Toronto Fan Expo con report- Open ended contribution-style!

[romanheart]

 

My score from the weekend (below). It wasn't as expensive as last year. I thought these were the best deals out there for items I was looking for. I also picked up Spawn 9 and Southern first issue copies.

 

I saw a couple of other things I wanted but they were out of my spending limit this time.

 

CBA took most of my money this year. I have some original art coming from an artist from Montreal. I went on the Friday and avoided the Sat crowd. Some vendors and artists were doing well and others not so much. Alex Maleev was really taking in the commission money. Someone dropped $500 for his commission. Neal had his large booth again. He was all smiles as usual. Ron Sutton and Jill Heatherington said they were doing a lot of business on the Thursday.

 

I'm looking forward to either the Montreal or Ottawa December Con. They are usually not as lively, but they make for a great event.

 

I hope everyone else had fun. Now I need to gear up for my upcoming Sales Thread.

 

[Hado]

Late number Spider-woman books

[romanheart]

I'm close to completing the set. I'm surprised I found a few and a couple of HG GRs. I love the Bronze Age.

 

Last year I picked up a NM98 and an ASM238, so this was a less $ yr. Only found one DD at all cons this year.

[Guardian Comics]

Sounds like you're having a rocking show.

 

 

Given that in U.S. $ we'd equate to about a 33% discount sounds like I should have gone and bought some books

 

Yes and yes.

 

Most folks don't get how much of a deal I'm giving.

 

I do Andy

 

Jim

[thirdgreenham]

A few notable sales from Sunday:

 

Star Wars 1 CGC 9.6 $695

Primer 2 CGC 9.6 Sig Series $725

Silver Surfer 4 CGC 9.2 $1500

IH 181 CGC 8.0 $2350

EOSV 2 CGC 9.6 $150

ASM 129 CBCS 9.0 $1295

Batman 181 CBCS 7.5 $675

Chew 1 CGC 9.6 $340

FF1 CGC 1.0 $1850

 

Overall, it was a great show, a lot of fun, and looking forward to the next event in my town, London Ontario. (thumbs u

[Miscellaneous]

Wonderful Cosplay pics?

[Kevin Boyd]

Here's my Fan Expo Canada report:

 

Overall, sales were down compared to 2014. Thursday slightly down, Friday sales way up, Saturday sales way down, Sunday slightly up. Not far down from 2014 but still down. The big mystery was Saturday, usually the best day, being so significantly down.

 

Last year I had 1.5 booths, this year I went to 2. In 2016 I'll be combining the space with my neighbour All New Comics as we work together at a lot of shows and are good friends.

 

I generally do not bring back issues to Fan Expo. I don't see it as the best venue for it, and I am neither focused on hot modern books (like Gotham Central and Rupp's) or on vintage books. I think the smaller local shows are becoming the better place for vintage, but it's mostly locals at these events, this is the place to see Harley and other vintage dealers.

 

On the table I sold new and perennial selling trades and books. This was the highlight of the show - usually Thursday and Friday are for novelties and statues, but people were buying books right off the bat, which is great. We sold a lot of trades - Walking Dead (#24 had just come out), Mad Max: Fury Road, the perennial Batman sellers - Year One, Dark Knight, Killing Joke, Civil War, Star Wars, Fables, Sandman, Preacher and a lot more. People are buying these to read (not collect), so I'm optimistic that there is still an audience for new comics material.

 

Behind the table I divided between statues and other novelty items, and Pop Vinyls. In the past Pops were strong sellers for me, but the competition was ridiculous with over 40 vendor booths of 300 selling the things. On top of that EB Games was dumping them 2 for $20 (they retail for $10.99 US / almost $15 Canadian with the current exchange). We generally sold what people didn't have... lots of Hannibal, Agent Carter, 10th Doctor Who, Daleks and Harry Potter. But overall, I'd say that in the future I'll probably cut back on this product line, it's just not delivering. On the other hand, we sold a lot of statues, mostly DC - with big interest in the Arkham City, Bombshells and Cover Girls of the DCU lines.

 

****

 

I thought the comics section was a bit of a mess. Part of the problem was that the section lacked a coordinator this year after a last minute personnel change. Thankfully some people from Dallas and Orlando came in to keep the guests happy and run the programming, but some last minute cancellations kind of hurt in that department (Epting, Ribic, Reis, Prado). Also, I was a little shocked at the number of high profile guests who were charging for autographs like J. Scott Campbell ($10 per after 1), John Cassaday ($10 per after 2) and the really high price for Neal Adams ($30 an autograph).

 

DC and Marvel had minimal presences this year, hopefully that will improve next year. Someone from Valiant popped by to say hello and how disappointed he was he couldn't get a booth at the show.

 

I think the artist alley is a big jumble and needs to be subdivided. Also AA should be for people making and selling their own work, not board games, CGC books and back issues of comics they did not work on. Since we were at the edge of the dealer area and AA some of my peers were quite miffed about some of things they saw in that section.

 

Fans seemed happy overall, but with so many expenses, I did hear a lot of complaining about how much was spent on autographs, and that takes away from show vendors.

 

*****

 

Most of the collectors I deal with at the Lounge were vocal about not going, which is a problem this event faces going forward with comics fans and collectors.