We're back from San Antonio's Zombie Con 2012! (Review)

And I hate San Antonio.

Ok. Maybe I don't HATE San Antonio, but I much prefer Houston over it. I just don't understand a city whose downtown and main tourist trap (The Riverwalk) is almost completely devoid of people on a Friday and Saturday night. Oh, also the one way streets gave us an exciting adventure on our way to find the hotel because they aren't clearly marked at all.

But you want to hear about Zombie Con.

We did alright for our first convention. Sold out of our zombie kittens (definitely making those into a full time product), learned a lot of things about selling our dolls, and got real-time customer feedback (everyone who stopped at our booth liked the dolls, but thought they were a little too pricey).

And Aaron looked scary good in his costume.

We met a lot of fun characters, including a cute sock monkey dressed as a zombie and a ton of interesting vendors and artists that I was looking forward to seeing for months. Our booth was in between a really awesome special effects makeup team, who made prosthetic scabs, boils, and bites all through the convention, and a vendor who sold handmade horror themed jewelry and accessories. Directly behind us were some ladies transforming teddy bears into undead cuddly creations. A local anime and pop culture shop, Ooples, was across the aisle from us, and there were many San Antonio artists peddling the best of their gory and horror themed wares. A shop called OddbirdsBoutique offered industrial and steampunk light fixtures for the home and shop. There was an artist who had some amazing, cartoony prints of a zombie astronaut that I didn't get to buy because we were too busy manning the booth. :(  I would mention all of the vendors' names (because they were all pretty great), but I can't quite remember all of them.

Our booth. I wasn't aware that we were being photographed!

Let's talk about the actual event for a second, though. It wasn't the most organized convention. It was my first time going to any sort of event like it and I could see that. Now, I get that it was the Cuellar family's first convention ever. They had to plan it, get sponsors, reserve the event center, get vendors, artists, and bands to sign up, AND do publicity all by themselves. I applaud them for actually making it happen. Hopefully the next time they throw a convention, they will have all of the kinks worked out and have a really successful event. :) Some things that I feel could have been avoided really bother me though, like:

• No one knew that parking was going to be paid.

I mean, come on. That's one of the things that ought to be mentioned on your event's website. Aaron and I didn't have to pay because we were vendors, but we didn't even know about it until the day of, when we got to the event center to sign up. I think that made a lot of people upset, especially the ones that weren't very impressed with Zombie Con, because they essentially had to pay a minimum of $25 to find out that it was a start up convention.

People hated the price.



People REALLY thought it was overpriced.

• The booths weren't assigned/setup was a mess.

 When we got to the San Antonio Event Center to choose where our booth would be, no one knew where the booths would be. They were still trying to get a floor plan worked out the day before, and gave us a vague area of where they wanted the artist's booths. That is, when one of them finally spoke to us. Aaron and I went into the event center and stood by Mr. Cuellar, waiting patiently for 5 minutes as he spoke to the setup crew chief/event center director/whoever that guy was. Then we waited for 10 minutes awkwardly as he continued to speak to him, and the rest of the family talked amongst themselves, occasionally throwing glances over to where we were standing and waiting. Finally, the adult daughter Jessica, who is also the Facebook page manager, came up to us and took our names to set up a booth. Which they immediately moved to a different spot because they were still unsure of how to set up.

• The event center was way too large for a first time convention.

Half of the convention center was reserved for vendors and the other half was reserved for bands and events. I'm only guessing that the events were held on the other side of the convention because I couldn't see them from the booth, and they weren't announced in any way. Aaron kept having to go up to the information desk and ask about the costume contest, which they finally started at 9 p.m. Somehow, even though the bands playing were on the complete opposite of the room, I could barely talk to most of my customers over the sound of dubstep, screamo, and something called "Galactic Hardcore". When I took a chance to stretch my legs while Aaron watched our booth, I was surprised to see that they had already started a pinata bashing contest on the other side. The area surrounding the stage was almost completely empty. The bands were playing to an almost absent audience. It seemed like the con could have been done with half the space, one good band or DJ (I personally thought that the music was way too loud, intrusive, and distracting to be indoors, but that's just me and a bunch of people on Facebook), and a cleaner layout.

• The events that were not the band playing weren't organized.

On Zombie Con's website, they boasted a brain eating contest, intestinal tug of war, Zombie Chess, and a costume contest. I can't speak for the other events, mostly because I didn't even know when they were going on (which was a real disappointment), but the costume contest really let me down. They offered $1000 for 1st place, which got a lot of people interested in it. Not enough apparently, because when they announced the winner (who totally deserved it and didn't even know there was a cash prize) they decided to cut out the 2nd and 3rd cash prizes because not enough people signed up. I'm not so much upset that Aaron didn't win, but that they kept putting off the event until 9 p.m. (which is probably why they didn't get as many entrants), had the contest in front of the information desk instead of the stage (which caused massive crowding and had them form some sort of circle instead of an orderly line or SOMETHING, and didn't even get the band to stop playing while they judged.

But the thing that really bothers me?

• They are being really unprofessional now that the con is over.

I don't consider the ':P' emoticon to be softening at all.

The Zombie Con Facebook page has always seemed a little laid back to me. Instead of being professionally friendly, they were a bit too familiar and personal for my taste; but that's just my opinion, and I'm sure a lot of people benefited from them being so personable. But today, after people started posting reviews of Zombie Con, they started getting really insulting to people who didn't love the convention. Bad reviews ranged from polite to rather blunt, but any bad review from a convention attendee shouldn't be met with a response of, "Well, let's see you throw a better con."

Also, yes, a guy in a Gumby suit was running around. He was pretty rad.

Really? That's really how you are going to talk to a paying customer who took the time and paid the money to go to your event. Instead of taking their criticisms and learning from them, politely thanking them for their attendance and promising that the next event will be better, you'd rather act like a child and go on the defense and challenge them to do better than you? What if they could? How embarrassed would you be if they had taken your challenge and threw a better Zombie Con, with more attendees, had made more money, and were actually polite to people? They expressed dissatisfaction and you respond with the easiest answer to give a customer; "You didn't like it? Too bad, we have your money and your opinion doesn't matter anymore." Great to hear, Zombie Con. You just lost the customers that you told that to. And you've lost my respect too.

So, thank you Zombie Con. I appreciate you letting me sell my wares at your convention. I had an interesting time, even if I was extremely disappointed at the event. I learned a lot. The vendors were really great (and professional!), of your attendees were awesome to talk to and get to know, and the bands weren't bad. But I won't be returning to any more of your conventions in the future.

-Megh

P.S. I didn't take the picture of Aaron or our booth, photo credit goes to Otaku Space.