Thoughts on Convention Layout

[tabbiewolf]

General Disclaimer: I have never personally managed or been a director/official staff at a convention, though I tend to find myself gophering and helping out at cons I am not selling my wares at (and sometimes ones I am, since my husband was a director at FurFright) because I get bored just wandering around. I am an artist and a dealer, and this commentary is from a business (read: money is important) point-of-view. I am not trying to insult anyone or any convention, but I WILL be using conventions and my personal experience at them as examples.

The two big cons I have attended are ConnectiCon and AnthroCon:

• ConnectiCon is a multi-genre convention, meaning you find everything from anime to board/card games to pop culture to internet memes to video gaming. Last year’s attendance was somewhere around 15,000 people. It takes place at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, which has 140,000 square feet of exhibition space (usually divided in half for the convention: one side is the area for dealers/artists/special guests/etc., the other side is for board/card/video gaming) — I’m going to rough estimate that the Dealers Room is 70,000 square feet in this case. It is linked to the Hartford Marriott, though I think the amount of con-based events that go on in the attached hotel are minimal (they had the Nerd Prom there last year, and it was a capped attendance).

• Anthrocon is an anthropomorphic animal/furry-based convention. Though I’m relatively sure that the fandom is geeky enough that you could have a table of Doctor Who or Supernatural or any other number of fandoms’ stuff and do well at the con, that’s not what the convention is based around*; it focuses primarily on art, books (comics and novels), crafting, and more than ever lately, costumes. Last year’s attendance was 5,577 people. It takes place at the David L Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, which has a fuckton of exhibition space because it’s huge, but Anthrocon generally keeps its Dealers Den to Hall B which is 82,450 square feet, and its Artists Alley/Art Show is in Hall C, which is 45,100 square feet, for a total of 127,550 square feet…though I don’t think art show space should count towards vendors (though technically, if you’re buying art in the show, you’re not using that money for vendors). It is linked to the Westin Convention Center hotel, and a fair amount of panels/events are hosted in the hotel meeting rooms (or they were let time I went…folks, feel free to correct me here!).

Down to comparisons. The Connecticut Convention Center is set up on two floors: the exhibition hall and the ballrooms/panel rooms. The David L Lawrence Convention Center is 4 floors; 2 floors of exhibition halls, 2 floors of panel rooms. Anthrocon also uses the attached hotel meeting rooms for panels. The first floor of the convention center hasn’t been used, but apparently the Zoo (a major social gathering area) will be moved to Hall D this year**.

Because of the layout of both conventions, you COULD spend the entirety of each convention without ever going in the Dealers Room. It’d be a lot more difficult at ConnectiCon, though, because the Dealers Room generally shares a doorway with the gaming room. It would also mean you wouldn’t meet the famous nerd celebrities that ConnectiCon brings in, since they’re all situated in the Dealers Room; last year it was along the wall right next to the Artists Colony area. But, you could do it.

Anthrocon, it’s a LOT easier to avoid the Dealers Room. You used to have to walk through it to get to the Art Show. Now, they may have changed it last year (I didn’t go), but when I last went in 2012, you could actually just go into the Art Show through its own entrance (I may just be remembering the special artists’ event, though!), or just walk along the front wall of Hall B into Hall C. You’d see a few dealers, but not all that many. You could also see the Guest of Honor without any work; last time I was there, they were right towards the front of the room. Which makes sense, but also means you don’t actually have to see the rest of the Dealers Room at all (this is another thing they could have changed last year, again, feel free to tell me I’m using old knowledge!).

Another interesting thing to note about Anthrocon is that the Dealers Room is basically a whole lot of tables, or at least, it was last time I was there in 2012. Unlike the majority of large conventions (both comic-based and otherwise) that feature booths — typically an 8x8’ to 12x12’ area outfitted with cloth “curtains” and a table (some conventions, including ConnectiCon, have dealers that operate stores [online or off] that have setups that don’t use this, but the Artists Colony, Webcomics, etc., still use this sort of setup) — Anthrocon has…tables***. It’s basically a really big Artists Alley****, only you need to have a tax license and also it costs more to be a part of (you can also write it off as a business expense on your taxes, of course). Direct comparison: for the same cost as a table at Anthrocon — $200 for a full table & 2 vendor badges, and this is assuming you apply right when registration opens (currently weekend registration is $55 per person) — you can get a booth at, say, BronyCon ($200 = 10x10’ booth with 2 vendor badges).

Does this make Anthrocon less professional? Well, in my opinion…yeah, a little bit.

It IS worth noting: ConnectiCon’s Dealers Room/Artists Alley/etc. basically have you register and then present you with “We hope you know what you’re doing because you get to do this on your own” thing. Anthrocon — and for that matter, all furry cons I’ve been a dealer with — is much better on basically showing you the ropes by providing information before the convention and during setup. That’s a thing that really lacks appreciation and should get a lot more of it, but I think a lot of dealers at furry cons ONLY go to furry cons and haven’t attempted much outside of them, especially those who are artists who focus on selling art/commissions and not other things. Which is great, but it also means you lose the experience that you get at other conventions and so there’s no comparison.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I know Anthrocon’s Dealers Room is almost sold out at this point, even though it’s massive. And that’s great! A lot of cons that AREN’T in massive convention centers sell out in minutes*****, and that leaves a lot of grumbling artists. But sometimes trying to please everyone ends in a mediocre fashion.

I’m kind of just rambling now, because it’s a lot of thoughts on one subject and this is my journal so I can ramble all I like, but here’s my sum-up:

• Having to make the Dealers Room a destination instead of something that may catch your eye on the way to somewhere else isn’t great for business, outside of for the folks in the Dealers Room that people are visiting the room for. If my options are “Go spend money on art” or “Hang with friends in room watching videos on YouTube, spend all money on booze & condoms”…well, as an artist, I’d choose art, but I think a lot of folks don’t =p

• Size DOES matter, but bigger isn’t necessarily better. Having more space to spread out in is FANTASTIC. Filling that space with as much as you can possibly cram into it, not so much. There’s a finite amount of dollars to be spent, and the ratios for dealers don’t work out well (I did a post about this awhile back).

So, if you only read those two bullet points, you probably got what I wanted this post to mean. This has been sitting on my desktop since the holidays so I'm gonna post the damn thing now =p All opinions and comments are welcomed, just follow Wheaton's Law.

* The only true “brother” fandom, in my opinion (and at this point in time; I’m sure there have been others), is the bronies, and this is because a large chunk of them seem utterly unwilling to admit that they are technically members of the furry fandom.

** This was a surprise to me, and a sign that Anthrocon is basically a huge party. I go to conventions to have fun, but also to promote myself and sell my wares, generally not to party (I’m working too hard to party, dammit); I took this as a sign that my choosing not to go to Anthrocon for a while is a good plan.

*** Please keep in mind that I’m referring to conventions that take place in actual convention centers! Conventions that take place in hotels that have convention space — meeting rooms, small ballrooms, etc. — such as FurFright, Small Press eXpo, etc., don’t have room for booths like this.

**** Actually, I think Artists Alley might work better than the Dealers Room in this aspect because it’s in a smaller space. Last time I was a dealer at Anthrocon, the person who was the other half of the table spent the whole time socializing. Which is great — it’s part of what conventions are for! — but when your very drunk (at noon on Saturday) friend comes around and then hangs out the whole day because there’s room for them…yeah…that’s…something that makes you wish you had a booth.

***** This leads to the “Is having a Dealers Room that sells out in minutes really a good idea?” thing, which, speaking as a dealer, FUCK NO. I much prefer the idea of a lottery system, and I have no idea why many conventions (both furry and otherwise) haven’t switched over to that (I know K’gra did last year for FurFright). Small Press eXpo in Maryland is operating a half lottery/half invitation system this year, which I think is a really smart way of doing things with the space they have to operate in (and, assuming it’s the same space I went to years ago, it’s not all that much!): they can invite bigger names for publicity, and still allow new folks to the scene a shot at getting in. I was honestly considering RainFurrest this year, and I missed the dealers room signup, and it sold out in like 4 minutes. I’d rather be spending my Saturday out and about, not staring at a computer screen waiting for a POSSIBLE chance at business/travel later in the year.

Comments

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

Connecticon was so "you do this on your own" that when I came in to set up, they didn't ask for any ID. Here's your badges, we assume you are who you say you are. NO INFO WITH THEM. none. not even a map of the place. No schedule. Nothing. here's your badge. which may or may not have the correct dealer's room hours on it (never did figure out the true hours).

and during load and unload, nobody was checking badges at all so if someone managed to come in at that point that wasn't supposed to be there... they could easily have picked up a whole box of something and just walked off. It was by far the most chaotic set up I've seen.

Now they didn't have a cashier at all (for either dealers room or alley) so really didn't NEED to interact with the dealers other than having them wave a sales tax licence at them when they booked a spot. other than that, so long as you were out on time, good for you!

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, hence my comment on furry cons having a FAR superior setup system. I'm hoping to get to some other local cons this year (ComiConn, if they ever put their dealers page up) and do more comparisons between cons on stuff like this. My space and sales were far superior at ConnectiCon, but the actual setup/teardown was basically "Welp! You're on your own, we hope you know what you're doing!" We actually asked the guy in charge of Artists Colony for extra vendor badges (they'd already been paid for, but he had no way of knowing that) and he was like, "Eh, I trust you, go right ahead!"

Pray for me; I basically volunteered to help direct the Dealers Room at New FurFright this year. I am kind of hoping they find someone who is willing to listen to dealers on how setup should go!

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

I just want the fursuit parade to come back to going through dealers room. that was part of reason the parades were originally started at various cons... so the dealers could see stuff. Not going through dealer's room means loads of dealers don't see parade AND it creates ghost town while it's going around. If people were standing around IN the dealer's room while it was going on, they'd spend money!

That does cause some issues with the layout to make sure you don't have a pile up with parade and the cashier. But if you take them down only some of the aisles, you should be able to run cashier line down the other one.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Basically you'd just have to announce a warning fifteen minutes/half-an-hour prior to the parade for folks to make their purchases.

I've seen enough fursuit parades, myself...when 20% of the convention has a suit, and the majority of them look similar, it gets boring =p

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

Mostly bringing it back through the dealers room would end the hour long dead period. and stop people from sitting in front of the doors and totally blocking anyone that wanted to come into the dealers room during the parade. right now they have to fight through the parade because of the location.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

You bring up a lot of good points. But one thing you missed is that when you are putting on a con, you only have the space that is available in the hotel/convention center, and every square foot of that space is paid for by the convention in some way. For the convention center, it's is usually green folding money, and lots of it. Hotels will usually give you a discount on the function space rental, discount can be anywhere from zero to one hundred percent. The discount is invariably driven by how many room nights that the convention sells to it's members, and what price the convention negotiates on behalf of it's members for the hotel rooms. So if the con lets the room price be high, they get the free function space for relatively few room nights. Negotiating these attrition clauses in the hotel contract are usually the most important part for most cons.

For anthrocon and furfright, they are popular enough that the hotel can be expected to sell out for the main convention nights, and have pretty high occupancy on the shoulder nights. So they have an embarrassment of riches in the room nights sold. The other part of the attrition clause is the things that the hotel gives the con over and above the function space. Usually this manifests as free room nights that the convention can use to put up people like the guests of honor in the hotel, convention staffers, and try to turn those free to the con beds into income or goodwill points. Free room nights in the overflow hotels are also usually used for putting up convention staffers.

The other point is you gotta use the rooms that the hotel has in the building. Absent putting up a tent in the parking lot or something like that, you have whatever function rooms they have and you can afford to rent. Then the exercise of fitting everything you want to be part of your convention into those available rooms, and inevitably there are compromises. Furfright doesn't have an art show, for instance, so that's a big hunk of space that can be used for other things. Generally, there is the dealers room, art show, Big program room, medium and small program rooms. You also have to find places for things like registration, game room, con suite, operations/security, exchequer, coat room, staff lounge, program operations, and for furcons, the headless lounge, and their con suite gets converted to the supersponsor lounge.

The physical layout of the building, and the sizes of the various rooms versus the functions you place in them are the key drivers. Anthrocon at the DLLCC has the luxury of lots of (expensive) space. At AC 2013, to get into the art show, most of the time you had to go through the front of the dealers room to get to the art show. The doors that led direct to the art show and artist alley room were mostly only opened for entry during the friday evening reception, when the dealers room was closed. They were opened for exit only pretty much all the time, although that was discouraged. All the function space in the main hotel is used for the other functions put into them, and felt crowded.

Furfright in the cromwell hotel has fairly limited function space. One small ballroom, which has the dealers room shoehorned into it. several smaller rooms of various sizes, which have all the other functions put into them. The only space that really isn't used is the spaces around the pool, which gets used for lounging by the members.

Another thing that is specific to dealers rooms and artist alleys, which nowadays is just dealers room lite, is sizing the dealers room. It is constrained by the physical layout of the room, but the other thing is that the dealers have to make enough sales to make it worth their while to sell there. There is a ratio of attendees versus dealers, and the important corollary of how much disposable income does the average attendee bring to the dealers room. Say you have 1500 members and 15 dealers. That means 100:1 ratio. So if each attendee has ten bucks to spend, that's 1000 dollars per dealer on average of available spending. Now it's up to the dealers (and artist alley dealers) to try to convince the attendees to spend it at MY table.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know about the Art Show entrance -- I was working on knowledge from 2 years ago (and the most exciting part of that night being Spot's proposal, so of course I remember the reception!). Plus, as a dealer, I barely got to look at the Art Show except during the reception...which sucked because I wanted to bid on some pieces but I couldn't stay outside my table that long.

Not that it mattered, because I spent the majority of the con staring at the booth across from me and not doing much...I just kept hoping...it was disappointing. I did better business when I was in Artists Alley, and it cost me a lot less.

And yeah, the dealers:attendees ratio is a thing I posted about sometime last year. I did a lot of comparisons with attendance/number of dealers at various furry cons, and the sweet spot seems to be around 30:1 (keep in mind: this is talking to a couple dealer friends of mine, and a couple folks who help run the rooms; it's research limited to what was available to me). Anthrocon's ratio is something like half that (I'd have to find that post from whenever ago) because there are SO MANY DEALERS...

[petercat.livejournal.com]

As Dale mentioned, at Anthrocon you still do need to walk through the Dealers Room to get to the Art Show; the Hall C entrance is used only during the Artists and Dealers Reception and late sales after the Dealers Room closes on Sunday.

A prime reason why Anthrocon's Zoo is being relocated to Hall D is because there's a lack of programming space suitable for mid-sized events. The ballroom seats 1900; the largest function rooms available for programming in the Westin or DLCC seat roughly 300 people. Hall D has pillars which would make it problematical for programming, but shouldn't matter so much for the Zoo, and function rooms in the Westin can be freely reset by con staff to avoid incurring labor charges.

Anthrocon is at an awkward size with regards to space rental and setup costs. It's probably comparable to what Connecticon pays, but with lesser attendance, that means that per-capita the dealers have to pay more. (Very roughly speaking with lots of hand-waving. The differing densities of the two conventions' dealers rooms and Anthrocon's supersponsor memberships, which help pay for a lot of the convention center expenses, make direct budget comparisons murky at best.) The difference in configuration (tables vs. booths) originates in the genesis of the two conventions: Anthrocon is modeled after classic fan-run SF conventions, whereas Connecticon likely mirrored the comic and gaming trade shows its founders attended.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I wasn't sure about the Hall C entrance :)

It just AMAZES me that Hall D is now the Zoo, and I ponder if it'll change how many people hang out there -- I'm honestly not sure if it'll be more or less! As you said, it makes sense to move it for event space, but it still doesn't bring people by the Dealers' Room (or Art Show)...admittedly, the Zoo's been nowhere near those two things for awhile (I never got to AC in Philadelphia so I can't make that comparison). As I mentioned in the journal, I don't know a lot of the technical aspects of this stuff, just the fact that having a Dealers Room away from all the social stuff cuts into my business, if ConnectiCon has any say.

I also have to say: I am AMAZED Anthrocon stays at such a huge (and I'm guessing expensive) place when the attendance is the size it is. The DLCC is bigger than the Hartford Convention Center (if you include the halls AC doesn't use, it's something like double the size)...and I know a little bit about ConnectiCon's budget thanks to the director working in the gaming room at FurFright with Spot; it'd be interesting to do a direct comparison, money-wise, but I don't expect to unless I become a director at AC, which isn't gonna happen anytime soon ;)

In all technicality, the dealers at Anthrocon pay significantly LESS than Dealers at ConnectiCon, though about the same when it comes to Artists Colony/Online Media Guests. ConnectiCon's dealers room features all 3 things, plus the Famous Guests, but the cost varies depending on which you're in; I know the TECHNICAL dealers start at around $750/booth, which is bigger than an Artists Alley space ($250/booth, and what I have experience with) but not by much. That's also a reasonably unfair comparison because the majority of Dealers are, as mentioned, retail stores, and usually buy multiple booth spaces (I have no idea how the cost compares; it could cost significantly less to buy a row of 4 booths as compared to 4 separate ones).

ConnectiCon now runs the Artists Alley basically like a mini-dealers room; you have to have a tax license, but you get this whole booth to yourself! Their Artists Alley used to be like AC's Artists Alley, but that lead to some issues from the state because of the way taxes were collected (to put it simply: they weren't).

I need to check into displaying at some more fan-run conventions and see how they run their Dealers Rooms. I applied to be a dealer at BronyCon (another fan-run con that's set up more like a trade show, from what I've heard; I can't verify that because I have never been) and I am hoping Comic Conn (CT's other comic convention) opens up their reg soon.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

It's a pity you weren't able to get anything dealer-wise for RF. (Though I hope you'll still consider entering the art show.) I am interested in the lottery system you describe, though, and I think I might propose that as an idea in future years.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

The Dealers Room at Rainfurrest sold out in the time it took me to realize it was actually available. I was nowhere near my computer at the time, and in all honesty, hanging out at your computer hoping you'll be one of the first in a mad rush (a lot of my friends didn't make it in, including Flinters, who's a long time fur! And he was waiting and signed up when it opened) makes me think of the horrors of Black Friday. I don't need to start my convention with that kind of stress!

I like the lottery system a lot, though admittedly I've only participated in it during FurFright (I'm hoping to try it again for Small Press eXpo this year). The ability to sign up at any time over a 24-hour period, or longer depending on the con (BronyCon's system has been opened since...December? Mid-November? And will stay open till January 31) takes a LOT of stress off the dealer. It DOES turn the system into a lottery, but in all honesty, I think it's equal-odds with the current "refresh like hell and hope you're one of the first" system that cons seem to favor.

[film2edit.livejournal.com]

You may want to throw in other events for a comparison additionally. I feel like you are feeling a bit brushed off with using AC as the bulk of the comparison.

I-Con (while at the Stony Brook University campus) was spread out across an entire campus. The Sports Complex housed the registration, fan tables, dealers room, and art show. Lecture halls because rooms for shows, guest speakers, films, ect. I helped run childrens programming, which was held in Harrman Hall. I stop being involved when I moved in 2004, and I heard it's sinced moved off campus.

IchibanCon is a small Anime con. They typically split up the event space, with larger events taking up either a ball room or major event space, hall area for the Artist Alley, large room for dealers, smaller for gaming and speakers, and an open area for safe sparring.

Otakon takes over the Baltimore convention center. It's huge and spread out. It also links to the mall next door. If AC looks spreadout, this is even larger and more crowded. This event caps.

Dragon*Con takes over several hotels and event space in Atlanta. It turns into a Mini-City. You also have to camp out to go to panels. The schedule is disorganized, and will constantly change.

San Diego Comic Con...is huge. Unless you have a specific panel you want to camp out for for 3-5 hours, just hang out in the Dealers Room. It's gone from a comic event to a media event. This event caps.

FCN (now disolved) was held in a hotel. It was well organized and laid out. Main events were in the ball room, smaller panels in various room, a decent sized dealers room, space for Artist Alley, and a good location for walkable places to eat and a 24-hour Meijer's. There's another Furry event taking up the space.

Furry Weekend Atlanta is located at a large hotel who's elevators can not properly accommodate the event. There was no way to stop people from riding down to a floor to go back up (you can't monitor 8 floors). Some elevators you had to do a transfer to another floor, and I found at least one fellow who had gotten stuck for a long duration on a very high floor. Not even going into the rooms, but I had no idea what was going on when, people were locked out of the ballroom during the parade causing a fire hazard, and the venue had little to no phone signal.

There are a number of others, but these came to mind.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

I stuck with events I personally have experience with, which is reasonably limited (which is why I opened with a disclaimer). But I posted it because I wanted comparisons from folks like you, who have done a LOT of conventions and can tell me more about them :)

Having been to the Baltimore Convention Center, I can agree it is quite large! But I unfortunately have never been a dealer for any convention there (that might change if they accept me as a dealer at BronyCon), so I can't do a direct size-to-sales comparison. I also went for the Baltimore Comic Con, and I have no idea how it compares to Otakon, population-wise. Anime cons scare me a little bit ;)

I'm sad I never got to see SDCC in its heyday, before it became "camp out for 5 hours for a panel" con.

I've just been thinking a bit about this kind of stuff because of New FurFright; I'm basically watching a con be reborn, and it's making me think about my business and whether I want to start seeking out more conventions to attend as a dealer. Unfortunately, my dealers' experience at AC left kind of a sour taste in my mouth (NOT in anything that happened caused by the con, just lousy sales; I spent a lot of time just sitting there, sketching for myself...which I can do at home), but ConnectiCon got me enthusiastic about non-furry conventions, so...yeah.

I'm still learning, and it's why posts (and responses!) like this are great, so thank you :)

[film2edit.livejournal.com]

No worries. For an event at Anthrocon, the influx of why people go varies. The majority of the time it's to meet people. If you breakdown most events it's those working/volunteering, those making money, and those for the programming. Anthrocon being the largest event in the genre of Furry fandom by itself can be an appeal. Such as those attending Anime Central and Otakon. It's huge, and people want to check that out.

The folks who complain about AC's size kind of bugs me. They have not been to an event with a 5+ digit number. I no longer go to SDCC or Otakon because the fun is gone. They've become too crowded for my personal enjoyment. If I want to go to a comic or a sci-fi con, locally there's Hero's Con and Con Carolina's.

If you can check out more variety of events that would help to see how other events are run. A lot of it has to do with the people behind the scenes, the location, and programming.

I've had a number of people wanting to start an event in NC related to Furry. What I've had to explain to a number of people not realizing that is one of the major responsibilities are all the financial and legal responsibilities behind it. That is something that I think Anthrocon has done very well behind the scenes.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of folks seem to not realize that running a convention -- even a fan-run one (as most of them are!) -- is a business investment! It costs a LOT of money to run a con, even a small one. Folks keep talking about starting a furry con in the Boston area, apparently not realizing that the reason there was only one furry con in New England was because you can actually afford convention space in Connecticut ;)

And yeah, Anthrocon is small compared to most conventions that are multi-genre/anime/comic-based. It'll always be a con dear to me because it was my first :) But it's still a BIG con, especially for a furry con. Even smaller cons (like FurFright), you can only hang out with so many people. And I think when you reach the level that Anthrocon has, bringing in more professional aspects (such as booths instead of tables) might be a wise idea. But! This is just my opinion; I don't have experience running a dealers room so I have no idea the kind of effort it would take to get something like that going :)

I do make significantly more money, though, when I have a bigger attendee count to work from. Which is why ConnectiCon ranks as my Summer con instead of Anthrocon (also it's 20 minutes away, but even ignoring travel costs, ConnectiCon still wins, business-wise). I like smaller cons, such as FurFright, because they don't involve running all over creation to find my table/friends/something to do...but then, Anthrocon was big enough to have that issue, even though it's pretty small, convention-wise. *shrugs* It's a toss-up.

(Actually it's not a toss-up, I've already registered for ConnectiCon this year, but still ;) )