Artist Alley Vlog ~ San Francisco Fan Expo
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- We tabled at San Francisco Fan Expo for the first time, join us in the Artist Alley!
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We just finished up our first convention in San Francisco, and wowee what a learning experience! Fan Expo does not seem to be a style of convention that is worth our time and investment unfortunately, but these are lessons a vendor must learn!
If anyone has any specific questions about my experience at this convention, please feel free to ask! And don’t forget, check out my patreon for detailed earnings information! Pledge for $5 or higher to access this and all my other convention vlogs! / lespiritdesigns
✧ TIMESTAMPS ✧
0:00 Intro
1:01 Day 1
6:21 Day 2
8:44 Fan Expo Review
16:16 Profits vs Expenses
19:27 Outro
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I always enjoyed watching your videos 🌈🌈 I'm from méxico and just starting to go to artist Alley and sometimes I felt silly starting as an adult, buy when i found other anime/cartoon lover adults it always warms my heart.
Fan Expo Denver is the only Fan Expo show I touch. I would recommend that one only because it's Denver's ONLY event, so you get everybody showing up.
See that’s what I thought about Fan X too, but I’m definitely interested in trying new markets!
"This is the second con in a row now that has been absolutely a waste of my time." Con life 🤖
Sorry to hear about the show being a dud :( appreciate your honest review!
I just applied for their 2024 show and after researching more about the sf expo event in 2023 I'm more inclined I might have to pull out ... I'm an out of state artist trying to do more cons and shows and watching your video really helped get a better idea of the show turnout ! Hopefully your future events did better 💞
O just apply for this show too 😢
You went on the launch year, so there’s that, give the show a few years to build up steam and check out the attendees again. Also FanX and Fan expo are different company’s. If you did bad in Salt Lake that’s not good because that show is a monster for us vendors. Speaking from a retailer POV not an artist. Good luck with everything
Eesh, I'd heard Fan Expo was bad but was still tempted to apply to artist alley. Glad I didn't, they're a mess!
Hi do you have a video on how you went about organizing your products with product codes and how you use that to simplify your checkout process? I’m interested in doing something like that for my store. Thank you❤
i’ve mostly heard bad things about fan expo shows! the only one i’ve ever heard positives about is the toronto show (which i think is the original?) although i know they bought a ton of shows in the past few years and i’m not super caught up on what they run now.
i’m so sorry you had two bad shows in a row, that’s such an awful feeling! i’m at a dead con this weekend too so i definitely relate haha. i hope seasons screamings go well (midsummer scream is one of my dream shows to vend at!) good luck!!
Your stuff would do SO well at this show!!! Hopefully you can do it someday~ But man I’m hearing that so many shows have been a bust in the 4th quarter this year, it’s a huge downer. Hopefully your show picks up QwQ
@@LeSpiritDesigns yeah i’ve been hearing nonstop bummers about recent cons too 😭 sadly my show is still flopping on saturday but at least it was cheapish hahahaaa. i hope your weekend is going well!!
ughh I'm sorry it was bad for you!! I liked your set-up and your cheat sheet!
Thank you! It has been super handy. And yeahhhh I’m really hoping for a good weekend now to make up for it!
I'm doing Fan Expo Cleveland this spring and I'm a little worried ngl. I (and some friends of mine who also applied) had the same experience with the application process. I've heard some Fan Expo shows are great, so I don't know why there's so much variance in quality.
Oh no, I hope it goes well for you! I’m honestly not sure why some do well and some don’t, but it’s a huge bummer that the application process is all the same and disorganized 😭
It sucks that you felt leaving early was the better choice but I couldn't help but laugh... I do Artist Alleys as well (with my etsy shop Cosmos Dream) and no matter where I look, artists struggle to make business at cons these days. I just returned from German Comic Con and it was terribly empty there and most artists I talked to struggled to break even, including me. Similar the week before at a different con. Now I come on TH-cam and see that it's not any different in the US... The current economy sucks and I hope it won't get any worse.
Here in Spain we aren't in a better spot. It's always been difficult to table due to the general income as a country (we are talking 6€ 6cm epoxy keychains with cool handles and effects being called "too pricey"). But these past few months there's been a general struggle to stay afloat. Plus we are now entering a scenario where there are such an increase in artists wanting to table that is getting ridiculous. We are in applying season for next year and cons are tweeting how they are receiving 1000+ applications for 40 tables, even the lesser known small cons are getting insane numbers. I know plenty of artists with 1 to none cons next year, veterans and all. And all that on top of the increase in prices for tables, production, living, etc Tough times
Did you make your table money back at least? I signed up for this year in SF! Although I’m a bit nervous now watching your vid! 😅
I thought parking was freee :(
I made my expenses back, but definitely not by enough to have made it worth it. Best of luck to you at this show!
@@LeSpiritDesigns ahhh that’s good at least, not all is wasted! 😅 thank you for replying! 🙏
Hi I have a question. Around 5:37 you mentioned that your neighbor artist left. Now when you say that's not good, is that not good for the artist, or for the con?
So this is bad for everyone usually! It looks bad for the con to have vendors pack up and leave in the middle of the event, but it could also hurt the artist who leaves if the con decides to ban them from future events. It’s also not great for the nearby tables because attendees will use an empty table to put their trash and other stuff
Oh I see.
That's very interesting. Thank you much. So sorry you had a bad con....always expect the worst when doing cons right?
@@Victor-vl4bg I try not to! I at very least keep my expectations low, but I wouldn't do them at all if I always expected them to be bad!
@@LeSpiritDesigns True that judging from your artist alley vlogs you had some very successful cons. So happy about that for you. Have you ever thought about traveling to other places in the nation, like Texas lets say?
I've heard fan expo shows aren't that great :( I'm sorry you had a bad experience back to back! I will say though for events on the weekend after Thanksgiving are usually pretty good if you're going to more holiday/small local area markets, at least in Washington state where I am those events are pretty decent for Black Friday/Small Business Saturday weekend.
This was my first con visiting. It was lively in certain areas of the artist alley and dead on other sides. IDK but it felt it bit underwhelming. I don't know if its because I had so much fun at San Jose halloween bar crawl and santa cruz halloween parade but this felt much weaker in terms of entertainment value
This insight from an attendee point of view is great to have, to know we vendors didn’t just feel like it was lackluster from our perspective! I promise most cons are much more fun than this one, but I’m glad to hear the other events you went to were great!
fanx and fanexpo are different companies. with informa cons (fanexpo) if you ask them for a refund (like few months before) they usually give them to you. very unorganized cons in generally and not really worth it xd
Oh that’s good to know for sure! They just feel extremely similar in a lot of ways, so it was hard to tell. But fan expo really is just bad, and it’s sad that I haven’t found one person yet to say otherwise.
@@LeSpiritDesigns haha ya they are both very unorganized in their own way. fanx emails give me a migraine.
Sorry you had a bad show. Just came off a bad one for Galaxycon Columbus as well. (stick to their Raleigh and Richmond shows) As far as FanExpos I'm from Orlando so Megacon does extremely well (if you can get in) and recently moved to Denver and did very well this year too. I've heard good things about FanExpo Boston and Dallas though I can't personally confirm. Good luck out there.
On behalf of Utah, I’m so sorry - I promise FanX is legitimately the worst convention in this stage for actual fans of things - Anime Banzai is DEFINITELY not the best in the world, but it’s my home con and the artist alley is literally always packed and lined out the door. If you ever get the chance, come check us out ❤
Thank you, I’ll have to check it out!
Ah, informa / fan expo! They're the only real deal in my neck of the woods but they're SO DISORGANIZED. Getting emails answered is so difficult. That said, their shows are usually well attended and we do okay with them
I’m curious which one you are close to! I’ve heard the Denver one is good, but I don’t exactly want to travel to it to find out. But yeah, the level of disorganization vs cost to table is just…. Sketchy.
@@LeSpiritDesigns I'm in Canada so the Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton ones. They're all disorganized in my experience so far!
The flag ship show in Toronto last summer was letting people know their statuses the days leading up to the show, it was nuts.
really weird of them to have you pay without giving you comformation on the spot
RIGHT they hold thousands of dollars hostage for months, I wonder when the people who applied in January had to wait for confirmation 🤡
Welcome to Informa Events, they're terrible to work with and their shows are so eh since they bought most of their shows from Wizard World. Their only good show is Megacon in Orlando. I think it's so sketchy that they hold SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS hostage from their vendors. They use vendors as like a bank. 🙃I'm sorry it was bad. :(
Also I have been trying to get into a midsummer scream for years but it seems to hate out of state vendors :( all I do is spooky so I hope it goes well for you~ I can only keep dreaming.
YEAH I really didn’t like giving them my money for months before knowing if I was in or not 🫠 Very sus. I’ve heard their fan expo in Denver is decent, but I’m not about to go find out 😅
I’m so sorry to hear you haven’t been able to get in! This is my first event with them and I’m not sure if midsummer is harder to get into than this one, but if we do well I really want to try to get into the bigger one. But keep trying!
I've heard good things about megacon, and I did my 3rd highest show with fanexpo denver, doing better than sakuracon and katsucon for me.
Good to know not every fanexpo might not be worth it.
There are some fan expo shows that are decent! This one was definitely not it though 😭 I don’t know a single person I spoke to who was happy with the outcome
Ugh, so sorry this show was a dud.😞
It’s always hard to leave a show not doing well! It makes me extra thankful for support on patreon and other social media though 😭💖