I don't want you to think it was anyone's fault but my own. I was the idiot in this situation who forgot to check out the actual opening time for the convention. In past years, it always opened at 10am on Friday morning - advance ticket holders got in at 9:30am as a perk. I assumed that his was still the case. The Con has a policy of releasing your table to anyone who wants to have a booth should you not be fully set-up a full 30 minuted before doors open - so I arrive in plenty of time. In fact, I made sure i overkilled the time I needed. I arrived promptly at 7:45am. I was amazed at the lack of traffic and people attending the convention. Even as I paid for my parking and made my way down that loooooooooooooong corridor from the garage to the convention center and arrived in the main exhibition hall that there was really no one but a few volunteers and some staff members. No attendees. No people in costume. No one. Ok.... no one except a rather friendly group of Muslims attending their convention just upstairs from the comic book convention in the main hall. Someone even mentioned that there was a Dianetics convention in another wing of the building, but I cannot confirm or deny that....
I went to the artist alley registration line and asked the person there if I could get my packet and begin my setup. The doughy man looked blankly at me and informed me that I could not - not until 9am.
D'oh.
I looked at my watch and contemplated exactly what I would be doing for the next hour and fifteen minutes as I impatiently awaited the arrival of 9am. Eventually, my partner in crime Andy Evans (www.andyevansillustration.com) arrived and we passed the time talking to a pleasant guy from Iowa. 9am rolled around and we got the packet and meandered our way off to find our booth and claim our rightful place as almighty artists - or at least a few guys hoping someone would just buy our stuff.... At this point we set up all of our stuff and I have a moment to breathe (as if I didn't have all the time in the world to do this while waiting earlier...) and looked at the program to see what time this party was getting kicked off.... my watch was reading 9:15 am.....
The convention started at 12-noon.
@#*$#@!
After sobbing openly for a few humiliating moments, Mr. Evans and I took a (very) leisurely tour around the nearly silent convention center looking at artists' booths and commenting on the work we liked and also didn't care for - you know, typical artist crap. After killing enough time, we headed back to our booth and settled in for the grueling 12-8 convention day.
We met all kinds of cool people and some you would more likely consider douche-bags. Andy sold some prints and I did some drawings for people. One guy had me draw him a picture of Hellboy all zombie-fied and another guy had me draw him a picture of Jedi Quinlin Voss from the Star Wars comics. I must say, drawing Voss was fun and it turned out really cool. The fellow who I drew it for was super cool. He said he'd stop back on Sunday when he returned for that day.
All in all it was a fun day - really inspiring, but really draining. Tomorrow Andy and I are going to see what kind of mischief we can get ourselves int0 (and hopefully out of too...) and go on a photo scavenger hunt. We might even have an "out-geek the other" competition.
I can't wait!
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