NameThatCon12: ConZilla
NameThatCon 12, ConZilla was held over the weekend of April 24-26 in the Airport Holiday Inn, St. Louis. We got a good early start heading over there, since we knew there would be trouble with road construction, but it still took longer than we expected. However, the dealers' room seemed to be in good order and we soon identified our assigned tables and were able to get stuff hauled in.
Once we got our stuff in and started on setting up the tables, I headed down to the art show to get stuff in. However, I quickly discovered that this might be a problem. Since we'd decided to go at the last minute, when ToBeContinued (the South Bend, Indiana con) was cancelled, there hadn't been time for me to reserve space in the art show. Because of that, I was going to have to pay double the price for space and there was some question as to whether there would even be any space for my stuff. I ended up forking over six bucks for a tiny corner of a table, just enough to set out my five plaques. I was not happy.
Then, when the dealers' room finally did open, I made the unhappy discovery that they were serving drinks only, no snackies. So I had the unenviable privelege of grinding through the afternoon on an empty stomach. Fortunately the people at the table beside us were generous with their bag of candy, which did take a little of the edge off my hunger and helped me from getting cranky or light-headed.
After the dealers' room closed, we headed out for supper at a chinese restaurant we had seen on the way in. We had an excellent meal at their buffet, then stopped at Target on the way back to acquire some snackies so we could survive the next two days in straitened condition.
Then we visited the parties. This con had some fairly decent parties, including a couple advertising other conventions. After we'd made the rounds, we decided to turn in for the night.
The next morning we got up fairly early and headed over to the dealers' room to get things going. Unfortunately it was another slow day as far as sales were concerned, and I did more work on a short story I'd been trying to get done. In the art show I did get a bid on one of my plaques, but it wasn't even going to be enough to pay for the exorbitant space price, let alone my gas in going to the con.
That afternoon was the art auction. Although I didn't have anything on the auction, I still sat in on it and watched. After it was over, we headed over to one of the local eateries for supper (we didn't want to drive, since the parking lot was filling up and we were worried that we might not be able to find a parking spot when we got back. Then we did the rounds of the parties before turning in for the night.
Sunday morning we got up early to have time to gather our things and get checked out of our room before the dealers' room opened. Things were still slow, so we decided to get stuff packed early. I also got my art show stuff reclaimed and got my money for the one piece that sold.
When the dealers' room closed it was starting to rain. This made carting everything back out to load a real nuisance, since we had to mess around with a tarp to make sure stuff didn't get drenched. It was after 5PM by the time we got everything loaded. I'd wanted to make a side trip to Ste. Genevieve, but I decided not to bother with that since the rain would preclude seeing much of anything. We did run back in for a quick visit to the con suite, which now had munchies because the parties donated all their leftovers. We got a bit of food to tide us over on the way home, then headed down to our vehicles to make the long trip home.
Copyright 2012 by Leigh Kimmel
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Last updated October 21, 2012.