Post Con Breakdown

TagalongDT tiiiiired. Okay, I feel there’s some need for explanation since I was apparently very hard to find at Sakura-Con. Honestly, this doesn’t really surprise me since I was…um…really hard to find at Sakura-Con.

There’s an explanation for my apparent absence; actually there are several smaller explanations and excuses that combined to form one Voltron like explanation. First and foremost is that I did not actually think I would make it to Sakura-Con. Work (the not fun work that pays me) had been kicking my ass for the past several months, so I really didn’t have the time to prep. Additionally, I have no money (car and dental work sucked my bank account dry at the last minute). The only reason I could make it up to Seattle is because my friends over at Cel Style Games (look them up, they’re awesome) needed a ride up and agreed to pay for my con entrance and part of my hotel if I acted as their driver. Sadly, this was less than a week before the con occurred. I didn’t even have the time to properly preregister much less actually acquire and set up a Dubious Company booth. It won’t happen again, I promise.

I suppose the second problem had to deal with name badges. Though there is a fun little story behind this issue. When we started our little trip I was fully expecting to have to wake up at “far too early” in the morning on Friday to register for the convention (having missed the preregistration deadline as you recall). However, as my friends were picking up the various con paperwork for their booth (Cel Style Games) they realized that they’d ordered three badges for the booth (one to spare). Coincidentally, there were only three of us (myself included) there at the con. So my options were: A.) Save sixty dollars and get to sleep in (as much as people sleep at cons) or B.) Spend sixty dollars, wake up ass-crack early, but get a name badge with the name TagalongDT printed on it. I choose option A. Sorry but I’m poor and I need sleep. I did write in TagalongDT on the badge, but it was kind of subsumed by the giant “CEL STYLE.” But hey, I tried…kind of.

In truth though, I didn’t really go to Sakura Con to make Dubious Company known. Yes I did hand out the fliers and mentioned it to more than a few people (Jake, my buddy who runs Cel Style let me use his booth to hand out the cards for free, I’d be a fool to say no), but I really didn’t have the time to properly set up anything. Mostly I went as a info gathering expedition. I’ve been to a lot of cons as the con goer, and a few cons as a staffer, but I’ve never really run a booth. So I wanted to watch from a safe place how other folks do it, what works, what doesn’t (sadly I mostly learned what doesn’t), and what the average con goer is expecting from a booth. Overall I’d say it was pretty a good con. My only real regret is that I couldn’t actually meet up/find any of you folk.

-TagalongDT