UCON 2015: done and dusted!
UCON 2015 has come and gone! Here are our impressions trading at the show for the first time:
The event was held in December this year, at the start of our long, hot summer. The hall was sweltering! According to the weather forecast, outside temperatures ranged into the 30s ºC, with all of us inside a hall with very little ventilation, no aircon, and tons of skylights. The result was akin to sitting inside a hothouse. A few of our fellow traders foresaw this, and requested plug points to plug in their electric fans. We really wish we’d done that, because the heat was unbearable! There was a stand selling fans, and I am pretty sure they sold out on the first day.
Our friend Milo was smart enough to bring her own fan!
Heat aside, we were very pleased with how our new display and pricing turned out. It looked great! Could do with some more streamlining though, but that can be refined over time. We were lucky to have a good spot on the end of one of the rows, which allowed us to make full use of our second table. We could prop up our new display grid there to get some height. We were very happy with the results.
Our rollup banner and display grid looked really nice together!
We made new price tags attached to tiny clothespins. It worked really well!
Our rotating original art stand was eye catching and practical.
Our sticker stand is a rotating jewellery display, and the perspex container is from a shopfitting place.
Sales wise, unfortunately we didn’t make any money. We barely broke even on printing, but considering what we spent on new display things, we actually ran at a loss. However, the display stuff was a good business investment for us, so hopefully we’ll make that back at the next show.
We think the heat drove a lot of customers away. When you’re baking in your own skin, the last thing you want to do is stand in a crowd and deliberate over purchases. You want to get out as soon as you can, and sadly we saw a lot of that happening. The heat also sapped our energy and made it difficult to be upbeat when customers came by. It was also a quiet time of year, with most international students already gone home, and others on vacation. The organisers seem to agree with us, and have mentioned their intentions to move UCON to a more suitable time of year.
But, all that aside, UCON was a good learning experience. We got to test out new display items and layouts, and tested the market on some new products. Our best selling items by far were the posters. There are still plenty left, by the way! We will be taking orders online now. They’re not listed on Indiecomics, but you can message us to order. They are $10 excluding shipping. No promises to deliver on time for Christmas though, the postal system is already overstuffed by this time of year.
Despite the heat, there were some really good cosplays! We felt extremely sorry for the ones in full suits and/or covered in paint, but they are champs for sticking it out. Hopefully none of them got heatstroke.
Ok, enough talk, here are some more photos!
Valentina Phillips aka Veelocity Art had some amazing work on dispaly. We own one of her Geralt of Rivia prints!
Valentina also had the most beautiful originals at a complete steal. We would have bought them all if we could.
We just loved these cute reindeer cards by Lorraine Alvarez Posen.
Lorraine also had these adorable chameleon magnets which ended up being our sole purchase from UCON!
Here they are, living on our chaotic fridge!
Our lovely neighbour from EGE, Juley, was also at UCON!
This faun cosplay was impressive but looked a bit difficult to walk in!
A high angle shot of our stand!
That’s it from us about UCON 2015!
Have a great December, all.
Love
Ben & Danelle
