Danelle’s very looong rAge 2012 post!

rAge2012!

Hello all!

Wow,  I just can’t believe that it’s been a whole week since rAge started. This time last week we were grinning hopefully at customers from behind our table at the #LegionInk Artist Alley.
I think it’s about time I wrote my little report on the event as just about everyone else has beaten me to it. Hah!

Okay, first off… =Ben-G-Geldenhuys and I were lucky enough to undertake this awesome journey with the likes of #Hello-SouthAfrica admin Clarence Musson and the very awesome Sir Kevin Gibson. For good measure, the lovely, multi-talented Dorianne also joined us on the flight up, providing infinite coolness points to our posse.

In JHB itself, we had the privilege to stay with #Hello-SouthAfrica admin Ky Goulden and his amazing partner Damien, who is an extremely talented moulding specialist.
Can you tell we really enjoyed this trip?? We were surrounded by creative, fun people from start to finish.

On to the actual event:
Day 1 saw us selling a comic in the morning to our very first customer. As I take out my super special EF Golden marker to sign it… the pen promptly explodes golden ink everywhere. We’d forgotten about that thing that happens when you take containers of any kind from CT to JHB on a plane… the pressure inside is higher, and things tend to, well, explode when you open them. SO, here we are with our first customer, and the pen won’t stop gushing (expensive) golden paint everywhere. It made a HUGE LAKE OF GOLD on this guy’s comic, and on our sales book, and all over my hand, and just… everywhere. Luckily not on the other stock or on the table cloth (phew). I keep trying to equalise the pressure in the pen but just as soon as I think it’s over, it starts again. Kind of like a stomach virus really. Except in gold.
Anyway, all the while I apologise profusely to the customer, who seemed to be super chuffed with the fact that his comic is now utterly steeped in gold. He refused the offer of another comic to replace the messy one, saying that this one is probably the most unique comic out there. Which is true. So, if you are that guy and  are reading this… thanks for being cool about it! 

Day 2 got off to a bit of a crappy start because some LegionInkers had noticed that some of their stock had grown legs in the night… Personally we also had a few things go missing as well and that was really not cool.  There was a suspicion that it was other expo participants, as the LANers are stuck in their LAN cage and the public had no access to our goods at the time when things had gone missing. Security was alerted and they’d promised to do what they can to prevent this from happening again. The problem is that there are only so many guards for the massive expo floor, and they can’t be everywhere 24/7. We’ve all taken a lesson from this. So next year, we’re locking our stock into their carry cases and taking home whatever can’t be locked away.

Day 2 was also the longest day, with by far the most foot traffic. We’re talking THOUSANDS of people. Lizelle‘s MLP chubbies pretty much sold out that day, and we moved a whole load of stickers as well. There were some unpleasant customers too, but luckily those were in the minority.

I really wanted to go around to the other tables and chat with the other LegionInkers, but somehow I just didn’t get the time, there was always something happening that got in the way. I did manage to chat to my friends Taran and Ronald though, even if it was only briefly. So thanks to all the other stallholders who popped by for a chat, we really appreciate it!

The cosplay contest was also on the Saturday, but sadly we were too busy being glued to our table to serve customers (I held in my pee like nobody’s business that day) that we couldn’t even break away to go and watch. There were also some issues with the speaker system, so sadly we didn’t even know that the contest was on until it was half over! The outfits were AMAZING though, and you can go read more about the cosplay event here: [link] and here: [link] and NAG’s official article: [link]

Here’s a pic of Saturday’s throng, taken from our table, across the rest of the CT contingency (somehow all the Capetonians all chose tables on this specific stretch!) – including the boys from #VelocityAnthology and ~TheyDidThis– both of whom were launching new comics publications at rAge 2012.

And for more photos of the expo, you can have a look at the LegionInk facebook group album: [link]

Clarence also did a lot of interviews on this day, to include in his documentary of rAge2012 for . He’s posted a short compilation of bloopers/antics so far, and it has us in stitches! Can’t wait to see the rest, it’s going to be awesome. We spent so much time just laughing and having fun on this trip.

Day 3 saw rAge winding down. Oddly enough our prints sales picked up. People were coming back for things that they’d spotted earlier on in the weekend and had waited to see if they had any money left after buying things elsewhere. There was one girl who’d been at our table multiple times studying a canvas print I’d made of  – and who’d come back and bought it, having made absolutely 100% sure that it was what she wanted. I was really happy because it meant that she’d compared my canvas to everything else on the expo of the same value, and decided that she’d rather buy that than anything else. What a great feeling! 
After the expo had closed and we were packing up, we’d managed to secure a few helium balloons, and were doing the hamster-voice thing… and yes, Clarence had filmed a lot of it, so keep your eyes peeled for videographic evidence! It was hilarious.

Ky also took a pretty photo of the #Hello-SouthAfrica admins: 

back left to right:  *ZeroExile =Kyrelimit *Kitty-Cat-Angel *CaptainUnobservant
front left to right: =dwuff =Ben-G-Geldenhuys

And now, for some more pictures:
 (photo by Chanel Rossouw.)

And last but not least, the wonderful (and tuckered-out!) people that made it happen:

Thank you to every single one who was involved in making rAge 2012 AWESOME. You know who you are! 

Danelle