Here it is folks, how my "experiment" in exhibiting evolved into this GIANT 12 foot table at the Official Twilight Convention held at the Sheraton resort in Anaheim, Oct 8-10, 2010: We had never done a Twilight convention before, so we learned each day how to make it work. The vendor room was right off the main lobby of the hotel. Admission to the vendor room was free to all, so we did have some folks wander in who were not attendees at the convention. When we signed up to do the show, my main questions were about the projected number of attendees (I was told 500-700 over the 3 days of the show) and the demographics (mostly female, teens and women). The demographics worked out as expected, but I suspect attendance was down. Based on the numbers I was given, I made 300 copies of a flyer I called "The WWW on Stuart Ng Books." The flyer had our logo and explained WHAT we were selling; WHY we were at a Twilight Convention; and WHO we are. We gave a flyer to nearly everyone who walked by our booth. Most of them stopped. A few made purchases. We distributed a total of 168 flyers. So here's the business lesson part: By reaching out to the Twilight attendees, my goal was to sell books (of course), but mostly to introduce our books and artists to a new audience. Did we succeed? I like to think so.... While the sales results for this con weren't what I'd hoped for, you sometimes don't find out until later the real impact of who you met or what you learned can have. All I can say for sure is that I had more FUN at this show than I can express. The camaraderie of the other vendors was exceptional. We made lots of new friends... I wish I had more pics of the vendors and the room, but here's a sample of what I have:
I had packed for a 6 foot table and planned to put the overstock underneath. When we arrived at the convention, we were given 3 xs more table space for FREE! We were able to display all the books. I'd brought the big banner from our showroom, but there was no way to hang it. With the extra table space, we could display the banner... and with it, all the images from the Wendling Chinese Zodiac postcard set:
Our neighbors were the cast from the Hillywood Show. They had t-shirts, DVDs, posters and stills.
While the convention contracts with stars from the Twilight films to appear... as we all know, scheduling conflicts can prevent celebrities from making it to the convention on their appointed day. Lucky for the Twilight convention attendees... the Hillywood show is there all 3 days, in character, so you can always count on them!!! They spend lots of time during the convention doing "photo ops" at their table w/ fans.
Here's a TV crew doing interviews with attendees:
We also enjoyed promoting the music and photos for the band 100 Monkeys. We even had a contest: Name all the band members in the unsigned photo and win a chocolate! It was harder than it looked :)
Here's a detail of our set-up. We learned it was important to have the sample books open for viewing:
As it turned out, our best selling items were the hand-assembled "Bling by Ng" offerings:
A portion of all the proceeds from sales of "Bling by Ng" funds donations to the following charities: Friends of the Torrance Library; Southland Collie Rescue; The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; and Rat Rescue.
And visit these websites to see items by our fellow vendors at this show:
Our neighbors were the cast from the Hillywood Show. They had t-shirts, DVDs, posters and stills. 
While the convention contracts with stars from the Twilight films to appear... as we all know, scheduling conflicts can prevent celebrities from making it to the convention on their appointed day. Lucky for the Twilight convention attendees... the Hillywood show is there all 3 days, in character, so you can always count on them!!! They spend lots of time during the convention doing "photo ops" at their table w/ fans. 
Here's a TV crew doing interviews with attendees: 
We also enjoyed promoting the music and photos for the band 100 Monkeys. We even had a contest: Name all the band members in the unsigned photo and win a chocolate! It was harder than it looked :) 
Here's a detail of our set-up. We learned it was important to have the sample books open for viewing: 
As it turned out, our best selling items were the hand-assembled "Bling by Ng" offerings: 
A portion of all the proceeds from sales of "Bling by Ng" funds donations to the following charities: Friends of the Torrance Library; Southland Collie Rescue; The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; and Rat Rescue. 
And visit these websites to see items by our fellow vendors at this show:
1 comment:
Pokey wants one!
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