, and ended up in the sun. However, I did manage to get some writing done on notes for my writing challenge as we were waiting.
Once we actually got into the loading dock, it was non-stop busy, sweating away in that hot Florida sun to unload everything and get it hauled into the exhibit hall, where I piled it in the aisles around the margins of our booth. As soon as we were empty, I had to get the van moved to parking. At least this time I knew where to take it -- but there was a problem with the payment machine and it crashed twice while trying to get the transaction done. Because I wasn't sure if I'd paid, I decided to download the app on my phone and pay through it, since it would give me an e-mail paper trail.
With that taken care of, I hiked back to the convention center and dug in on the process of setting up our displays. Fortunately I was able to get most of them set up in good time, which would make matters much easier for having everything ready when the doors opened to the public on Friday. When they finally chased us out, we discovered that the elevators were curtained off and inoperative. Because there was no way my husband could go down stairs, we had to find some kind of elevator. Eventually we located the elevator in the convention center's offices, which was being made available for disability use, and were able to get down to the ground floor. Then I hiked back to the parking lot to retrieve the van so I could pick him up and get back to the hotel.
We had a very late supper, and then I had to do way too many things to get us ready to go the next morning. So it was a lot later than I'd like when we finally were in bed, lights out.
On Friday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, then headed downtown to the convention center. I went into the loading dock to drop off my husband, then headed over to the parking lot to park the van. Paying for parking was so much easier with the app, although I did notice a meter maid and mentioned to her the problem I'd had with the payment machine. Then I hiked back to the convention center and went in via the loading dock.
Since we'd gotten a fair amount of work done on Thursday, we just had to finalize our setup. There were some more t-shirts to get into their hutches, some figurines and other small things to get into displays, and the giant wall fans to get up. I was putting up signs as the doors opened and the first few VIP and Gold members started filtering through.
Sales were slow, but decent for a Friday. We did sell several of the giant wall fans, thanks to my having gotten them up in time, and we sold some other things. However, by the end of the day we were still a good way from our break-even point. At least part of this was the high cost of gas this year, in a vehicle that doesn't get good gas mileage.
Then we headed back to our hotel. I'd gotten a little writing done on one of my writing challenges during the lull times in customer traffic. However, I still had blog posts I needed to get up and some other tasks that needed doing. So we weren't all that early getting to bed, even if we would've liked to.
On Saturday we had the hotel's breakfast, then headed back downtown to get open and ready for business. We had a bit of a slow start, but within an hour things really picked up, to the point we were super-busy most of the day. I didn't have much time for anything but minimal restroom breaks, and I'm sure there were times when we lost sales because customers didn't want to wait and decided to just put their selections back down.
One of our biggest sellers was the hand fans, and this was at least partly the result of issues with the venue's air conditioning. In previous years, the Tampa Convention Center would often be almost too cold, even when the exhibit hall was full of people. This year, the exhibit hall never really cooled down, perhaps as a result of the ongoing construction work that also shut down the regular elevators. Although it was cooler than the outdoor air (south-central Florida in the summer is HOT!), it was just hot and humid enough to be miserable. People were buying fans one after another, and it was hot enough that we even grabbed some of our own fans to cool ourselves. By the end of the day, we were completely out of several of the prettier designs.
After the doors closed and we got back to our hotel, we had supper and I got my newsletters finalized and ready to go out. I sent the cosmic horror newsletter immediately, and I scheduled the retail newsletter for Sunday morning, while we'd still be open. Then I did some more work on my various writing challenges before we turned in for the night.
On Sunday we had breakfast, then headed back downtown for the final day of the convention. We had good steady traffic right up to the time I needed to start packing the figurines and other fragile stuff. We also had several people take us up on our offer for free merchandise in exchange for help loading out -- and some of them actually showed up and helped. As a result, we were able to get the t-shirts and other items packed fairly quickly.
Normally I would've gone to retrieve the van as soon as I knew I'd have t-shirts packed and ready to go out when I came back. However, this year they were requiring us to get a dock pass from the control table in order to be admitted into the dock, so I was concerned they would actually come to our booth and check that we were completely finished, much as had been the case at the Spokane WorldCon in 2015. So I held off until we were pretty much down to the structures, but as it turned out, they gave me the dock pass as soon as I requested it.
However, by the time I joined the line, it was getting very long, to the point they split it into two lines just to keep it from spilling out onto the streets -- and that was with a lot of the smaller vendors hauling their merchandise down to street level and loading there. It took me so long to get onto the loading dock that I was able to write a good chunk of my Sunday writing challenges just while waiting -- and I was concerned that our helpers might've taken off, leaving us to our own devices for load-out.
As it turned out, they were still there, and were quite happy to help us by hauling stuff down so I just had to load it into the van. They even found a big flatbed cart, which helped speed the process. On the other hand, having them load the carts meant I had a lot of points at which things came too early and I had to get them out of the way, or ended up with lengthy waits where I didn't have anything I could put in at the time. I used the latter to work on my writing challenges, and actually got them written by the time I had enough merchandise down that I could be working non-stop until everything was loaded.
Then we headed back to the hotel to have supper. We were early enough that I was able to get my Sunday writing challenges posted, as well as the blog post providing links to them. Then we turned in for the night, hoping to get as much sleep as possible before hitting the road for home.
On Monday we had a very scary moment when my husband was so sore from re-injuring his back that he ended slipping off the edge of the bed in his efforts to get up. I was wondering whether we would need to call 911 and get EMT's to help get him back on his feet, but decided to see if anyone at the hotel could help. As it turned out, a young man who was just loading his truck to check out had experience helping his grandfather get up from falls and was able to get my husband back up. So we went to the breakfast, then got our belongings out of the room and hit the road.
We stopped by the branch of our bank and made the deposit. Then we went to Walmart to make some last-minute purchases and buy gas before getting on I-275 and starting the long journey north.
Our biggest problem was weariness. Even with Java Monsters, I was struggling to stay awake, and by the time we reached the Agricultural Inspection Station, I was fighting to keep my eyes open and very glad when the bypass lights were flashing. When we got to the state line, I decided I needed some rest. We pulled in at the rest area on the Georgia side of the state line and stayed there about half an hour, until I was sufficiently awake that I felt safe to continue.
We got to Macon in good time and checked into the hotel, which is one of our favorites. However, we were wrong in remembering them as having a hot tub in their pool area. We were disappointed, but there was nothing to be done about it, so we carried in our critical belongings and settled in.
We'd been planning to visit our friends in Lexington on Tuesday night and stay the night with them before continuing home on Wednesday. However, they live in a two-story apartment with the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs, and it was becoming extremely clear that my husband was not going to be able to get up those stairs. So we agreed with our friends that it would be best to cut our visit down to just the cookout supper, then stay the night at a hotel. So my husband found and booked a hotel for the night, while I prepared supper.
After supper, I got blog posts done and wrote one of my Tuesday writing challenges. It's the one that has a hard deadline, so I wanted it done ahead of time. Then we turned in for the night.
On Tuesday we got up and had breakfast. Then we carried our belongings back out to the van and hit the road. I'd planned to buy gas at the Shell station just north of the hotel, but their pump wouldn't read our rewards card, and wouldn't accept manual entry of the number. So I ended up deciding they didn't want our business that badly and we continued north to a station midway between Macon and Atlanta to buy gas.
We got around Atlanta without trouble, although memories of 2019 kept coming back. I was very glad when we got out of Georgia and headed through Tennessee, but it seemed like it was getting later and later and we weren't making much headway toward our goal. It didn't help that I was so tired I took the wrong Corydon exit and ended up stuck in traffic and having to take a lengthy detour to get back on I-75, costing us valuable time. Although we'd originally planned to check in at the hotel before going to our friends' place, it was becoming increasingly obvious we weren't going to make it in time. So by the time we crossed the Kentucky state line, we decided to just go straight to our friends' place.
We had a really great couple of hours visiting, chatting with them over salads, burgers, and dessert, washed down with mango juice. We were almost sad to have to say good-bye, perhaps because of the knowledge that, had things been different, we might've been able to stay overnight.
The hotel was a nice one, once we got the problem with the keys and with a clogged toilet resolved. I carried in our essentials and settled in to get my final Tuesday writing challenge written. As a result we ended up getting to bed later than I would've liked, but it was worth the chance to get the writing done.
On Wednesday we had the hotel's breakfast, which was probably one of the best we'd had on the entire trip. Then we loaded our belongings back into the van and headed north toward home. The drive wasn't all that long, but I was tired and every time we got up to 70 MPH we were getting a weird high-pitched whine that set my teeth on edge. I was very glad to finally pull into the driveway and power down, and resolved to have things checked out when we took the van in for an oil change.
Copyright 2022 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated August 19, 2022.