As I did the show report for the Tampa show last week I realized I never did a full report for FX so here it is:
As I said above getting ready for the show was crazy...we moved to our new house 10 days before Christmas so finding anything was 1/2 luck! And the start of a project I was in charge of at work which was supposed to begin in Sept. of 2007 got delayed until...you guessed it....the week of FX. I always schedule 2 weeks vacation a week ahead of time for FX...the week before to get ready and the week after to recuperate. Well, had to give up a couple days before hand and participate on conference calls that week before...it was pretty hilarious seeing me in the lobby of the convention center sitting on a payphone for an hour (did not want to eat up my cel phone minutes!) while on calls. But at least I was able to get to the show. However, my week after was cancelled....I was back to work on Monday and dragging for the next 2 weeks!!
Now to the show! We were located in the front of aisle 200 and the media guests were right across from us so we had crowds all weekend! Talking with other dealers and members of Artist Alley which was on the other side of the room the talk was crowds not so thick over there. Thursday was set up, Friday and Sunday had very strong sales while Saturday was below average....$$ wise sales were almost the same each day. Show sales were up almost 30% from the previous year....low ticket items ruled the weekend! I had a Dollar table in the front of my both with many great items and I sold a TON of stuff off of this table all weekend!
Card sales were strong making up 38% of my total sales for the show...the leading category for the 2nd year in a row! As I said before I had a lot of deals due to my recent move...over 200 $1 sets were gone by end of the day on Friday and the 50 cents insert box was always popular as people were enjoying the deals to be found there...one gentleman spent 2 hours digging through and got over 200 inserts! Also had a 50 cent promo box which sold quite a few cards. High end/case inserts did not have too much interest....I think I showed 1 card in my showcase all weekend. Set sales were very strong...Star Wars 30th, Star Trek Motion, Ken Kelly (he was a guest at the show), DC Legacy, Justice League, Batman Saga, GPK, Titanic, and of course Bettie Page. Sold some old Wacky's and box sales included Marvel 3 and 4 CSI and Ken Kelly. Low end inserts sold well with Marvel Masterpieces 1 gold parallels selling out.
Chatted and traded with Tony from Triangle Cards, with Tom (TWS) and comicbookfan....always great to see fellow Card Talkers! Saw Uncle Allan from Inkworks and thanked him for the goodies! Also finally met fellow Card Talker Brian Kong....got to chat for a few minutes and look at some of his work before I had to go back to my booth...he stopped by my booth the end of the day on Sunday and we did some trading of his sketch cards....I had one of his/he had many of his...
Here's a story that was the highlight of the weekend for me: as I said we were located across from the media guests. Laura Vandervoort who plays Kara on Smallville as well as the original movie Supergirl Helen Slater were guests. I had copies of Adam Hughes' Supergirl poster for sale....I thought people would like to get it signed by both Supergirls and it was a brisk seller all weekend long. On Saturday a guy walks up and wants to buy 1 of the posters. As he is paying I ask him if he plans on getting it signed? He says yeah....Laura Vandervoort is my girlfriend. After I picked up my jaw from hitting the ground I handed him his $$ back for the poster and made a deal...I'll give him a poster for free if he would get one signed for me...DEAL! Throughout the morning he kept stopping by saying he was working on it...I was too busy with sales to really worry. About 1:30 he came back with the poster AND Laura! I got to chat with her for about 5 minutes...she was very nice and gracious...and of course very pretty!! Stupid me, I should have taken a picture but did not think of it!! And the poster was signed to me personally by Laura and Helen Slater!! Definitely the highlight of my weekend!
Another great FX show for me. The Superbowl is in Tampa in 2009 so FX will be the weekend AFTER.....I can't wait!
David
