The personnel: me, Mars, Divvy, and Zen.
We started on the road at 4 AM on Thursday morning. We got to Chicago in the afternoon, checked into the hotel, and got the table set up in the Artist Alley of the convention in time for it to open for Preview Night.
Here is the view of our aisle from our table:
And here is our table once it was all set up:
We didn't do many sales on Preview Night, nor on the Friday for that matter. Our aisle was a dud. Low energy, our neighbors sneering at us for being silly, there's a million and one reasons why we weren't doing so hot at first.
Later in the day on Friday I was wandering the convention hall and bumped into my buddy Mike Holman from Jackass. He asked how we were doing, and I explained that we are not doing the numbers I would have liked, and that I was thinking about taking over one of the small press or Autograph Area tables that look unclaimed or abandoned. He pointed at one such booth and said "Well I don't have anything to sell! Take mine!"
I quickly ran back to the Artist Alley and explained our good fortune to the rest of our party. We packed up the table and made like a Beatles cartoon running from one end of the hall to the other to get set back up as quickly as possible.
Here is our 2nd table, before the back wall got covered in balloons:
We were using Mike Holman's table, and our neighbors included The Honky Tonk Man, The Iron Sheik, Johnny Fairplay, and Gail Kim.
We were had our booth decorated like a children's birthday party, and we were giving away loot bag toys as sales premiums. As the Honky Tonk Man explained above, these were a big hit and turned our aisle into a big party.
On the Friday night, we were invited to go with Mike Holman and Johnny Fairplay to see a Vanilla Ice concert at a bar called Cans. They had the street beside the bar shut down with a stage set up out there. The crowd overflowed the whole area.
Free Jagermeister shots for everyone in the front row:
Then we hung out backstage....
And after backstage we went up to the afterparty where, upon finding out we were from Canada, everyone wanted to ask us questions and test our trivia knowledge.
We even got serenaded with a rousing rendition of O Canada from the Americans!
Zen is not used to playing with the big kids, but he was keeping up with us. shotgunning beers, doing shots, the whole thing. But when we got back to the hotel and Mars, Divvy and I kept the party rockin' in the lobby of the hotel (the lobby of the hotel is overrun with a huge party every night of the convention), Zen went straight to the room to collapse into bed without even saying good night.
Saturday was the first good day for business. We were selling the "Party Pack", in which you would receive pretty much one of everything Zen and I were selling.
We even came up with a theme song for the Party Pack:
The Honky Tonk Man came to the convention with a suitcase full of beer on the Sunday, which he shared with us. Then we left to go home on Monday, with a stop for Breakfast at IHOP.
And then we got back to Toronto in time to party for Canada Day!
For more photos from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30621&l=31bc8&id=514079365
And for more crazy videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/seanward
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