MAGfest Final Notes

With MAGfest over, I need to make some personal notes for the next time we attend:

Leave the day after the last day of the convention. There's still a lot of people there on the last day, and they're hungry for merchandise. The tournaments are also giving away lots of MAG points on the last day, and the winners need places to spend them. It's also way less stressful to shut down after everything is done and people are gone than it is to shut down while the vendor hall is still crowded with people. Finally, leaving the following day may allow some time for sightseeing before heading to the airport.

Bring a scale. This will make things generally easier to ship stuff back the the office, and it will allow us to weigh our luggage before going to the airport.

Bring more people. As it is, I was working 10-14 hour days, which is okay, but I'd prefer to have more time to spend catching up with friends.

Posters sell really well there, probably because there are a bunch of artists there selling prints as well, which puts people in the mindset of looking for posters. Bring more of the popular posters (check sales) and bring 300-400 poster bags.

Make sure either the iPads have cellular data or my phone has enough data to last the weekend. Convention Wi-Fi works okay, but it's a bit unreliable.

Bring way more $1 bills. Brought $150 this time, but had to run out to find smaller bills several times. Bring at least $400 in singles next time, $1,000 total in change (the rest fives and tens) to prevent change shortages.

More books. Books did pretty well, some of them sold out the second day.

The variety of merchandise was good. More anime-looking/cartoony shirt designs do well (Monster Mosh, Mercy, Bear & Bird). Indie merch does well, Having sample shirts on the table is also helpful--next time keep a variety of shirt sizes on the counter for size reference.

Display prices more prominently. The most common question was, "How much is this?" 

Some people didn't realize the plush toys were for sale. Display prices for them clearly, both to preempt pricing questions and to make it clear that they're merchandise.

Octodad plush sold much better than Hexipal plush. More plush toys in the future may make it more clear that we're in the plush-making business. (Thinking about Toriel here.)

Get an "Official UNDERTALE Merch" sign? Nobody seemed to question our Undertale merchandise, but making it clear that sales go to support Toby certainly couldn't hurt.