VCON Day 1, part 1: The dealer room

Friday, I roll in around noon to set up. Adam was due any minute to drop off my stash. I found my way to the dealer room on the 3rd floor, and was pointed in the general direction of my table. I had the room map in my head- Once I realized which way the map in my head should be facing, it was all good.

On the way in, I spotted Kevin from BC chains, (specializing in custom chain-mail armour) who I was across from last year. He said he'd re-read Lifehack quite a few times, and was happy to hear I was launching the next book today.

I chatted a little with a fellow vendor across the aisle, who was setting up a board game display for her shop, Starlit Citadel. (I forgot the names of darn near everyone... I suck. I'm having to look up a lot of names here..) After checking out my position a little, I left the room to meet up with Adam, only to find him coming down the hall with 2 Omnex minions helping to haul stuff in. Once deposited, he and his minion mini-horde receded into the shadows, and were gone.

Across the trench from me, (The vendor-only space between the tables) Autumn D. Gentle was setting up her table, with her vampire books (she also does audio books!) and some other bits and bobs. Autumn is a bit of a contradiction in herself. Too shy to really talk to visitors much and push her books, but confident enough to wear thigh-hugging fishnet stockings with a skirt not much bigger than a tutu. "This is nothing," she said about the outfit on a later day, "You should see what I wear to go clubbing." she was a riot. Her sister and her boyfriend came to help out/hang out a bit at different times over the weekend. His name... Blake? And he had awesome pants. Autumn's boots took the cake though.

To the left of her table was a fellow representing "Mindstorm" games, with their new pen&paper RPG system, "Alpha and Omega". It's set 200 years after the bombs go off, and there's a bit about alient involvement. (Which is a playable race)
They'reBEAUTIFUL friggin books, just jaw dropping. Layout and presentation, and the illustrations.. and primo stuff. Oh yeah, and the game system looked logical and solid too. Unlike D&D manuals, you could open a random page in Alpha&Omega, and have a ****ing CLUE what it was talking about with a little logic, and not by looking up 47 tables in different manuals. If I was still in the RPG phase of my life, I would have been really tempted to grab a set. I think at least one of his customers bought em just for the illustrations.

Across the trench from him, and to my right... was a blank table. On day 2, and ONLY day 2, White Dwarf books occupied it, and did alright. But beyond that was a man selling for "Gaukler Medieval wares". He had 2 tables to display all his stuff (mainly jewelery) and when White Dwarf wasn't there, we both took half of that table, partly just to avoid an unsightly blank...

One more notable dealer within earshot, (To yabber on with in the quiet times) was against the wall to my left, "Professor Whovianart" who seemed to specialize mainly in steampunk oddities. He's got yo-yos (Oh, excuse me, RETURN TOPS), an oscilloscope, and a funky collection of goggles, among other things. And his lego is NOT for sale! (Tip, Professor:, any sentence that stats out "Everything but the lego," is not the kind of thing I want to hear!)

Nearly everyone I mentioned gave me a bit of a hand with my Poster display, which started out on the table... until it changed its mind. It spent the rest of the con standing on the floor.

As the dealer room hours went on, we saw many of the same visitors from last year... well... I did, anyway. Alpha&Omega guy... uh, let's call him Alpha... and Autumn hadn't done VCON before, so I felt like the veteran in my section of the room, with a whole other year's event with of experience. Whoopiedo!

"Is is always this dead?" Autumn asked early on Friday.
"No," mulled the seasoned VCON veteran Ozero, "This is just like before. Friday starts slow. People still at work, grabbing dinner. They'll come. They mostly come out at night. Mostly."

Alright, I might not have phrased it like that... but it was also the series premiere of Stargate: Universe that night... much to my own irritation.

The dealer room closed for the day at 7pm, and my own sales had come around, one of which was to Kevin of BcChains, who added a small tin of candy, that I had bought him out of last year. (They make great RPG dice containers!)

Many familiar visitors 'orbited' around the dealer room, striking up conversation, generally hanging out. Not buying. But that's fine, half the reason I'm here is to hang with my fellow nerds, not to push sales onto 'the orbiters'.

Wow, I've gone on quite a bit... good time to wrap up this entry. Next time: Friday- Book Launch event!

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