Getting out and about

A few weeks back I wrote about how creators shouldn’t necessarily buy into every convention or appearance opportunity that comes up. Now if you’re lucky enough to be offered a free table, or even the full VIP treatment where some show actually puts up the money for your travel and hotel stay, that can make a huge difference. The latter isn’t a place we’ve reached, although people who are at that level sometimes have to take a pass on an appearance regardless — though usually if the offer is generous enough it’s no longer a financial matter so much as one of time. Nathan Fillion could most likely get comped by any geek show in the U.S. that could afford to do so, but he’s got that fame as a result of being a hardworking actor and could easily have a shoot scheduled the same weekend, or a charity ball, or maybe even a geek show in Canada that booked him first. And then there are the conventions that end in debacles so bad that the special guests end up not being reimbursed or comped for their expenses like they were promised, so in those cases — assuming the event doesn’t just fold up and die — they’re not going to be inclined to go back no matter how sweet the promised deal.

But anyhow, for most creators you’re footing some or all of the expenses yourself and that’s the major consideration, and conventions do seem to be trending more and more expensive as time goes on. If sales are lackluster, there’s only so many times you can justify being “in the red” as being worth it to get your name and product out there, and I know several peers who have tried out certain shows and had to abandon them even though they had no complaints about how the show itself was run. Heck, we ourselves had to scale back to more local offerings after ranging out of state a few times — the shows themselves were fine and the sales would have been good enough to compensate, but we had all the travel overhead tacked on. I know one webcomic gent a few years back who went further than that and had a video he posted where he went down his entire list of conventions and concluded that they were just a losing proposition and he was therefore not going to do them any more.

But here’s the thing… although I just got done saying there’s a point you can’t justify pure promotion as an excuse, there’s another factor that’s not necessarily quantifiable on a spreadsheet, and that’s just live contact. I say this mainly because as of this writing Dawn and I haven’t done a convention since last September and I’m feeling a bit… antsy? Disconnected? It could be because things are in some turmoil right now in these United States, but I believe I remember feeling it in previous years when we’ve gone a few months between live appearances. Conversely I wouldn’t want to be trying to do a show every weekend, but it’ll be good to finally get back in the groove starting with the Long Beach Comic Expo on President’s Day weekend. Then it’ll be WonderCon, and Free Comic Book Day, and San Diego, and probably somewhere in there I’ll start complaining about too much people interaction. But for right now, I’m looking forward to being out and about.