C2D4 Has officially landed!!!
Well what a great weekend at Bristol. It really feels like C2D4 has officially landed.
We set off from Chelmsford bright-eyed and busy-tailed and early (around 9am) with hope in our hearts!
After a short time driving around Bristol looking for the hotel, (and cursing the seemingly over-exuberant amount of traffic lights), a sense of Déjà vu beginning to creep in form last year, we finally found it down the same side street we hadn’t thought to look down in 2007.
Then we made our way to the British Empire and Commonwealth Exhibition Hall to set up for the following day. The whole of the previous week we’d put a lot of thought into what we needed/should be taking to the show, “No we’ve got everything” we both said. “Can’t think of anything else we’d need.” Yep – we forgot to take a tablecloth.
Still a quick trip into Bristol city, and 20 minutes later we returned brandishing three metres of bright red and white striped material to cover the table. We then position our banner on top of it creating something that certainly stood out against the multitude of black table coverings.
That done we happily retired for the evening ready for the next day.
The next day as we walked to Temple Meads, the realisation of what were about to do suddenly begun to sink in, as the nervous tension built up by the excitement of months of preperation wore off!
Were we really ready for this? What would we say if people asked us about our stuff?
AND WHAT IF THEY DIDN’T LIKE US!?!?
Refraining from running back to the hotel and burning rubber back to Essex, we nervously we sat down and waited for the doors to open. 10am came and we waited nervously as the crowds began to make their way around the exhibition, but apart from a few cursory glances we seemed to get very little interest? Our fears seemed to becoming true. We could always slink away later that evening. No one need know.
“Don’t worry it always starts slow was the advice”, from Rich and Rob of Pantomime press, verterans of the show, who found themselves stuck next to us, and obviously saw our nerves getting the better of us.
And they were right, 45 minutes later – our first sale – a copy of LOTCH quickly followed by another, then a smiling punter came and bought one of each of our titles. We were off. A steady stream of visitors to the stand throughout the day, attracted in no small part by a certain six foot chicken, evaporated any thoughts that we’d made a mistake.
Not being sales people we didn’t know what to say when people picked our stuff up, how do you explain a Samurai Chicken, or a boy brought up in a box, or a man who runs around wearing a crow mask?
We just took the option of sitting there smiling nervously and saying thanks to all the complements.
But at the end of the day, we like to think the comics did the speaking for themselves.
And over the course of the first day we sold 20 issues. This was followed up by another 10 on the Sunday. A number that was far beyond our wildest dreams and apparently quite a feat for first time exhibitors. In fact when we told people who asked how our first day went, the number was greated with a mixture of smiles, contemplative nods, raised eye brows, and looks of downright surprise, along with questions of “It’s really your first show?”
This is something that perhaps gave us the most confidence, that fact that people couldn’t believe we were first timers. Our banners, quickly purchased a fortnight ago, thanks to a tip of from Insomnia’s Alasdair Duncan, and our hastily purchased stand out table cloth, put on top of that the always professional looking job Redlin make of our printing, seemed to convince people we knew what we were doing.
On the urging of Rich and Rob, we nervously approached Gosh comics, who have offered to stock some comics of each title, to see how it goes. So we’ll be dropping some in over the next few weeks.
And bouyed by our success, we even decided to offer our stuff up to Diamond Distributors for consideration. Brand manager Ben praised Tony’s art and once again seemed genuinely surprised by the fact we’d done so well on our first outing. So we’ve now got a copy of LOTCH, JITB and CROWMAN, heading off to the US of A for Diamond’s review board to have a look at, so we’ll get back to that in the next few weeks hopefully.
Watch this space :)
We set off from Chelmsford bright-eyed and busy-tailed and early (around 9am) with hope in our hearts!
After a short time driving around Bristol looking for the hotel, (and cursing the seemingly over-exuberant amount of traffic lights), a sense of Déjà vu beginning to creep in form last year, we finally found it down the same side street we hadn’t thought to look down in 2007.
Then we made our way to the British Empire and Commonwealth Exhibition Hall to set up for the following day. The whole of the previous week we’d put a lot of thought into what we needed/should be taking to the show, “No we’ve got everything” we both said. “Can’t think of anything else we’d need.” Yep – we forgot to take a tablecloth.
Still a quick trip into Bristol city, and 20 minutes later we returned brandishing three metres of bright red and white striped material to cover the table. We then position our banner on top of it creating something that certainly stood out against the multitude of black table coverings.
That done we happily retired for the evening ready for the next day.
The next day as we walked to Temple Meads, the realisation of what were about to do suddenly begun to sink in, as the nervous tension built up by the excitement of months of preperation wore off!
Were we really ready for this? What would we say if people asked us about our stuff?
AND WHAT IF THEY DIDN’T LIKE US!?!?
Refraining from running back to the hotel and burning rubber back to Essex, we nervously we sat down and waited for the doors to open. 10am came and we waited nervously as the crowds began to make their way around the exhibition, but apart from a few cursory glances we seemed to get very little interest? Our fears seemed to becoming true. We could always slink away later that evening. No one need know.
“Don’t worry it always starts slow was the advice”, from Rich and Rob of Pantomime press, verterans of the show, who found themselves stuck next to us, and obviously saw our nerves getting the better of us.
And they were right, 45 minutes later – our first sale – a copy of LOTCH quickly followed by another, then a smiling punter came and bought one of each of our titles. We were off. A steady stream of visitors to the stand throughout the day, attracted in no small part by a certain six foot chicken, evaporated any thoughts that we’d made a mistake.
Not being sales people we didn’t know what to say when people picked our stuff up, how do you explain a Samurai Chicken, or a boy brought up in a box, or a man who runs around wearing a crow mask?
We just took the option of sitting there smiling nervously and saying thanks to all the complements.
But at the end of the day, we like to think the comics did the speaking for themselves.
And over the course of the first day we sold 20 issues. This was followed up by another 10 on the Sunday. A number that was far beyond our wildest dreams and apparently quite a feat for first time exhibitors. In fact when we told people who asked how our first day went, the number was greated with a mixture of smiles, contemplative nods, raised eye brows, and looks of downright surprise, along with questions of “It’s really your first show?”
This is something that perhaps gave us the most confidence, that fact that people couldn’t believe we were first timers. Our banners, quickly purchased a fortnight ago, thanks to a tip of from Insomnia’s Alasdair Duncan, and our hastily purchased stand out table cloth, put on top of that the always professional looking job Redlin make of our printing, seemed to convince people we knew what we were doing.
On the urging of Rich and Rob, we nervously approached Gosh comics, who have offered to stock some comics of each title, to see how it goes. So we’ll be dropping some in over the next few weeks.
And bouyed by our success, we even decided to offer our stuff up to Diamond Distributors for consideration. Brand manager Ben praised Tony’s art and once again seemed genuinely surprised by the fact we’d done so well on our first outing. So we’ve now got a copy of LOTCH, JITB and CROWMAN, heading off to the US of A for Diamond’s review board to have a look at, so we’ll get back to that in the next few weeks hopefully.
Watch this space :)
posted by Martin Buxton at
06:27
1 Comments
