What We Learned as a Convention Vendor with Nothing To Vend

Written By Ray Dubicki

This past weekend, Infinite Shop Limited had a vendor table at GeekGirlCon, a two-day convention supporting women and girls in pop culture, STEM, and gaming. We’ve been to GGC as as attendees for years. This was our first experience on the other side of a vendor table.

The original intent was to promote two podcasts at GGC: Millie Salmon and the Infinite Shop and Summer Orbit. We refocused in September to just promote Millie Salmon for several reasons. Summer Orbit is being retooled for release over winter, so there’s not much at the moment to share besides amazing logos. Millie has a currently available podcast and e-book with a paperback imminent. Also the story of teenager Millie finding out her family’s second-hand bookstore is an interstellar spaceship seems directly in line with GGC.

However, there was nothing physical to sell. None of the crafts, artwork, or games that other tables had. We could point people to the podcast, Amazon, or Instagram, but nothing more. Was it smart to take a pitch to a convention?

Up front, GGC is a fantastic convention that everyone should experience. The GeekGirlCon community is one of the best groups of creatives that you will ever have the chance to meet. The convention is a welcoming place with so many fan bases showing absolute love for the material. It’s great for first-time convention attendees who don’t need chaos and thousands of dollars in loot crates, while interesting for frequent con fans who want to meet fabulous local artists doing amazing work. We’re ecstatic that Millie Salmon had even a small corner in the GGC community.

Even the experience of being on the vendor side of the table was a genuine delight. We pitched the podcast to something over 400 people. I tallied, but got so involved in talking that we only got general trends, not so much specifics. We ordered 500 business cards and there are less than 50 remaining. Of those, I would say that the majority were quality conversations where people expressed interest and took an action to interact with the booth or follow up online.

The best were the tweens, Millie’s target demographic. When we said “Millie finds her family’s book shop is a…” we would wait a beat before closing with the kicker “…interstellar spaceship.” The wide eyes and little stunned response from so many kids was absolutely worth any expense.

Ray, looking very in charge when he was very much not feeling that way. 

What did we spend?

But expense is a real thing. Here’s some details on whether attending the convention made financial sense. In the most basic terms, we spent a total of $875 to earn $0 revenue.

Our main give-away was a beaded bracelet that said “MILLIE.” The charm bracelet is a crucial part of Millie’s story and it was an excellent idea to tie in something physical to a verbal pitch. We included a drawing pad at the table for creative kids to draw their own charm on Millie’s bracelet. And there were standing signs for Millie’s book with QR codes and an email sign up for more info.

The expenditures break down like so:

  • $300 for the table

  • $325 for materials (business cards, beads to make handouts, shirts, and purple table cloth)

  • $100 for food (2 people brown bag lunches, after-con dinner, too much coffee)

  • $50 for candy to hand out (mostly unused)

  • $40 for last minute printing

  • $60 for parking (2 days in downtown Seattle)

Some of the pain was spread out, with the table fees paid in August, most of the materials through October, and the on-site costs due in November. The last minute printing and candy may be excessive, perhaps a little panic spending as we didn’t know what to expect and wanted to cover all the possibilities to get attention.

Undeclared among these costs are the hundreds of hours we spent getting ready for the convention, assembling the beaded Millie bracelets, and just worrying. Also not declared were materials we had around the house, including markers and papers for the art project, a few extra bags of potato chips, and even the wagon to transport stuff across the convention floor.

Behind the Table at GGC, including all of the food, crafts, treats, and materials that went into a successful weekend.

What did we get?

I’ll start with what we did not get out of the convention. We did not sell the movie rights to Millie Salmon to Netflix for an 8-figure development deal. (Meaning that’s still available, call me.) We did not sell any books because, if you look at the costs above, they were not shipped in time for the convention. They came in on Tuesday.

Here is where I’m torn. I want to boast at the 200% increase in subscribers we had across Apple, YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify. The website traffic increased by 300% over the weekend.

The hard part is the absolute numbers these percentages represent:

The webpage had 35 hits and we had 21 people sign up for the mailing list. I was trying to be realistic before the convention and say I would consider 20 new Instagram followers as a big success. The number was exceeded by our email list sign up, and separately by the total 26 new subscribers across all platforms. This is a win.

The reverse side of the famous Seattle Convention Center Arch, a view from the loading dock that most folks don’t get to see.

Lessons Learned

I am absolutely grateful for the new subscribers, and look forward to making their time commitment worth it. The hard numbers remaining stubbornly in the single digits are the reality of starting an enterprise from scratch. Every success is earned, some through harder experience than others.

Next convention, I would make a few changes. We know some stuff we don’t need to carry along, including books to occupy ourselves. We will have a few items for sale, as some people would like to show their interest in ways other than just listening to a pitch or clicking subscribe. Also, we will buy 10% of the volume of candy, if any.

We’ll have to build up some more readership before we see if the pitch of “…interstellar spaceship” works as well with Netflix as it did with a couple hundred tweens this weekend. Kiddos’ excitement is still worth it.

Ray Dubicki
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