Youmacon 2018
Youmacon is a large anime convention held every year in Detroit, Michigan. This year it was held over the weekend of November 1-4, 2018 at the Renaissance Center and COBO Center in downtown Detroit.
Because the vendor hall starts loading in at noon and it's critical to be in line early in order to avoid losing an hour or more of load-in time to waiting to get in, we drove up on Wednesday. When we first left, it was raining pretty hard. However, by the time we got to Fort Wayne, it had slacked up to a drizzle. Once we crossed the Ohio state line, it stopped altogether.
We stopped at the Sam's Club in Toledo to pick up some stuff and get gas. Then we pushed onward through the countryside until we got to I-94. This time we knew not to get on the beltway around Detroit, but to take the road that led to the mall where Vitamin World is located. We picked up vitamins without incident, then continued on surface streets to our hotel.
When we stayed there for Michigan Comic Con, we'd had a great experience and thought we had found a winner we'd be able to use for years to come. Between August and November, something had changed, and not for the better. Although we arrived after check-in time, we were told that our room wasn't ready for us (we needed a handicap-accessible room because of my husband's mobility issues). So we ended up stuck sitting in the lobby waiting while they sent someone to get everything ready.
Once we got our belongings into the room, we discovered there was a problem with the WiFi. We went down to the front desk to let them know and they told us it was a known problem and they were working on it. We ended up having to haul our laptops out the the lobby to work on the Internet, which restricted how much we could get done. I did manage to get some work done, but it was definitely not a good way to begin the weekend.
On Thursday we got up to have the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then it was time to head downtown to the COBO Center and get our place in line. As I backed the van out of the parking space, it made the most unnerving howling sound. However, it stopped after I got moving, so while I was shaken, I decided to wait and see.
Once we got in line, I called to the place that had done our brake work after Archon. The manager didn't think it sounded like a problem with the parts they'd worked on, but that if I was concerned about the safety of the vehicle, I should call a local shop up there, and if it turned out to be something covered by the warranty on the brake work, they'd hash it out when we got back. So I looked up a Goodyear place that was nearby (so handy on a smartphone), and talked to the guy there, who said that brakes often squeal in the morning, and as long as all my gauges remained normal and I had solid braking, I should be safe to drive it until I could have it looked at by my own mechanic.
So we went ahead and got inside to unload. This year the union guys would lead us to our place, but weren't helping us unload any more. As a result it took longer than previously to get unloaded, so I thought the brakes had just cooled back off when the van squealed again when it came time to leave. I should've noticed that once it squealed when I was turning the steering wheel and didn't even have my foot on the brake pedal, but I was focused on getting the van out and parked, so I didn't notice the anomaly.
After the horrible mess with the COBO rooftop parking lot at Michigan Comic Con, we didn't want to give them any of our money. So I went looking for a decent place to park. At least this time I had a better sense of the area around the COBO Center than I had back in 2013, but it was still tough to find parking at that hour of the day. Finally I found a place, got the van parked, and hiked back to the COBO Center to get us set up. I set up several structures for figurines, but didn't make as many as we could have because we'd cut way back on the number of figurines we were taking and I wanted to use the table space for other things.
By the time we needed to leave, we'd gotten enough built that I was confident that we'd be able to have things ready when the doors opened. I hiked over and retrieved the van, which was still making whining noises, and we headed back to the hotel. By the time we got on M-10, it had quieted down, so I hoped it was just new brakes needing to get broken in.
When we got back to the hotel, they still didn't have the WiFi fixed. This made it annoying to get supper and to do anything on the Internet while we were getting ready to turn in for the night. We don't want to use the WiFi hotspot too much because we have a limited amount of bandwidth per month and it doesn't roll over -- and we were doing Grand Rapids Comic Con the following week, so we didn't want to use up our bandwidth on personal activities only to need it for business and not have it.
On Friday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast and headed back downtown to finish setup. The rain had yet to move out, so I blamed the squeals from the van on the brakes being wet and cold, and hoped we'd see some dry weather soon.
We were able to get set up in good time, and even had some time to walk around and take a look at the other vendors' setups. Then the doors opened and we were dealing with customers. There were some times when things were so busy that I could hardly keep up with the flow of traffic. We sold a number of our porcelains, which left us with fewer for next week.
When it was time to go home, we were still getting rain, although it had slacked up to a drizzle. The van was still squealing, although as long as the brakes were still firm and stopping us well, I figured we were still safe to drive. Still, I was glad to pull in at the hotel and get inside.
However, the hotel still hadn't managed to get their WiFi fixed, which made it annoying to do anything. I did get some stuff done online, although having to do blog posts on the iPhone was a royal pain. It's astonishing how badly this hotel has deteriorated in the few months since we had such a good experience at it that we were sure we had a winner we'd keep for several years.
I also heard on a Facebook group about a vendor we knew who'd had almost $700 of damage right before the vendor hall closed. Apparently a couple of ordinary attendees were horsing around in the aisle near their booth, pushing each other as a joke, and went too far. One of them went crashing into a display and knocked over a whole bunch of fragile merchandise that immediately broke. Instead of owning up to their actions, they immediately ran away, and while the COBO Center is going to try to identify them and call them to account, it's unlikely a good image of their faces has been captured.
On Saturday we got up and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we headed downtown to the COBO Center. This time I was able to get parked quickly enough to get back in time to visit the vendor who'd lost all that merchandise. They'd cleaned up the mess and removed the display, and had covered the area with black cloth so it wasn't screamingly obvious that they'd lost a bunch of merchandise.
Then it was time to get back to our booth and get ready for the horde. Yet again we had some periods when we were so busy we could scarcely keep up with the flow of traffic, although we also got a number of lulls when things just weren't happening. At least we had enough lulls that we could each get a bathroom break now and then. However, by the time the doors closed and I went to retrieve the van, I was pretty much exhausted. I was very glad to get back to the hotel and be able to shut down, and glad to know that Daylight Saving Time was going away overnight, so we'd get an extra hour of sleep.
The hotel still didn't have their WiFi working, although there was evidence they'd had a tech in to do something. So I was still stuck doing my blog posts on the iPhone, or taking the laptop out to the lobby. I ended up doing more writing, since there wasn't that much else to do.
On Sunday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we headed back downtown to the COBO Center to try to get a strong finish on a difficult convention. By the time I got the van parked, it had become reasonably quiet, although I was still uneasy enough about it that I wanted to get it checked out before we headed to Grand Rapids on Wednesday. I got back to the COBO Center in time to look around the vendor hall again.
Then the doors opened and sales began in earnest. We had some very busy times, although to our frustration, a lot of the sales were awfully small. Finally it came time to have to pack up, since we had a hard deadline to get out of there. We were able to get almost everything packed by the time the staff shooed out the regular attendees and the big loading dock doors opened.
However, all our helpers ghosted us, so we were left to our own devices to get the van loaded. I pushed as hard as I could, but we were coming very close to the deadline by the time we finally put the last few things in and got going. However, I noticed several other vendors who had huge amounts of merchandise still needing to be loaded out, and wondered whether they'd be hit with the costs of overtime for the union workers, or if they'd be Special and have their tardiness excused.
We got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour, and I was happy to discover that they'd finally gotten their WiFi fixed. However, it was still not enough for us to want to come back next year and stay there again, so we decided we'd look for new digs if we did any Detroit conventions in 2019.
Still, I was able to get blog posts up and do some writing before we turned in for the night. A decent accomplishment, even if I was on edge about the condition of our van.
On Monday we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast, then packed up our belongings and got them out of the room so we could hit the road. I also called the Goodyear store in Indianapolis where I'd gotten the new tires for the van and arranged an appointment to have it looked at on Tuesday morning.
The trip back home was a rather harrowing one, since the van kept making noise every time we slowed down or made a sharp turn. The brake pedal would often vibrate or kick back at me when I pushed it, and it seemed like the noises were getting worse all the time.
We did stop in Toledo to get gas at Sam's Club, where we also picked up some supplies for our next convention. Then we stopped at a branch of our bank and made the deposit before heading the rest of the way home. I was very glad to pull into the driveway and be able to stop worrying whether something would give out and leave us stranded on the side of the road.
Copyright 2019 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated June 24, 2019.