This was my first large convention that I attended as a dealer, so I had a lot to learn and kind of considered the Little Wars convention to be my shake down cruise for my visits to Historicon and Fall In later this year. Here is a picture of my Fife & Drum booth at Little Wars:
A couple of things quickly became apparent to me: bring a tool kit of scissors, duct tape, rope or twine and Scotch Tape, among other items as they will all become handy at some point during the convention. I also realized that i will need to bring plastic shopping bags for the customers' purchases and some plastic bins or trays for customers to use when they are picking packs of figures out from my display trays.
The other dealers in the hall were very helpful in getting me set up and giving me hints on how to display the wares at the convention booth. Thanks go out to Karl from The Last Square for lending me some scissors and for watching my booth a couple of times when I had to use the rest room facilities. Paul at Litko also helped me attach the Fife & Drum banner to the dealer table, using his knowledge of Boy Scout knots, particularly the olde Clove Hitch, which cam in very handy. Another gentleman sold me a spare lucite display cube so that I could show more of my painted figures at my booth.
And finally, thanks go out to Henry Hyde for creating the wonderful Fife & Drum logo, and for creating the art work for the card headers used on my bags (Red cards for British, Blue cards for Americans, and Green cards for Artillery Equipment.
All in all, it was an interesting experience and I think that I came away with some good ideas and short cuts that make the logistical part of being a dealer at a game convention much easier.
One of the most common comments that I heard about the Fife & Drum figures is that the photos on my blog and here on TMP do no justice to how incrediably sharp and detailed the figures are when seen in person. These are their exact words, I did not make them up. So on the second day, Saturday, I started giving away free figure samples to anyone who visited the booth. I think that I will do the same thing at Historicon. I might even have a surprise figure to give away at the show.
paints brigs for the British fleet.
