1 down 1 to go

Well, I managed to survive my first big con. Getting there was an indication of how things were to go. Seems that the hotel was on one street and the directions said to go to a different street. so that was an hour wasted.....
Once we got settled, it took me a few hours to get into a groove. Certain things that I had forgotten about cons came back to me. I had done cons before, but my last one was in '04 (I think) and then I didn't have anything to sell. I have a small window to make my pitch. Fortunately the Philly crowd is waaaay different from the New York Crowd so it was easier to get them to come to my table and give out a flier. Unfortunately, Peter and I (along with our guest at the table Brian Kong, but he had his own stuff to sell) are not "sellers" that's what the girls are for.
See just like the radio show itself, each person has a specific job to do. Since I hadn't done a con in such a long time, and every con I had attended previously always had (at least) one girl, I forgot that point. Pete's job was to network. He went around and used his name to tell others about the show (which he did). He also brought a "name" to the table. My job is to know about everything at the table and make the pitch. I should be able to answer any and all questions about the show, the stuff for sale, and the upcoming projects that are being promoted (which I did). The girls sell. Jennifer couldn't make it, Jess was actually there, but she was working at her own table, and it was too much of a short notice for Belkis to come. So there was no girl. Sales were very low. But I think I spread the word better than ever before. According to the counter on the web page, we jumped 40+ hits between Thursday and Monday. Now I have to see how much more we jump on This Thursday.
I met some cool guys, made a slew of contacts, got some guests for the show. The bad thing is that the cons (both this week's and last week's) messed up my radio show scheduling. Had I not attended the cons, this weeks show would have been the FF4 2 review, next week would be the 1408 review, then Transformers. All one week after the came out in the theaters. But with the cons, we do a con wrap up show so that puts me 2 weeks behind. So, this week we talk about Philly, next is Big Apple, then FF, Transformers, and 1408. Oh well.....



10/21/08 update: While cons should have been the highlight of my company, it turned out to be the downside of "coming back". The radio show had a pretty good dynamic (even with the cast changes), but the cons seemed to fall short. Once again (I see a recurring theme here) it's a pay for play issue. I felt that everyone was as into this as I was. While they all want to succeed, it's just not the same as my drive, my desire. For them it was something, for me it was everything. It still is.