*~ The Gods' Pack ~* SacAnime 2007 Report

SacAnime 2007 Report

SacAnime was my first big professional convention. I was totally jazzed, got a bunch of swag ready in advance, got a snazzy new banner, and was all set and ready to rock it. Let me just say first off that in the long run, it was a good learning experience and I got to meet and talk to a ton of really awesome people. But there was trouble with the convention itself from the beginning.

I had to arrive late on Friday afternoon from work over at UC Davis. I was exhausted after another week of being on my feet for 16 hours a day for a week. I got to Sac Anime and found that the tables were screwy and the artists had been stashed away in a strange little room that most people passed by completely. When I found an empty table, I realized there were no chairs for me and Amy from Everything Goes. I told the hotel folks that I needed a chair at least once every 30 minutes for the next 3 hours. Never got a chair. A very awesome con-goer ended up taking pity on me and Amy and stole us a chair. First day didn't make that great of an impression on me and I was pretty grumpy that day.

Next day was a little better, until we realized they had overbooked the artists and there weren't enough tables for all of us. Pete from Bardsworth was nice enough to share a table with Tealya from Yang Child and Tainted. More grumpiness on everyone's part. The artists were beginning to realize that very few people were coming into artist's alley and our pockets were suffering for it. I was told that the previous year, the artists had been in with the venders so everyone benefited. We tried our best anyway and I even went out and bribed some of the hangers-around with TGP Swag to get people to come in and check out artist's alley.

The last day was much the same, grumpy artists about our isolation and lack of people wanting to spend money on us. But at least everyone had a table. We tried to get things perkier in the morning by having an artist's breakfast together, which was fun and got everyone to trade e-mails and the like so we could pimp out each other's artistic endeavors. Which I'm going to do right now!
Anna, Holi, Sasha, and Meagan, a quad of amazing artists and wonderful people who made artist's alley fun and kooky and kept away the grumpies. Pete, who runs a webcomic called Bardsworth. It's cute and funny and he's such a well humoured and nice guy. And, of course, Amy who runs Everything Goes and Tealya who runs Yang Child and Tainted. All three of which are more awesome webcomics and run by good friends of mine.

Photos!