The final tally of how many people showed up for the second convention put on in Denver is being reported as 61,000. That's far from from last year's 28,000 and a hell of a lot more than they were hoping for during that first con which was around 10,000. There were more than a few growing pains making that many people happy when twice as many people show up to a party than you planned for. Lines went around the whole convention center at least once to get inside. And, even though I had to lug a suitcase full of gear and merchandise past the long line, I was happy I had a table and was able to bypass the line to get inside and set-up.
Once everyone got inside it really went off without a hitch. It was a great weekend and the show went really well for us. I've found the biggest thing I'm up against with the OilCan Drive project is that I'm a relatively unknown comic book artist with a completely unknown comic book project. I could be a well known artist with a new project and do okay. Or I could be a completely unknown artist and be selling prints of Batman, Spider-Man, and known characters and be fine. But, I chose a nice uphill battle for myself and, I have to say, while it's going slow and steady, this year's convention went much better than last year's.
We had a lot of people coming up to the table, sold a bunch of books and music CDs, handed out a ton of postcards, and met a lot of really great people. The only thing that didn't show up on time which I would have loved to give out were the OCD vinyl stickers. They finally came last week on Friday, a week later than I needed them, and they looked great. I would have loved to give one of those out to everyone who passed by the table. Ah, well.
It was a long weekend...hell, it was a long sixteen weeks to get to that weekend...but it was all completely worth it. I already put my money down on a table for next year so I now have fifty one weeks or so to get my act together and get some new stuff out there. I think it will be fine. This last week of resting and reworking the OCD website has been great but now I'm itching to get back to the drawing board again and create some new stuff.
Here are a few photos I snapped at the convention of both our table and some of the people who came by. The guy in the Breaking Bad Walter White mask completely freaked me out the first night I saw him. It was so lifelike that it looked like someone had used CG to put Bryan Cranston's face on this guy's body. Except it was all real and right in your face. It was actually a bit disturbing.
Joel Adams was a great guy to meet and sat across from me all weekend. He had some great art to look at and was a super nice guy. I think the weekend was getting to him a bit as he can be seen here "resting his eyes."The bad part of having a table is you don't get to walk around the convention nearly as much as you want to and see all the things other people are seeing. The good part is you have a home base and, if you sit there long enough, most of the convention actually comes strolling right by you. So most of the pics of people in costume I got came by the table and were kind enough to stop for a picture.
It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again. Of course, now I need to do something even bigger for next time. Anyone have any good ideas?
Enjoy the photos and have a great day!
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