Behind the Scenes at Stuart Ng Books: July 2016

Stuart Ng Books, established in 1997, is recognized worldwide as a leading source of hand-selected books on illustration, animation and comic art. http://stuartngbooks.com/. Photo below shows the SNB 5-booth space, before the show opens to attendees.

2016 was Stuart's 19th Year of exhibiting at the big show --- Comic Con International:San Diego, aka "Comic Con."http://www.comic-con.org/

At Comic Con, Stuart sells books. Five Booths... with books. That's 50 feet of Books. And Shelves. We bring all our own shelves. And some tables, because you get a few "free" ones with the booth space, but not enough for.. books. Books are big.. and heavy.. but also fragile.

How does one guy with a small staff re-create a boutique bookstore in the Exhibit Hall...

It starts weeks ahead.. planning which books to take to Comic Con... shepherding the arrival of new books for Comic Con.. and keeping track of what inventory stays and goes..

Comic Con San Diego is a four day show -- Thurs thru Sunday. PLUS preview night on Wednesday. It's an exciting, hectic, exhausting time for attendees. Especially those lucky enough to score the coveted four-day badges.

It's all that.. plus some extra days of heavy lifting.. for exhibitors.

Twenty years ago, there were lots of mom and pop small business that populated the exhibit hall. Many forces have driven smaller exhibitors out ... including the difficult logistics of set up and tear down. There are no freight elevators for most exhibitors. That means long lines for the elevator at the parking lot. For larger load-ins.. there are lines for the trucks that must arrive at the loading dock and wait for their turn to be moved in by the convention center's contracted Freeman Exhibitor Services union crews.

For Stuart Ng and his crew.. Comic Con week starts on Monday ... when the rented truck drives down with boxes of books and fixtures. That gets off-loaded at the convention center, where our truck-driving crew members meet up with Stuart and more temporary staff. They move boxes out of the truck and onto wooden pallets.

Tuesday morning.. Stuart and crew arrive for a full day of set-up. The booth space comes with drapes and tables of the booth space.. and the dropped pallets in the aisle. The rest is up to us...

Stuart and the crew take the stock and fixtures off the pallets.. and begin constructing the shelves...

Here's the Freeman container that was filled with just some of the SNB inventory...

All day Tuesday... Stuart and his crew work hard to bring the "bookstore" to life..Note the boxfan in the photo below... all day Tuesday there is NO air conditioning in the exhibit hall...

That's right. Heavy lifting. Forklifts driving by.. spewing fumes.. NO AC...

With the SNB and convention tables set.. and the SNB shelves constructed.. the next round of set-up is getting the books out of the boxes..

Organizing the books and the cashiering stations at either end of the booth...

Signs begin to go up.. highlighting titles in the inventory...

One table and shelf area was devoted to Little Golden Books, illustrated by artists at the show.. in the animation and illustration industries.. and classic titles by inspiring artists of the past..

The booth includes a coveted "end cap" that faces the aisle. This year's end cap featured over-size import art books.. and signed copies of "art of " books for animated feature films...

Here's a pre-show view of the SNB end cap (lower left) and into the main aisle..

Set-up continues Wednesday morning. More of the neighboring booths are also setting up.. and they turn on the AC (at last)...

All during set-up.. and throughout the show.. Stuart continues to tweak the arrangement of the books and add more signage.

One of the booths right across from us sells dice. This is their set up .. they arrived mid-morning on Wednesday, unpack 3 suitcases and are done :)

Meanwhile... the SNB 50-foot booth continues to take shape...

At big conventions -- Stuart will highlight books he is selling that have art by artists who are also exhibiting at the show. At smaller shows where artists are selling their own books, Stuart will avoid selling books by artists whose books he normally carries, so he won't be a competitor for sales for the artist.

Stuart does not speak or read French. He selects his import books by the art alone. Many of the books that have been translated into English were first imported by Stuart.... establishing a demand and market for those titles (just saying :)

Stuart's booth often debuts new books at this show and other conventions ...

From Wednesday night through Sunday ... the booth is busy...

Thanks to our crew of helpers... and our supportive patrons...

Long-time SNB pal, artist Mark Schutlz, stops by the booth to sign copies of his book that will be making the trip back to the store in Torrance. Many of Stuart's patrons can't get to Comic Con. They rely on Stuart to bring his selection of the top books from artists exhibiting at the convention -- to his store and on his website after the show. This service is possible thanks to the support of the artists and publishers. They appreciate Stuart's effort behind the scenes to supply collectors with signed and rare books.

Then it's 5PM on Sunday. The voice on the loudspeaker announces the show is over... but for exhibitors, the clock starts ticking. We have Tuesday - Wednesday afternoon to set up.. but only 5 hours on Sunday to clear out. After that, exhibitors can be charged "materials handling" fees -- at union rates. Not usually an issue for the artists' alley exhibitors.. and the smaller vendors..

At this point.. Stuart and the rest of the crew are running on fumes.. but no stopping allowed!

Books we brought down that didn't find their new forever homes... turns out they just went on a vacy and need to be shipped back to the store :) ... New inventory acquired at the show has to be loaded out... And then of course, the shelves have to be dis-assembled...

While we're busy packing up all our gear.. the Freeman crews are also working on all sides around us .. fork lifts start zipping around ...

We need to keep boxes out of their way while they pull up the carpet from aisles...

Once the carpets are up...

Our crew rounds up pallets...

.... so we can begin to stack the shelves and boxes...

For shrink wrapping..

Each shrink-wrapped pallet must be tagged with our booth number. The forklift drivers will take the pallets to the loading dock.. where our rented truck is inching along with other vendors in the line to get a turn to get loaded out...