This past weekend, we had the pleasure of being an exhibitor at Tampa Bay Comic Con. Wow, what a weekend! We didn’t quite know what to expect at this show. We had attended a few times in the past, but this weekend definitely had some bigger guests with Lauren Cohan and Emily Kinney from The Walking Dead. Add in Drake Bell, many artists, and costume contests, and we knew this would be quite an event.
We had 3 booths for this event, and it took quite a while to set up on Friday night and Saturday morning. All the hard work paid off, though. We were really happy with how our booth turned out, and we got a lot of compliments on the layout that we used. Lauren Cohan wasn’t able to attend on Saturday, but the crowd was still packed. We really enjoyed the costumes-especially the young kid – probably 3 yrs old – dressed as Hulk, including body paint! Overall we were kind of surprised by how busy it was judging from the last few we had attended. We met a lot of cool people- It was a great day, and we were looking forward to what Sunday would hold.
Sunday is usually a slower day, but no one really knew what to expect with Lauren Cohan only being there for Sunday. We arrived at about 9 to restock some things in our booth, and there was already a good sized line. Someone came through our booth at about 1030, and told us that the line was out of the lobby, around the building and out into the parking garage! At some point, they cut off ticket sales and wouldn’t let anyone else into the convention! The rest of the day involved a lot of updates regarding lines, fire marshal threats, hearing of people buying wrist bands on the black market, and all kinds of stuff that I wish I could see firsthand. While all that was going on, we were trying to hold down the fort at the booth. It was so busy, which made the day go by fast but we barely got even a lunch break! We met a lot of people again Sunday, and also, it seems like everyone we knew stopped by to visit Sunday- even with all the Mayhem. It was nice to meet up with Nathan from http://geektriumvirate.com/, Nick from http://adesigngeek.com/, and all the guys from http://www.readmorecomics.com/. Also, we ran into Shawn, an old friend from years ago, who is now doing http://www.comicconartists.net/. If you get a chance, check these guys out – they are all really great people, who are passionate about comics. Check out our full gallery of pics on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jmdretailtoys
JMD Retail 