I talked with a variety of retailers and pros at the end of the convention to see how they did. Most of the responses ranged from slow to okay. One unhappy dealer said he only made his table costs. Nobody seemed particularly enthusiastic about the show. One dealer said the entire market is slow right now. He says people have money and they're seeing stuff they're interested in, but they need some enticing to spend it. He was giving discounts in order to do that. That dealer was selling TPBs only. Another dealer who was only selling back issues said pretty much the same thing. He said he dropped his prices by half, something he very rarely does, but it did move a lot of stuff. Overall there was a bit of disparity between retailers and dealers. Retailers that participated in the 10 dollar voucher to promote the con got their tables for free, while dealers had to pay for them.

Almost every retailer/dealer I talked to gave me a different answer for what moved well for them. One said the expensive wall comics, another Captain America books, another Bronze/Modern bins, another Hardcovers, another Golden Age books, another Manga and 1-2 dollar bins, a few said Trades. Some of those with a mix said everything sold equally well. I noticed a lot of sellers seemed to be specializing. Some come with only back issue bins, some come with only trades. Even with the back issue bins it broke down to dollar bins with bronze to moderns, some silver-bronze, some gold.

I talked to a handful of pro's and they were split about Saturday or Sunday being better for them. My general impression was that Saturday drew out the die hard readers willing to spend some money. The "Free" Sunday attracted a different crowd, likely a more budget conscious group. Some of them appeared to be more casual readers or still quite new to comics.

Labels: conventions, events, hobbystar, Toronto