Has anyone out there ever had their table next to a popular table? Well our first year having an artist alley table was at a convention called Castle Point Anime Convention. And what do you know, we were set up right next to a table that proved to be very popular. The artists at this table were none other than JJ and Vilsy!
JJ and Vilsy call themselves Geek Mythology. Isn't that clever? I think it is. well they don't do prints, stickers, buttons or jewelry. Nope these two do something else. Bead sprites. That's right have you ever did those things where you put the beads on the peg board and then iron em together? no? well check these two out at their website and you'll see what I mean!
Anyways back to my main point. Instead of ranting and raving and explaining stuff like I normally do I'm gonna tell you all a story.
So here we are, Joao and I, at our very first convention in the artist alley. CPAC is a one day convention but it's still really fun! so we had our table all set up (very crappily) and the table right next to us just happens to be JJ and Vilsy. Upon seeing their wares, I mean art, I thought it was really cool! I had done the bead thing before but I never thought of doing it with sprites like they were. I wanted the Sonic one, the Zelda one, the Tingle one, well you get the picture.
We made friends with the duo and everything was good. They got a lot of customers and in turn those customers ended up coming over to our table. I even heard JJ sending us customers, telling them to go and check us out! That was pretty awesome. So we ended up doing well for our first time all thanks to our new friends :)
Needless to say we enjoyed sitting next to them so much that we requested to be seated next to them the next year. So this time we had a better display, complete with those ikea stacking cubes! ok it was a bit too much but we still stood out A LOT..
We were seated next to JJ and Vilsy again and we still did pretty well for ourselves but this time Geek mythology wasn't exactly giving us customers..
They were a very popular table of course and a lot of times during the day there was a big crowd around their table. Sometimes the crowd would get so big that some of the people would be standing in front of my drawings :(
Not only that, but once in awhile we'd lose a customer to them because they would look at our table then notice, hey that looks cool, what is that? and then wander over to their table..
I don't have anything bad to say about JJ and Vilsy because they're cool peeps and they make cool shit. I also wouldn't mind sitting next to them a 3rd time just because I think they're good friends and I don't mind losing a customer to them once in awhile because there is a benefit of us getting some customers to our table as well.
But of course what my point is, sometimes sitting next to a popular table can be a curse. Especially if they have artwork that's different from yours. At the same time if you have an artist friend you see at a convention, that's pretty cool and I think that should be treasured :)
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