Unfortunately, Washington state doesn’t have nearly as many events as populous and enormous Texas, and over time, I figured out that many of them weren’t for me (Rose City, Jet City, Aki-Con) while others shuttered up entirely (RIP, Rainfurrest). There was a small drop in the total number of shows I did while I figured out the Pacific Northwest scene, and half my shows in 2012 were still in Texas. I moved to Seattle in 2012 and had to figure out flying to shows for the first time. Moving to Seattle probably wasn’t great for the convention career, but I still like it here, lol. In 2011, I’d moved back to Texas and stayed in-state all year because there were plenty of shows to do within the borders. Most of these shows were in or near Georgia, and the furthest my friends and I drove for a convention was 8 hours to Alabama for Kami-Con. It may not add up exactly if you count the archives I didn’t list some of the tiny pop-ups consistently, and annual show counts below are complicated when Ikkicon’s dates straddle the adjacent years, but 150 is a nice round number, so let’s go with that.įollowing AWA in fall 2008, I did three conventions in 2009 and six in 2010. 10 Years by the NumbersĪpparently, I’ve done 150 conventions and events since 2009. I do think it’s funny how I never graduated properly from PVC pipes though. It’s a lot harder to plan a year out now. More conventions are moving to lottery systems for Artist Alley, or to jury systems that would-be lottery, because more artists will pass the jury than there is space for. Meanwhile, competition for tables at the shows that remain increases every year as Artist Alley becomes the goal of more newcomers and the veteran space becomes ever-crowded. The market is saturated, and the bigger players are buying up the smaller ones. Vendors and attendees alike are more wary. For a while, there were dozens of new conventions every year, but the crest has peaked, especially following the high profile failures of various mismanaged shows (e.g. It can also be a bit constraining and suffocating: market demands don’t always align with personal interests, and depending on IP grey zones for a living is never ideal, but that’s an essay for another day. It’s empowering to be able to just make stuff, to create end products that you know are in demand. While the comics and animation industry has certainly changed in the last decade as well, cons remain a great way for artists to connect directly with an audience, and to fill a demand in a niche. I looked for other art-related work, but it was easier to adapt to something I was already doing than to pass the gatekeeper tests for industry jobs. It’s normal to book shows months in advance, and pretty soon, my schedule was planned a year out, and another year out, and another. Over time, the rest of the con became less of a draw, and the money and validation of Artist Alley became the focus and priority. I started doing cons in college, largely because it seemed like a fun way to make up the costs of going to a convention in the first place. I don’t think any of the artists who are full-time convention artists today intended for it to happen. Availability of online streaming, simulcasts and simulpubs for anime and manga has shortened fandom lifespans, and artists in these communities have ramped up production cycles to a breakneck pace. The accessibility of overseas manufacturing through sites like Alibaba has made making professional-quality goods and merchandise possible for even high school and college students. It’s only with the rapid growth of the convention scene in general over the last fifteen years that doing 25-40 conventions a year as an independent artist became not only possible, but financially worthwhile. They were never intended to be serious places of business or a way for professional artists to make a significant portion of their income. The Evolution of the Alleyįan convention Artist Alleys started out as a place for hobbyists to show off their fanwork and maybe take a few commissions or make a few print sales. I’ve seen a lot of different conventions change over the last decade, but it’s interesting to be able to have year-over-year data for one con specifically and consistently. Ikkicon wasn’t my first Artist Alley (that was Anime Weekend Atlanta 2008), but it was my first convention ever back in 2007, and it’s the convention I’ve gone back to the most as an artist. The convention has been over New Years since 2010, and depending on when the weekend falls, sometimes the dates are split between years, sometimes there’s no show a calendar year, or two shows a calendar year - so they’ve used numbers to denote the con, rather than year. That was December 31st, 2010 through January 2nd, 2011. IKKiCON 5 was my first time tabling there. This past December was my 10th consecutive year doing Artist Alley at IKKiCON in Austin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |