Hello, my fellow Adventurers, I bring you some of my experience and insight into being a vendor at a 2-day convention!

As a long time, watchers of other small businesses’ vending experience at conventions on YouTube. I was very excited and had high expectations for the outcome.

At first, I wasn’t originally going to accept the invitation because I saw the email the same week of the event itself. T

his was my fault for not checking my emails enough to catch it earlier. But this was an opportunity that taught me some important lessons and helped me figure out my next direction.

One important lesson was that I can’t make 20+ notebooks in 4 days though I did try very hard and slept very little in my try. In the end I couldn’t finish the notebooks, but I did create a new service now known as Build-a-Book.

A semi-customizable notebook that lets you decide on the book cover, thread color for the binding itself, pattern design for the back pocket, whether the pages with be blank, dotted or lined, and even the corner protective colors.

A great starting point to having more customizable stationary to encourage individuality expression and authenticity. A new service will be coming to the online market soon!

Such high expectations and slightly elevated ego can result in quite a heavy blow when things don’t meet them.

This convention gave me quite a roller coaster of emotions from disappointment to happiness to anxiety to being proud.

Not a lot happened but I was still left exhausted and liberated from the experience.

Enough with the intro, let’s get into the details of what happened over the weekend!

Day 0: Set-Up and Last-Minute Crunch

One great advantage of getting into multi-day conventions is the opportunity to set up the prior day and I definitely took this opportunity for slightly less stress upon my weary soul.

This was also a good opportunity to check out the space I was allocated to (10 x 8 ft space with the emerging artist pack).

While I did know the dimensions beforehand, I’m a visual learner and seeing the spot was more helpful for setting up than imagining the placements.

It took about an hour and a half to arrive then an hour and a half to settle on a layout. I was given an aisle spot, so I really wanted to use take advantage of that.

(Please ignore the bare table, I didn’t think I would be given two 6 ft tables so I forgot to bring the extra table covering >.<.)

This took all my grids, started to question whether I needed to buy more in case of bigger sets up. But that’s a worry for another day.

My main goal with this set up was to attract people to see some things from a distance but also to encourage them to walk in and get a conversation started.

Looking around at all the other vendors made me feel like I was way out of my league, they had some professional set up and products.

There were ceramics, handbags, jewelry, large paintings, clothes and more. I was the only stationary vendor and the only fantasy artist.

But I couldn’t let that discourage me or I wouldn’t get far in life so let’s strive forward!

Time to go home and get some good rest before the big day, right?

Ha, of course not! As soon as I walked into my house, I started working on updating the booth signs to be uniform and up to date with all the current products available for sale. I was really looking forward to how the Build-a-Book service would be perceived.

Day 1: The Slow Start

Welcome to the 1^st day of my first multi day convention as a vendor!

One would think that I got plenty of sleep and big breakfast for a busy day of talking and making sales, right?

Well, that’s half right, I did get a pretty nice breakfast at Carl’s Jr, their French Toast Dips are pretty good, highly encourage everyone to try them at least one time (be sure to check when the breakfast hours end before driving their).

But I only got 3 hours of sleep at max, for some reason I just had too much energy to sit down let alone sleep. So, I just ended up doing some chores to tire myself out, probably my anxiety taking over.

It would be completely fine though; I’ll be too busy to be tired right?!

WRONG.

It was so slow and hardly anyone came in the whole day, the crowd was mostly older people with a few younger people walking around every now and then.

The confusion and stress were emotions I was struggling to squash this day. It was the total opposite of those YouTube Vlogs of other Small Business Vending at Convention.

And it was even in Pasadena CA, an expensive and very pretty city. I thought for sure that it would be a great convention for everyone, but the universe works in a mysterious way.

Thankfully, Day 1 wasn’t a total dud, and I got some sales. A few of that made me feel the happiest and proudest were the first Build-a-Book order and 2 of my hand knitted/crochet headbands.

Both were the newest products on my market, and it makes me happy that they got some love.

A full 8 hours of work, mostly spent fighting my impostor syndrome, trying to stay motivated for the financial goal I created for myself but didn’t even make half of that. I barely made a 4^th of the market fee itself.

Day 1 ended with dissatisfaction but there was still some hope for Day 2!

Day 2: A Miracle? Nah, More Disappointment

The first day was definitely a fluke, this day will be much busier and better!

Thankfully my booth was the same as when I left it, especially since I didn’t have a way to cover it so it was open for anyone to see and grab if they wanted to but I figured anyone would be far more interested in the other vendors’ products since they looked far more professional than mine were.

That no longer being a worry, I remembered to bring my banner to put up to attract more attention and get more sales.

Thoughts of updating my banners has come up ever since I updated the logo but that’s be something for the future. I’ll stick with what I have for now.

The second day was different from the first day with mainly younger people attending and slightly more people in general.

I managed to make twice as much as yesterday but that still wasn’t enough to even cover the vendor fee, so I ended up losing money but on the bright side it wasn’t as much if I didn’t sell anything.

This day was an hour shorter than yesterday so once I finished packing things up, I managed to drive home in a much less busy freeway. My first 2-day convention ended with feelings of disappointment financially wise but somehow some feelings of pride for showing up for myself and my business.

While it didn’t go the way I wanted, I always give every location two chances and plan to be back in July for their three-day convention! Will document that one, I was told it was a really good one so I’m looking forward to it!

High Expectations from YouTube Vlogs

I love watching small business vlogs, especially those that were vending at big conventions. Though enjoyable they skew my view of reality and feeling that their success was attainable for me while not putting in the work like they did.

Watching how busy theirs went and how much they sold gave me too high expectations, it was like I thought I was at their level without the actual work needed to get there.

This was a harsh reality check, and I realized if I wanted this business to be successful then I need to be serious about it.

For the past few years, I have been focusing on improving and taking care of my mental health but that was at the cost of improving the quality and reach my business had.

Now I believe I have improved enough to focus more on being capable of providing for myself and my pets. As a late diagnosed AUHD (Autistic and ADHD) there is much to learn and manage but I will try my best to build the life I want.

So, while I misguided by some small business YouTube vlogs, others have helped open my eyes like Katnipp Studios deciding to close their studio and changing their business direction to story writing and Its Wonky having a much slower and more relaxing practice of running a business.

I simply can’t keep up with the other face paced business. So, I’m changing my pace and my direction to better fit what I am physically and mentally capable of accomplishing.

So, I am redirecting back to the original goal of Scribblestry by refocusing on establishing my characters, writing all these stories that have been cooped up in my head, world building the Scribblestry World and enjoying life.

Final Remarks

So once again time to redirect back to the original goal of the business and recenter it around my characters and their stories. Any products will either be inspired by them, custom order to encourage individuals to express their most authentic self, and accessories for fellow book lovers.

Some new pages will be coming to the website soon! I will be adding both character profiles and information about the massive amounts of world building I’m creating for the world of Scribblestry!

This will be a lot of work, but I am so excited to get things going. Though it won’t really be successful unless I can find my target audience, so it’s time to make some progress with social media to reach them.

I even made a upload schedule to stay on track, my autistic side is singing in joy for having a plan! Now I just need to stick to it. . .

So, while my first 2-day convention didn’t end the way I originally thought, in the end I came out learning a very valuable lesson and new mindset. I successfully completed the market and my craftsmanship was highly liked and even got some compliments which made me very happy.

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Let’s get started and adventure on!