San Antonio Comic Book Show Sunday July 3,2005 -San Antonio,Texas

[lighthouse]

"Redneck"

 

I have been called many different things in the last twenty years. But you are the first person in all that time to call me "Redneck". Congratulations. I truly thought I had heard it all.

 

"Sorry we did not meet your expectations"

 

Actually you met my expectations to the letter. After reading the posts about your other shows my expectations were that you would have less than 10 tables sold and fewer than 20 attendees who were not guests of the hotel.

 

"If you will notice I said attendance was not bad considering it was a Sunday on the 4th of July weekend.I never said that we had thousands or even hundreds of attendees."

 

I am curious what you would consider to be bad for a one-day show on the 4th of July weekend. Would 18 people in attendance qualify? I was a dealer at a one-day show on Super Bowl Sunday in Seattle this past February. We had just over 6,000 people in attendance. By your standards that might be one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse, the one just after toads begin to rain from the sky. We could take a poll of 100 board members and ask them to come up with a number that would qualify as "bad" for a one-day show on the 4th of July. I'd bet 97% of them would have numbers higher that what your show pulled in.

 

"As far as dealers go I did not say we had a lot of dealers. Ask your fellow San Antonio board members who signed up to do the show and then did not show up (one of the reason shows get cancelled on short notice)."

 

That's true. In fact, to give you full credit you never actually mentioned having any dealers in your show report. Technically that was brutal honesty on your part (if hidden with a bit of legerdemain). And I hate to break it to you, but if having a couple of board members cancel their tables means you don't have a show, you really didn't have one to begin with. Harley Yee doesn't do a single show all year that would fold up its tent if he wasn't there. Neither do guys like DarthDiesel and FlyingDonut.

 

"And don't forget to mention you paid no admission fee to get in which is probably a good thing for you since you live so far away (in San Antonio ? )"

 

If you think the admission fee is the only cost for an attendee to go to a comic book show you have very little grounding in basic economics. Even ignoring the cost of gasoline you still have the opportunity cost of time away from family, friends, sleep, work, other hobbies, this board...

 

"So how come you did not introduce yourself as a fellow board member at the show ? Too busy looking for things to complain about no doubt."

 

Because in all honesty I don't consider you to be a member of this board. Period.

 

You have 35 posts to your "credit" at this point. And all 35 of them are about your own events. You are about as much a "fellow board member" as PovertyRow is a good speller RickDogg is a 160-lb hermaphrodite Ian Levine is a Marvel collector Greggy is a an erudite wordsmith Steve is Chuck in disguise oh wait... you're not going to get any of these, because you aren't a member of this board. Never mind.

 

"Do us and yourself a favor just don't come to our next show in San Antonio,that way you won't be disappointed and we wont have to say "Sorry we did not meet your expectations""

 

You'll have to let me know when you plan to have a show in San Antonio, because as near as anyone can tell you haven't had one yet. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but setting a half-dozen boxes of dollar books on a table in a hotel ballroom so ten people can flip through them doesn't qualify as a show. Last week my neighbor spent a couple minutes looking through some X-Men comics in my living room, I guess that means I am a famous show promotor in San Antonio.

 

"And last but not least what is up with all the put downs on the Hispanics ? I am Hispanic and I wish you would have made them remarks to me in person like a man rather than hiding behind some alias on message board."

 

This just shows how ignorant you are about this city. First off, I never said anything about Hispanics. And second, the breaking of cascarones and the eating of breakfast tacos wrapped in aluminum foil are as integral a part of this city as the Spurs or the Riverwalk. San Antonio is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the US and our racial tolerance is legendary. Everyone who lives in this city eats breakfast tacos, whether they are white, black, Hispanic, even Yankee. Doesn't matter whether it is Carne Guisada, Bean and Cheese, Bacon and Egg, Picadillo, Chorizo and Egg, or a Suicide (Bean, Cheese, Bacon, Egg, and Guacamole), you wrap it in a flour tortilla and wrap that in aluminum foil. That's breakfast in San Antonio. Period. There are as many places in San Antonio that sell tacos as there are places in Seattle that sell coffee.

 

"I do not hide ,I want the world to know who I am.... "

 

This is the first thing I agreed with in your post. Because I want the world to know who you are, too. Dirtbags like you can ruin the comic show scene in a town. All it takes is a few bad experiences with promoters like you who don't know what the hell they are doing to turn off both dealers and collectors from ever doing/attending a show in that town again. Houston is currently a wasteland for comic shows because of people like you putting on bad ones and discouraging both buyers and sellers from ever getting involved. Comic shows were dead in San Antonio for years until Dale Eckman started doing his small shows again a couple years ago, and slowly but surely the community is building. I am currently in talks to do a "real" comic show in San Antonio sometime in late 2006 or early 2007 (ie 100+ booths, booth fee over $125, major guests, out-of-state dealers, the works) and if I go through with it, it will be in part because Dale has done a good enough job building the local community that I know I can get attendance of 2500+.

 

Thankfully, you may have done such a poor job that no one even knows about the bad job you did. And maybe you haven't done any real damage to the town. At least I can be thankful for that.

 

'House

[Foolkiller]

Let's see if I can sum up this debate here... the San Antonio show sucked and isn't worth your time to go to. But sonofpromoterman will try and do better the next time, and should avoid speaking highly about the show since apparently, we have an eyewitness who said there were no comics dealers there.

 

Incidentally, I don't think the way to endear yourself to a crowd is to call the person who's pointing a criticism a name. Seems a little early for the name calling bit and certainly doesn't smack of professionalism. Might make you wonder how the show is run...

[lighthouse]

Let's see if I can sum up this debate here... the San Antonio show sucked and isn't worth your time to go to. But sonofpromoterman will try and do better the next time, and should avoid speaking highly about the show since apparently, we have an eyewitness who said there were no comics dealers there.

 

Unfortunately this is exactly the response I am hoping to avoid...

 

JMV Entertainment's show sucked... the one in SA sucked, the one in Austin sucked, and I have yet to see positive comments about any of his other shows in Texas, Arizona, or New Mexico for that matter.

 

There are good shows in San Antonio, including the ones by Dale Eckman which are held at Live Oak Civic Center. Not great shows, but good shows. Shows where a dealer can expect to make some money and a collector can expect to find some good buys.

 

And as to whether sonofpromoterman will try to do better, anyone who has read his other threads knows that he runs about 100 shows a year and could not care less how any of them are. He just keeps running more.

 

I have been on this board a long time. And I have very rarely posted in the manner seen in this thread. Take that for what it is worth.

[Sonofpromoterman]

Mr. Lighthouse,

 

As I said before " Sorry that we did not meet your expectations " If you were so concerned about the quality of shows ..why did you not introduce yourself at the show with all these complaints ?

 

Its nice to hear that you were in Seattle as a dealer for a "one" day show in February... mm

 

... are you talking about the Emerald City Comic Con ? Promoted by John Demonakos which is a 2 day national level "convention" held annually that had over 6,000 people attend this past February.

 

Its nice to that you would compare our small local show to a large show such as theirs.I can't argue that.Their show is bigger and better.

 

As for me and my fellow "dirtbag" promoters we will keep on doing the best we can and serve our customers with friendly service whether its with 100 dealers and 10,000 collectors thru the door or only 1 dealer and 10 collectors.

 

I wish you the best of luck in your future show endeavors whether it be in your living room,the flea market or elsewhere. I hope to be first in line at your show when you decide to jump into the "promotions ring".

 

Hopefully I will have nothing but good things to say about your show !

 

 

 

James Vaughn

JMV Entertainment