Yesterday I put on a one day Comic Con at the library where I work, in my secret identity as a librarian. A goodly number of months in the making, WyoCon, as I deemed it, was a great success! We had about 216 people attend to enjoy the vendors, panels and the special guest speaker in the form of Kevon Ward, a contestant from Season 9 of “Face Off”. Since this was my first time putting on an event like this I thought I would share some lessons for other librarians, or anyone really, who might be thinking of putting on such an event themselves.
Lesson 1: Talk to People Who Go to Them
Consulting articles and interviews with the organizers of other cons is all well and good, but at the end of the day nothing beats the insights of the attendees themselves who go for the experience. I consulted both and the latter was by far the more valuable in the long run. Organizers can give you advice on pitfalls to avoid and resources to consult but only attendees can give you insight into why people want the experience and what is most important to them about it.
I had a crack team of Comic Con veteran attendees who were able to nail down what I needed to include in my event. Some of their advice had to be left to the wayside for practical reasons such as, ‘You absolutely have to have a life-sized TARDIS!”. Since I would absolutely have had to have more space than was available to fit one I alas couldn’t follow that particular piece of advice. Still, my experts were invaluable to me, biggest thank you going to my friend Kirsten there.
Even if you yourself go to lots of Comic Cons you should still consult other attendees. Everyone’s experience of one of these is different and getting the perspective of someone else will be invaluable to you.
Lesson 2: Check With Your Vendors/Presenters
WyoCon experienced a few hiccups with vendors. I won’t go into details but we ended up with fewer vendors than we had anticipated on the day of. As careful as I’d thought I’d been with my communication with them, I was taken by surprise on the day of setup when a few of them couldn’t make it. However many times you think you need to check in with them, check in twice more just to be safe.
Remember that vendors are one of the most popular parts of the experience (something I learned from my awesome experts in Lesson 1). Since your con, being small and first year like WyoCon was, isn’t likely to have vendors breaking down the door to take part like one of the big city Cons, its in your best interest to check in early and check in often with the vendors who do decide to take part.
Lesson 3: Signage is Your Friend
This one may seem obvious, but you need to have signs everywhere, about everything. Directional signs, signs telling people what things are, etc. I already knew this going in and even I was taken by surprise as to how many signs I needed and didn’t have. For example we decided to place an interactive trivia wall on the panel table in the main part of the library when there wasn’t a panel going on. I discovered people sitting there expecting someone to get up and somehow host the trivia wall, not realizing it was an interactive DIY display. This was just one example of things that I really could have used a sign for throughout the day.
Bottom line: signs. Have them. Lots of them.
Lesson 4: Post the Schedule Ahead of Time
This one really surprised me, but I discovered too late that people were fully expecting me to post on the website, on social media, and probably both, the schedule of events for the day. Since it was an all-day event I had figured people would just show up on the day of and get a schedule when they arrived. Do not fall to this assumption as I did. Once people know about your con they will expect to know when during the day things are happening before they come, not just what. Several people who wanted a schedule ahead of time and couldn’t find one didn’t end up coming and I fully suspect that if I had made the schedule available beforehand our attendance would have been even better than it was.
Lesson 5: Have a Greeter
Find a volunteer, pay someone, whatever you have to do, find someone to be near the entrance(s) to greet attendees and direct them as they come in. I thought for an event like this, being of the small scale it was, I could get away with having a table with the schedule on it next to a giant (and I do mean giant) banner with WyoCon plastered on it, plus an additional sign indicating the schedules were on the table. Not so. Everyone (and I do mean everyone) walked right past the table and the giant banner. I ended up creating a lot more work for myself as I’d have to stop and explain things to people and point out where the schedules were. Save yourself the extra work and have someone designated for that.
There were many other lessons I learned from WyoCon, but these were the big ones. Hopefully this can help a few people out in the future as they work to create their own conventions.
Have you ever put on a Con or similar event? What lessons did you learn from the experience?
