How can we have a better ACCA show?

I'd be willing to do print materials, like programs and posters, if you don't already have a person for that.

A Program Booklet.

I can't recall ever having one for the ACCA?

If you sell advertising space on the book, it could cover printing cost.

We have a better format to present our Artist & guests BIOS. Local artists can contribute with strips and pin-ups.(theme- like Alberta 100 for this year?). Have an autograph and sketch section.

It would be a book to keep, a souvenir of the event.
This could even be limited to the first 300+ to come through the door?More incentive to come early?

Any other ideas?

GarSeeYa!!!

Andrew,

We had three people from Edmonton, as far as I know, they made a comment that the comic creative community is not that active. That there is little communication in the group-or are totally unaware of one another.They may sign onto MIC.

What format do the comic JAMS take?Is this multiple artist working on say five pages, and writers doing dialogue?

Wouldn't it be cool if we could do a Calgary VS Edmonton Comic Jam...Post the pages on MIC,guest would vote on the winner?

Bi-weekly? That may be a little harder...once a month?

Good for now...gotta draw.

GarSeeYa!!!

Added- If we make this one BIG event, we could even get some press coverage. Do it a month before the mini-con, have the winner announceded at the ACCA Show.

The way we do it--actually, the only way I've heard of anyone do it until this thread--is, we get any number of people sitting around a table (so far, it's been five, but the next one's being advertised in the NextFest arts festival book, so there's hope for more next time round). Sometimes we pick a theme, sometimes we don't. Everyone gets a set amount of time--10-15 minutes, generally speaking--to do a panel (or two or three, if they feel like it). At the end of the time, everyone passes the page to the person next to them, and they do the next panel, pass it on, another panel, etc. etc. until it's gone all the way around the table (at Con-Version, where there's usually more people and a set time, we usually work in eight minute increments up to six panels on a page).

There's no artist/writer separation under this scheme, and everyone, at both Happy Harbor and Con-version, is invited to join, regardless of actual artistic skill level. The results of the jams can be found at the Happy Harbor site here:

www.happyharborcomics.com/events/page_event_comicjam.html

It's more an exercise in improvisation than an attempt to get a professional quality product, but it's also an opportunity to have some fun while flexing the artistic muscles, and, like I say, I have hopes that it will contribute to a sense of community in the area.

That sense of community is something Jay at Happy Harbor is really trying to get up and running here--in the three months or so the store's been open, he's had a 24 HCD event, run Free Comic Day as a real special occasion, started the bi-weekly jams (which he's talking about making weekly), selected 24 Hour Comic pages are being displayed as part of the NextFest Arts Festival from June 2-12, he's already talking about setting up some sort of workshop event with creators in the fall...he's really making an effort to build something, as opposed to just selling a bunch of books.

When it comes to building a creative community, the question is, how do we find people who might be interested, or how do we get them to find us? I find it easy to believe there's a community waiting to blossom--primarily because of the way I see it building down there.

It's funny--Derek and I and a couple others would generally discuss the possibility of trying to establish a comics creator community in Calgary during the one time a year we saw each other for a day or two, at Con-Version...but the general impression I got was that it wasn't really worth it. I had no idea at all of the talent Calgary had in it, and no sense of a desire from a sufficient number of comic creator-types to join together.

The current growth of MIC makes me very hopeful that something similar, if smaller, can be built here. Your comment about people in Edmonton being largely unaware of others working towards similar goals hits close to home, as it describes my own perception of the situation as it stood in Calgary--a situation that I clearly misread while I was still in town. I've got my fingers crossed those Edmontonians who were down there this weekend will sign on, and we'll be able to get a dialogue going here, as well.

A

I do think we need more promotion for the ACCA as well. The flyers did get out earlier this year, but you need more coverage than just the usual spots. Something in the Herald, The Sun, or FFWD would have been great. Vicious Ambitious tried all of those and A-Channel and Shaw. Shaw was the only one to get back to us and from what people told us at the convention, that really worked out for us. I'm glad the Shaw people gave convention information in the TV spot as well. I mean, the bigger the turn-out the better for us, but still, shouldn't the ACCA really be promoting the convention instead of us doing it for them? I don't mind promoting the convention, but they need to do something more pro-active instead of relying on word of mouth.

I also think the artists and retailers shouldn't be as integrated. I liked it better when there was a true Artist's Alley instead of one or two artists throw into the same block with 4 other retailers. People will usually check out the merchandise first and then the artists, but it'd be better if the artists were in one spot so they don't miss anyone when they double back.

I don't know the numbers, but this year seemed to have a great turnout. We were so busy I didn't get a chance to really talk to anyone until it bottomed out after 4. Vicious Ambitious would have liked to have joined everyone for the after party, but it was planned so late, we already made plans.

Nick and I also designed the program guide for the ACCA this year. It's his Hellboy on the cover. We volunteered a while back and it was a lil tricky getting everything on a double-sided sheet. We saw past program guides, and while adequate, they didn't seem very exciting so why even read them? It would good for future cons to have all the artists listed inside something like an 8 page booklet.

But none the less I enjoyed it thoroughly and I look forward to next year.

Yes, seperation would be good like Vince was saying.

At points I couldn't tell if an artist was sitting at a retailers booth or not. I passed right by some people the first 7 times without realizing they were artists. San Diego (and I'm sure other cons) have things well seperated. I was talking to some people, and they actually didn't even see the "main" artists in the back ...

I guess they were looking for variety spread out, but for some places I couldn't tell if it was personal art and comics being sold by an artist/studio or if they were retailers.

First off I would like to thank everyone for coming and I' m glad people had a good time. I would like to give props to Nick for the program, next year I was thinking credit lists of the guests would be a good thing to add, so people can try to buy some of the issues to get signed. The Convention is essentially organized be four people so we can use all the help we can get, because of a lack of people getting someone to arrange forums and someone to arrange transportation for the guests in Calgary are two things we would love to get more help with. Posters and name signs would also be great. I thought I would give everyone some idea as to how and why certain things so that you can give us ideas on how to improve things. We cerainly make mistakes (a convention on Mother's day for example.) One of the questions we are asked about most is about advertising. This is one lesson we learnt the hard way. We have a very limited budget so we try to get as much free advertising as possible on T.V., radio, and newspapers with things like the big breakfast and QR77. We do pay for classified ads in the Herald and Sun, as well as listing on the net and in Wizard, but advertising is VERY EXPENSIVE. On two shows we spent triple our current advertising amount and we were very careful to spend that money where we thought it would help most, but it made no difference on either show and we lost our shirts on both shows pretty much bankrupting us. Actually is seems no matter what we do for advertising we seem to get about the same number.
We could advertise like the Record, CD, Comic & Toy show in Edmonton. He spents about four times the amount we do, and he only gets about 50% more people. To pay for all that advertising he has to charge retailers twice as much for tables as we do. I would prefer not to go about it that way. If you have any ideas on how to improve advertising without spending much money please let me know. Another question I am asked is about a two day show. I don't think that is going to happen again any time soon. We had a two day show about four years ago and there were lots of problems. I would love to have a two day show as I love comic conventions but it just doesn't seem to make sense so far. The dealers from out of town have to pay for a couple nights hotel. Also most people who came the Sunday were there the Saturday and had spent much of their money on the Saturday, so it wasn't worth it to the dealers to be there the second day. Also the ACCA executive have to take two days off work rather than one to prepare for the show. Not to mention the cost involved in renting the Red and White for two days.
Another people have is about getting together before the show. Most years the night before the show the organizers get together with the guests for dinner and drinks, this year we didn't do it because of travel schedules for some of our guests made it difficult. We pretty much always have something after the con, but this year blew me away. Wow it was great seeing everyone together like that. It went late into the night, I had to go home at 3:30AM, what we could really use is someone to organize the after show festivities. Anyway I think I have finished rambling for now. If anyone has any ideas, comments or suggestions, or want to help please feel free to let me know.

Thanks,

Steve

I have to agree, I was blown away by all the people getting together after the show, I love Vietnamese food and it was great going to Nick's, but it would be nice not to have to worry about having to go home afterwards, I was thinking of booking a hotel room for myself for the con as the drive home is a killer. I'm not getting any younger either but I think I can survive one weekend a year.

For anyone wondering how a Comics Jam works, there is a short illustrated description here:

jam.attoboy.com/whatis.html

This is how Andrew ran the Jam at Con-Version XX. It worked out pretty good and drew even more artists the following year.

What about pics of the show as well as the guests. So it can be shown at ACCA site about the past events or so. This is a good way to promote up next years by posting some pics of the past events. If you visit Comic Con site, you'll see pics there right on the home page. We could probably do something like this.

Hi,

I was at the Mac Hall show as well and their attendance was about 75 people more than the ACCA show. (and the ACCA show was on a Saturday, I guess some people went to the Red and White on Sunday) With the smaller hall and everyone coming at the start of Mac Hall show it made the show seem busier, the ACCA show was more spread out both in attendance and floor size.

One thing is half of the attendance at Mac Hall was the Record and CD crowd, which helps attendence but doesn't help the comic sellers. Also having it at the the U of C may have been a good idea for attendance but rule of thumb is students don't spend as much as the plus 25 crowd. As a seller at the Mac Hall show I and most of the sellers were disappointed as sales were slow for most of us, in addition tables were twice as much as the ACCA show.

I am surprised you said that there was stronger merchanise at Mac Hall, with half of the convention records and CD's there wasn't much in the way of comic dealers and the comic dealers at Mac Hall were pretty much all at the ACCA show. (I am assuming you are not a record collector.)

As stated in a previous post to this section, the ACCA did FFWD and other mass advertising and lost big money on shows where that was done. If spending an extra $2000 in advertising only gets an extra 100 attendees it is not worth it as you will lose money. If the dealers consistantly don't do well in sales and the convention doesn't make money, it wouldn't take long for there not to be a convention.

I don't know why it took you so long to hear about our show, the ACCA started letting the word out in February and flyers & posters started going out in March. For next years show the ACCA even had flyers out. (May 27, 2006), maybe you were just unlucky. Anyway, hopefully you wil like the ACCA show more next year.

Thanks,

Steve