Maneki Neko Con Report, and Scheduling Natter

Maneki Neko Con

Xap dropped X2, who was supposed to help Maneki Neko Con gaming staff, off on Thursday night, so he could get there early in the day with us, and possibly help Otter. Besides packing stuff up, I cut PVC for doll clothes displays, cut a bunch of belts, and clonked my head but good on the corner of a workmate. I wondered if I was going to need first-aid from X2 (Eagle Scout), since Ron was at a meeting, but there was no blood, just ouchie.

Got pretty much everything together and packed Thursday night, packed up personal stuff Friday morning. Ron, X2, and Robin packed the truck and trailer while I went to the bank, then off we went to the Matteson Community Center.

Got there and discovered that someone had mis-read our application. It asked if you wanted table(s) or booth(s), I'd checked the booth ticky-box, then farther down the form indicated two booths. And paid for two. Fortunately, vendors/artists alley were around the perimeter of a generous chunk of gym floor, and we were on a corner by the back door, so were able to ooze forward and closer to the door than originally intended, so it worked out OK. 

Mostly mirrored the Anime Midwest setup left-right. Instead of using our 4' tables and fencing them with gridwall and hangrails, we used the 8' table that was in our space, since I'd only made a couple new pouches since Anime Midwest. Also put the belts and Thing square to the front, with the Thing to the front, fenced with the gridwall and one of the hangrails that we weren't using elsewhere, so we were able to fill up that Thing-table with bottles as I sewed the collars on, without worrying about the bottles escaping from the table. 

X2 helped us unload and set up for a while, then went off to work gaming. To run gaming, as it turned out.

We were pretty much set up by the time Xap arrived midday. Ron ran out and procured lunch. We were open until 8, didn't seem to be a lot of people, but we did equal last year's sales - which were dreadful. So that was encouraging, if 1/4 sales Friday was assumed.

Left the trailer at the Community Center (after clearing it with Taz, the Great and Powerful), and off to the Holiday Inn where we were staying. It was a hotel.

Saturday we were open 10 am - 8 pm. It seemed fairly slow all day, but sales were respectable. Didn't really sell anything to speak of until 3:30-4:00 ish, and then it picked up and most of our sales happened by about 6-ish. Hit the hot tub after getting back to the hotel, and later told Josh "You can't come in yet, I'm not done learning about twerking." 

Sunday's sales were about the same as Friday's. Signage said dealers were open until 2:00, although everything else said 3:00. Traffic was pretty much dead, and everybody else had started packing by 2:00 (and some were already out), so we followed the herd. 

Taz asked us on Saturday about buying some of Windycon's 8' tall gridwall, and my response was thank you, but it wouldn't fit in the trailer. Ron thought we could, if we laid it down, as it is an 8' trailer, but it has a non-square nose. Taz told Ron to take a piece out and try it on Sunday, in the process of which Ron discovered that the gridwall was only 7' tall, and will fit. So we're probably getting a dozen pieces of 7' tall gridwall Windycon weekend. That will give us more vertical space, as well as just plain more gridwall to play with.

I was already thinking of getting more short gridwall hooks, but the decision to get more gridwall confirmed that plan. I ordered that Sunday night. I also ordered two 4' tall pieces of gridwall, so we can fence in bottles, but not obscure seeing people who are looking at them.

Robin made chili for dinner on Sunday, so we were able to eat as soon as we got home and Ron got the trailer backed into place.  Yay for Robin. I was, predictably, snubbed by Pippin Sunday evening, unless he thought there might be a chance of food/treats.

Over the course of the weekend I sewed collars onto about 4 dozen bottles, finished lacing the flap on a lace mania purse, and assisted Ron in assembling belts.

Looking at the sales records, we sold a little bit of everything - bottles (3 of the amphora), tails, pouches, a couple belts, and various other odds and ends, including one doll kosode.  Sales were definitely good enough that we will be doing Maneki Neko Con again next year. Although don't ask about what we spent at the dealer with DVDs and Blu-Rays. 

Thinking that after Boar's Head I'm pulling the last few musical instruments, yarn, and other knitting paraphernalia out of stock. The knitting stuff would probably have been OK if we'd kept doing mostly SCA events, but it doesn't really fit in with the rest of our stuff. The bottles fit in better, with the leather hangers on them. 

Speaking of bottles, I find myself in the very strange position of actually wanting stores to put out Christmas merchandise - I think the best bet for longer-term storage/transport for bottles is ornament bins. The cardboard boxes they came in are pretty cheap, although better now that we've reinforced them with generous amounts of packing tape. 

Scheduling Natter

Sent e-mail off this afternoon asking what's up with our Kollision Kon (early Jan., Rosemont) application that I submitted a couple weeks ago and was led to expect I'd get a response on in 3-5 days. 

Also tried another e-mail asking what the expected attendance is for Kitsune Con (March, Green Bay), and background on organizing group. 

Vendor applications aren't ready yet for Boar's Head (Dec., SCA, north of Milwaukee).

Have the application and information for Military History Fest (late Jan. or early Feb., St. Charles), we need to decide if we want 5 tables like last year, or 6, which would probably give us a whole island. 

And finally, I got information on Bristol Ren. Faire, for 2015, but it doesn't say anything about the "Visiting Artist" program they had this year, which allowed people to vend just one/a few weekends. So need to send e-mail to ask about that, since we're not doing the whole run of the Faire.

New Bottle Prototypes

Below is a picture of the new bottle prototypes. From left to right are an cobalt blue apothecary bottle, a smoky blue genie and a vintage green ball bottle, a cobalt blue olive branch bottle, an aqua drop bottle, and a dark amber amphora. 

I got the apothecary bottles in clear and cobalt, the genie in smoky blue, balls in clear, vintage green, and red, the olive branch in cobalt, the amphora in dark amber, and the drops are an assortment of lime, red, fuchsia, orange, aqua, and amber.

Catching Up with ACTUAL PROGRESS

Looks like I last posted on the 6th. The 7th was devoted to a big plumbing project to fix the underlying cause of the plumbing panic on ACen setup day - see my personal blog if you want more natter about that.

Got some more doll clothing done, I'll see about putting some pictures in at the end.  

And finally, on the 13th I started cleaning the dining room, which is my workroom, and MY space. Most of the work was actually done on Sunday the 14th. Ron attacked the front entry and front entry closet, including putting up shelves that now hold a bunch of bins that were in the workroom. I worked on the actual room, with occasional help from Robin (during breaks in mowing the lawn). 

I have an ACTUAL FLOOR. Well, had. Then I went and got 10 dozen new bottles, which came in two big boxes. This time I ordered from a different source, who had colored bottles. Besides more spheres/balls and cylinder/apothecary bottles, I got some little ones they call "genie" bottles, tall cobalt blue ones with olive branches, and amphora-shaped ones.

Still have some old parts of projects to sort through, but I've gone through all the newer parts and figured out what I have in pieces, and made a list. Also went through inventory and figured out what we need in the way of pouches. I'll also do belts, when Ron gets a chance to help - that's easier with multiple people/devices/screens, for various reasons.

Saturday afternoon we figured out what we're doing with the amphora bottles - hanging from a loop that snaps onto each handle. And Ron determined that he could set snaps with pretty caps on both sides, so I had to order more caps Monday morning. 

Also ordered more long rivets, which we need the the bottle straps that also include belt loops. But we can work on cutting, marking, and punching while waiting for snaps and rivets.  I'd ordered snaps and short rivets on Friday.

Did some on-line browsing for Christmas ornament boxes for transporting bottles. Only one style of cardboard box listed at The Container Store. I know they had more last year, presumably they'll bring back more soon - will keep an eye open.

Genie, drop, and the big blue olive branch bottles will have a collar sewn around the neck, with a (snapped) belt loop riveted on. Going to do those in black only.

The ball and apothecary bottles are not quite the same as the older sphere and cylinder bottles, so we had to modify the patterns. Got the modification right for the ball on the first try, had to try a second time on the apothecary. However, attempt 1 turns out to be just right for Robin's Orangina bottles.

Got all the tails done, plus putting a swivel on one belonging to X2's friend, on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, before Ron and Xap discussed MuseCon Programming stuff, we went through the schedule, which I'd also looked at with Ron on Saturday.

Tentative plan is to do Boar's Head, Kollision Kon (early Jan., Rosemont), Military History Fest, investigate Kitsune Con and Stonefield Wild West Steampunk Weekend, Geek.Kon, and Ramen Con.

Somehow the depth adjustment on the red press we use for rivets and snaps got cross-threaded on its threaded rod and thoroughly munged up, so yesterday morning I ordered a new threaded rod and adjustment screw. Also ordered, for insurance, a new spring, set screws, and another cheap thing or two.

Sunday I finally got around to getting a new iPod. Yes, I can use my phone and/or iPad, but they have limited capacity, so I end up listening to the same few things over and over and over until I get around to synching a device again. With an iPod I can have a lot of different music. I also got a good set of speakers for the dining room. 

Took a sanity day today. Haven't done anything Otter-ish, other than submitting our application for Kollision Con. May putter around with leather this afternoon, or I may go take a nap. Because I can.

And now, some pictures of doll clothes and my nice clean dining room and front entry (before the big boxes of glassware came in last week):

Doll Clothes

No progress on the new press, because life, the universe, and everything.

No leatherworking done, either, and the workroom is still a disaster, and because life, the universe, and everything, and it probably won't get any better tomorrow.

OTOH, I have been working on new products - Japanese-style doll clothing.  Natter and some pictures on my personal blog recently.

Earlier this week I cut out some robes from a brocade remnant I bought for doll clothes, and satin left from sewing projects. I've been hand-hemming, because top-stitched machine-sewn hems (which I do on our garb) don't make me happy for doll clothes. But the little tiny stitcjphes that are almost invisible on cotton calico (quilter's cotton) show up a lot more on satin.

I deided to try facings, showing on the outsides of the garments, using satin ribbon, which meant going to the fabric store for ribbon (statins and brocades ravel if you even *think* of looking at them! which I can cope with for main pieces and collars, but not facings.  That went well, but then I wandered back and discovered calico on sale.  

These three resulted (dime for scale), for one outfit:

The zig-zags will be the outer robe, with the dark teal for the collar and also hakama (trousers, or a skirt). The light teal (it really is, our red blinds mess with lighting color) for an under-robe.

Then we were discussing "kawaii" (roughly cuteness, consult Wikipedia for an overview), and these resulted:

During the discussion Ron said the fateful words "Hello Kitty", at which point fate laughed at us:

Yeah, Hello Kitty fabric. Yes, the pink is a little paler than optimal, but it has *glitter* in it. Glitter won.  The polka-dot ribbon is for sashes. I have enough fabric for a set of doll and human-sized robes. I'm sorta-kinda trying to resist, but that's probably futile.

Haven't tried using the ribbon as facings yet, Ron's body likes to get us up in the wee hours of the morning every couple/few years for ER tris for pain meds for kidney stones, and today was one of those days, so this afternoon I took a nap instead of sewing (or attacking the workroom).

Still Not Much

I intended to attack the dining/work room this weekend, but life and pickles got in the way.

Saturday we went to Woodstock, IL, and came home with two more printing presses, type, and other letterpress paraphanalia, as a direct result of the letterpress show & tell we did at MuseCon - one of the attendees had inherited it.

Both presses need rollers, which is to be expected, and we know where to get them. Most of the type is in good shape, but one set end up partially pied (jumbled). Some of the spacing material needs a good cleaning - dust, dirt, oil, and Ghu knows what else accumulated in a decade or two in an attic, with cats of possibly less than impeccable habits. 

One press is the same model as Ron's little 3" x 5". It needs a little work, the ink disc doesn't have ratchet teeth on the back for it to rotate. Our guess it was a fabricated replacement. Ron has a couple ideas to address that.

The other press is also a tabletop press. The nominal size is only a little larger than mine (6-1/2" x 9" vs. 6" x 9"), but it is overall a larger press. IIRC mine is/was more of a hobbyist model, the new one was for more serious use.  Making a mental note to get pictures to show the differences.  It needs more work than the small one. Ron's thinking he's probably going to end up completely disassembling it, for rust removal, stripping and re-painting. I suggested the auto shop nearby that likes odd projects for getting sandblasting and painting done.

That, however, will be pending actually getting it apart. Ron's working on getting some serious penetrating oil to address that. And yesterday we were investigating part-washer units and home-built alternates, for press parts and other things that need serious cleaning. I need to see if Goo Gone can be bought by the gallon...

Catching Up

"Titanic, the Musical" ate our lives, with the fun of Anime Midwest, July 4th weekend, the weekend before Titanic opened.

Anime Midwest went pretty well. Sales were lower than ACen, which we expected as it's a newer/smaller convention, but because the booth cost was lower, it was actually a better event in terms of sales vs. cost. Pretty sure we'll do it again, and considering Con-Alt-Delete that the same group does, in December.

Last year for MuseCon we packed most of our stuff up into one of the things, which worked pretty well, so the plan was to repeat it this year.  Sunday a week and a bit ago Ronpbin and I needed to go to the storage locker, to get the winch to haul things up,onto the porch, and I had the good idea to see if Max and The Grinch would fit, since they're tall, narrow, and more tippy than a Thing, and they have to be heaved up another step into the house, whereas the Things are weathertight enough to leave out on the porch.

They would, yay!  And when we got there with Ron, he played Tetris and made enough space for a Thing, too. More Yay!  Much simpler, and probably no slower than getting everything onto the porch and into the house. Plus, Robin was smart and piled a load of tables and other stuff we wouldn't need at MuseCon on the Thing when he brought it into the locker.

A picture of storage locker Tetris is down at the bottom of the post, since the iWhatsit app I used to post is annoying that way.

The Thing we used to pack in stayed at ground level, and its contents are currently in the spare bedroom. Sunday evening Ron was thinking out loud about when to re-load stuff from the locker to the trailer. My opinion is that it can wait until closer to our next event (IIRC Maneki Neko Con, whicjph I now have vendor info for). The locker is secure as the trailer, and climate-controlled. The building isn't kept particularly cool, but definitely cooler than the trailer. So I think that's the plan.

For MuseCon I did a not wildly successful Japanese-style doll clothing open build, so I have several garments I'd gotten to various stages of completion to show people, plus a couple I made to keep busy and not finish the demo pieces. Plus a pile of remnants and fat quarters Imgot for the class. So I have the question of what to do with them.  I'm thinking . . . You guessed it, I'm filthy merchant scum . . . Seeing if I can sell them to ball-jointed doll owners, who seem to have a big anime-fan overlap. So when I went to Jo-Ann for a package of bias tape and some narrow ribbon or cord, to finish one thing, I had a little accident.

More fabric came home with me, as well as a larger rotary-cutting mat and longer/wider ruler. I'd gotten a narrow mat, 12" ruler, and pinking blade and handle before Muse, and they worked pretty well, other than wanting a longer ruler at times. And wider would be nice, as they're clear wiypth measurements both ways. Turns out you can put an Olfa blade on a Fiskars handle, despite what the Jo-Ann staff thought. I was pretty certain I'd done it before, with the larger-bladed rotary cutter I use for leather. Although I may upgrade the cutter handle, the guard on the one I got for fabric annoys me.

Not Much Going On

Working on the MuseCon program book, at least when I don't have "Titanic" rehearsals. That's about all that's going on.  

I do really really need to start getting swivels sewn onto the three dozen tails I ordered for Anime Midwest. I think I'll put some other tools/lacing projects away, and bring the tail bin out to the living room instead.  

Last weekend I got all the content into the MuseCon book, and formatted, by lunchtime/early afternoon on Sunday. Which is ahead of what I've done other years. OTOH, rehearsals mean I'm not really that far ahead. Tonight is the deadline for final updates, and tomorrow I start attacking line/column/page breaks, and other more persnickety formatting-ish tasks. 

Initial formatting short version: more than one way to skin a cat is a good thing. 

Initial formatting long version:

Last year we extracted the data from the Programming spreadsheet, Ron did unnamable things to it with one or more perl scripts, which turned it into XML files, which I then did other arcane things with in InDesign to auto-magically get the right paragraph formatting applied to the appropriate chunks of text. This year the same attempted process failed. The problem stuck on getting the data out of Excel and into a usable comma-separated value file. 

Fortunately, I'd just bought an updated e-book of an InDesign typography book I had, which jogged my memory on using different clever tricks to auto-magically format paragraphs (a "paragraph" being any chunk of text with hard returns on either end). It didn't end up working quite like I thought it did, which is probably why I gave up on it last time I tried, a couple years ago, but it worked reasonably well.  Essentially, you set up a series of cascading/looping paragraph styles, and tell InDesign to apply them to your text. 

Comparing cascading paragraph styles to converting everything to XML for auto-formatting, the cascading styles attack had fewer steps where something could break, which is where the overall  XML process failed this year (ie: never got an XML file created).  However, the cascading style attack does not deal with a step in the cascade that may have a variable number of paragraphs, which was, IIRC, trivial to a non-issue in the XML method. So I had to cascade-format smaller chunks of text, instead of everything at once. In the end, I think this cascading styles and XML methods worked out to take roughly the same amount of time, effort, and poking at things, it just worked out differently in terms of who (Ron or I) poked at things, and with what tool. 

Calm, Happy, and Ducky

Nothing to see here, nobody is ranting about some convention that we're not vending at, and have developed a sense of happiness about it.

"Titanic" rehearsals are keeping me busy, and up past my bedtime.  Well, not last night; last night I got out on the early side, but stayed up with Ron watching an episode of "Jeeves and Wooster". D'oh!

And we have a duck nesting in one of the planter boxes.  

One of the planter boxes that was experiencing wall issues.  Which Robin didn't discover until after he'd started work, and wall fell over go thud.

She's in the section of the box still standing, to the left of the window-well enclosure.  That piece of wall will stay until her eggs hatch and she and the babies leave the nest.  Because of the whole federally-protected migratory waterfowl thing, but even more because nesting mamma duck, awww.

Stick a Fork in it, We're Done with Teslacon

Still nothing from Teslacon. Supposedly vendor confirmations went out Wednesday via e-mailed PDF. Well, apparently that didn't include "sorry, you weren't selected" letters, or else they're doing vendors in rounds until the room is filled (which is what I suspect), but not actually saying that.

Just sent this to Teslacon:

"Given the delays in vendor confirmations/denials for Teslacon I have accepted an offer for vendor space from another convention. Therefore, Otter Necessities will not be available to vend at Teslacon."

I'm very proud of myself for not sharing my candid thoughts, or taking advantage of the fact that my FaceBook persona is pretty disconnected from me, because I don't want to burn bridges. Not that I think Teslacon has left any bridges for me to burn at this point.

Feeling a little iffy about the decision, despite the fact that I'm well and thoroughly tired of feeling jerked around, and had been pretty much hoping we wouldn't get in, because then I wouldn't have to decide. But enough is enough - I could hope that we'd be treated better at the convention, ie: with basic respect, but I'm not seeing any real evidence that it would happen.

Still plan on attending Teslacon, since it does look like it is cool, and sources say attendees enjoy it.

Shopping and Other Natter

No particular big projects this weekend, but some shopping and working on this and that.

Saturday morning we went to the local Tandy/Leather Factory store for various things. They had leather on sale that we use for molding hard pouch fronts (and other things), and smaller/lighter pieces also on sale that I got for belt loops. Yes, I just got leather for and made a bunch of belt loops a month or so ago. And I've gone through most of them already.  Also  got a punch for rounding off corners, and a rubber pad for using under the Universal Mangler when cutting, in hopes it will be more quiet.

Saturday afternon we went to Ace Hardware for extension cords (for the new air conditioners for our bedroom), and found a folding utility table that followed Ron home, for use as a work table at events, and for whatever else we might need a work table for. 

Saturday afternoon Ron set up the new work table, and then tried cutting with the Universal Mangler on a piece of plywood with the new rubber pad on top of the plywood. Definitely quieter than the cutting board on top of the hollow plastic table. Ron didn't want to just experiment on scrap, so I laid out three large square hard pouch backs, with long flaps, to put leaves, and gears, and scales on.

Saturday afternoon/evening I reduced the leather that I got for belt loops to a pile of belt loops, some sporran dee holders, and a pile of scrap. I saved all the scrap, weighed everything, and determined that I used 85% of the leather/had 15% scrap. I've been SWAG-ing 10% wasteage. But, the pieces I cut the belt loops from were fairly small, so there would be a higher scrap ratio than cutting down sides, I think. I have two black sides coming (scheduled delivery tomorrow), at least one of which I can probably completely cut down in one sitting, so I may repeat the experiment with one of them - I've thought about doing it before, but we're not usually in a position to completely cut up a whole side at one go. 

Yesterday I worked on four of the six pouches we cut out last weekend. They're not ready to lace together yet, but we got significant work done on them.

Found, by recommendation, a new leather supplier on Saturday - Hide House (hidehouse.com). I'd heard of them before, but hadn't followed up, or else they hadn't hit my radar. Saturday I signed up for wholesale pricing on the website, and they're definitely worth buying from at wholesale prices. They have what I suspect is the leather that I have in red and blue that I've been kind of hoarding, as well as a nice green. I'll probably order some green in the near future. 

The orders of tails and hardware that I placed yesterday were out for delivery when last I checked, and I expect my two sides and more hardware tomorrow. 

Hopefully we'll get more of the rehearsal schedule for "Titanic, the Musical" at tonight's rehearsal, so I can get a better idea of how many of them I'll be at (default schedule is 6:30-9:30 Monday-Thursday nights). 

Finally ordered/paid for the proof press this weekend, as well as a couple pieces of bookbinding equipment - I'd planned on getting a cradle for punching the sewing holes in signatures/booklets, but I also added on a finishing press. I don't actually expect to need the press to start out, but I decided to splurge on that, as the other intermediate equipment is less expensive, so picking up the other things will be easier than deciding to buy the press. Hopefully that makes sense. 

Ron's now up to three versions of sporrans with eyeglass cases on the flaps. 

The first one, you may recall, was made by me the Thursday before ACen, while waiting for the plumber.  Unfortunately, it had three problems. The first was bad gusset design, which wasn't too terrible. The second was that it was up on top of the pouch on the flap, which wasn't a great location. The third, and worst, was that I got it onto the flap completely crooked. It got Ron through ACen, but that was about it.

The second was made shortly after ACen, with a better overall design and location. 

Then Ron made a third one, which is pretty similar to #2, with minor upgrades. At this point he thinks he's got the design and construction figured out, and is debating if he wants to make some pouches with the added pocket for sale - it was intended to hold glasses, but it could hold any relatively long and narrow thing. 

Ron's also been working on new cost computation spreadsheets. He's using more auto-magic functions than I did (or quite know how to do). 

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday night I got a phone call from the director of "Titanic, the Musical" offering me a part, or parts, including a solo. A small solo - just a couple lines, in German. Because on the audition paperwork I said I could muddle through German. So I get to play both a first- or second-class German passenger, and a third-class one, too. But really its a chorus part, and I'm good with that.

Except for questioning my sanity, because rehearsals are (up to?) four nights per week, and between now and the performance dates we have Anime Midwest and creation of the MuseCon program book. Wheeee!  

That isn't going to leave a lot of time in the evenings for working on things for Anime Midwest. Fortunately, we're still pretty well off for stock - the advantage of having lots of things is that you sell lots of things, so except for tails nothing really looks too depleated, at least to the casual shopper. Xap did suggest that I'd have down-time during rehearsals to work on things, though.

An Grumpy Aside Regarding Teslacon

Getting a bit annoyed with Teslacon, and starting to question the wisdom of doing it. Teslacon vendor applications were due by May 1, vendors were supposed to be notified by the 15th, and then payment would be due by the 30th. On May 7th, there was a Facebook post stating that almost all the vendors had been selected, and trying to get "more space without adding a room".

In response to Facebook questions about notifying vendors, on the 20th the main Teslacon organizer responded, including the "relax" and "hang on" comments that annoyed me earlier, as well as "I am trying to fit everyone in". On the 23rd, somebody asked him not to do two vendor rooms, as seems to have been done last year. The response (same day) to that was that women's finery will be in one room, most of the rest of the vendors wil be in another room, there's only certain areas vendors can be located in, and something about doing what's necessary to make things work.

Now, the thing that worries me is that the vedor information says that the spaces are 10' x 10', and if you only have certain places you can put vendors, there's only so much time you can spend on playing Tetris with floor space, unless some of the making things work is playing with space sizes. Ron asked if we need to add a tape measure to the supplies that go to events. I'm thinking so (not just because of this - we helped Gretchen check aisle sizes one year at Cap, and we had an issue at ACen last year).  

If we're accepted, I'm going to get confirmation that we will be getting a 10' x 10' space before I pay - and I assume the deadline for that will be extended accordingly.

While I have issues with non-responsiveness from Anime Midwest, they did do their space thing right - they didn't leave everybody hanging while waiting to see if they could/would get the membership numbers to enlarge their vendor space. They did an initial round, then when they got more space, they went back to vendors who didn't get in on the first pass - which is how we got in. Teslacon could learn from that, and could do even better by saying "These vendors are confirmed, but we're trying to get more space, we'll know by X date." 

And for the love of Cod and little fishes, DO NOT use Facebook as your main means of communicating!  If you haven't noticed, FB keeps getting more and more craptastic, and "helpful" about showing you only the things *it* thinks you want to see. Most of the Teslacon facebook posts have not shown up in my feed. 

But no, they're keeping everybody hanging. Fortunately, the cost of the space, over and above of tickets, since we'd decided to go even if we don't get in as vendors, is low enough that we don't need really great sales, so I probably won't back out if accepted, unless something really egregious is done/said in the meantime.

Back to the Weekend Report

Saturday morning I cut out soft-ish pouches - horizontal soft pouches in black and brown, because we have exactly one, and medium horizontal soft pouches in brown, because we have none of those, and half of a half-soft, because I had a front already cut out and a piece big enough to make the back out of. Adding on a purple medium horizontal soft left over from the pre-ACen binge, that's 11 to work on. 

Ron got home about lunchtime (he and Xap helped with the MuseCon party at WisCon Friday night/Saturday morning). After lunch I laid out really soft pouches - garment/upholstery leather ones that get sewn together. I know there were three sporrans, and I'm thinking 8 little tabbed soft pouches, and my SWAG is about a half-dozen belt satchels. Ron worked on cutting out, as did I at times, and we determined that I cut out faster than he does. He decided electric scissors would be a good idea. 

In the evening we ordered tails - three dozen of them. Which is only three more than we sold at ACen. 

Saturday evening I also worked on getting the soft-ish pouches ready to lace. That process continued through a big chunk of Sunday, with breaks for errands, etc. Ron worked on inventory and updating his perl script that gets inventory into the Point of Sale app, and sales records back out.

Yesterday we were more slugly. In the morning we went to Dick Blick and looked at airbrush adapters for Copic markers, for experiments in airbrushing leather. For one reason and another I got ink refills in the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, instead of the widget that lets you use a marker as an airbrush source. Then we went to Games Plus looking for small cans of dullcoat for Robin's minis, then to Hobby Lobby, where we had more success (Games Plus only had large cans). We looked for electric scissors at Hobby Lobby, but didn't find any (not a big surprise). 

When we got home, we did some on-line research. Industrial textile cutting on a major scales uses things more like scroll saws, or tools with small rotating blades for shorter stacks. There are also a few more scissor-like appliances. Looking at those reminded me of what I termed the Universal Mangler oscillating tools we looked at before buying the dremel scroll saw for trimming hard pouches. 

One of which, from Rockwell Tools, was conveniently on sale at Menard's. And Menard's was open. So we procured said tool (and the rebate form for another $20 off, must take care of that). We got home, grabbed some scrap leather, and Ron tried it out. Umpty thousand oscillations per second are effective. I tried it too, but decided to leave it to Ron. I found some thick, challenging-to-cut leather. No problem, nice smooth edges. Tried it on lightweight leather, no problems. 

We rooted around the dining room, thought about what else we'd sold/needed, and pulled out more leather. In the end I laid out and Ron cut the parts for 2 big rectangular purses (one brown, one black), and 4 "lace mania" belt pouches or purses - 1 brown, 1 blue, 1 black, and one with a black flap/back and a red front. We needed the browns, the blue and red/black seemed like they'd sell, and the black parts finished off the last of a black side. Ron cut them out faster than I could with a knife. So new he has a new job. There are still some things that I'll end up doing with a knife (like inside corners), that the Universal Mangler can't do, and straight cuts are still easy with a (safety) ruler and rotary knife.

Here, hopefully, is a link to a video I took of Ron cutting out the brown lace mania back/flap. The leather is about an 18" thick. Yes, it is rather noisy, in part because the table the cutting board is on is hollow plastic, so it resonates well. The cutting board was to hopefully cut the noise down (questionable success), and it also ended up with vibrated-in shallow grooves from the backside of the lower cutter blade. In the future we'll probably use a piece of inexpensive plywood instead. 

Looking at cost computations, one of each size purse we cut out will pay for the Universal Mangler. And a new power shear head is inexpensive enough ($20 or a bit under), that we can replace it if it seems to be getting dull. 

Pouch #1000, and Related Natter

Here you go, as promised, a picture of Pouch #1000:

We forgot to get a picture at home, but remembered Friday morning before it got busy, and the camera on Ron's iPad is pretty good.  Good thing we remembered Friday morning, it sold Friday afternoon.

Underneath the leaves, #1000 is a fairly standard large hard square pouch, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 8" wide, 9" tall, and 2" thick, with the flap lengthened an inch or an inch and a half (I forgot to make a note of how much). It fastens with a magnetic clasp.  The new price for a basic large square hard pouch is $62.50, we got $75 for this one. I was worried it was too expensive, apparently not. 

The back/flap was dyed golden brown, and laced with lace about the same color - I decided it needed to look finished under the leaves. The body was also dyed the same brown, before waxing, which results in a really nice color after waxing. Dark brown lace on the body.  Ron cut the leaves out of various autumn-ish shades of garment and upholstery leather using the Sizzix papercrafting machine and cutting dies we got a couple-few years ago. There are three different leaf shapes, but I mostly used the two with better coverage.

I'd originally planned to rivet each leaf on, but Ron talked me into (machine) sewing them on instead, which was a good call. There's one leaf near the edge flap strategically located (and sewn) to hide the boring side of the clasp, where it fastens to the outside of the flap. Then I sewed leaves down in curving rows, with added fun sneaking a couple rows in when I realized I didn't have sufficient coverage to hide the earlier lines of stitching in spots. The last row, of just for strategically-placed leaves, is held on with rivets. 

I'd been meaning to make a pouch with leaves for quite a while - since about the time we got the cutting dies - and pouch #1000 finally supplied the necessary Round Tuit. I'd originally planned also doing one in spring colors, and maybe winter. I'll probably do a spring next, although I think there's enough autumn-colored leaves for another one. Spring would be with leaves in shades of green, and maybe some yellow. I'd probably do the same gold dye and gold lace on the flap, although I do also have green lace. For the body I'd skip the dye, so it would come out a lighter color.

For a winter I'd probably do white and blues for the leaves, not sure on a brown body or on black.

We've also got cutting dies for gears, so I'll probably do a steampunk-ish pouch soon. I've got metallic copper leather, as well as some metallic puple-ish leather Robin says is bronze for the gears. Not sure if I want to put them on a dark brown or on a black pouch - I think they'd stand out better on black. I can also put antique brass rivets at the centers of the gears, if they'd look right. My plan is to sew the gears down with the lightweight sewing machine. 

Schedule

Teslacon vendors were supposed to be notified by the 15th if they were accepted. Still nothing. I went to the Teslacon Facebook page to ask what was up, and found a couple people already had done so, and the organizer telling vendors to "relax please", he's trying to fit everybody in.  Well, that's nice, but maybe some of the vendors need to know if they need to make alternate plans if they don't get into Teslacon. 

Over the weekend we finally heard back from Geek.Kon - no go, as suspected, since they've had at least some vendors listed for a while now (I didn't go back to look and see if there's more now). I may try again next year, if we're seen around more we may have a better chance of getting in next time around. 

E-mailed Anime Midwest this morning to ask what hall at Stephens Convention Center will be the exhibit hall, and if/when a layout for the hall will be available pre-convention, so I can start guessing if we're in a decent spot or not.

Anime Midwest booths have no pipe and drape, but the costs to rent from RES (Rosemont Exhibition Services) are somewhere between expensive and stupid expensive. I can buy 60" x 60" white shower curtains for the price they're charging for one foot of 8' high drape. Similarly, if I wanted 8' tall gridwall, I'd probably save money by buying it, having it delivered to RES and stored until the show, then throwing it out after.  The battery for the UPS we use at events seems to be pretty close to dead. I can buy 4 new ones or 2 whole new UPS units like the one we have for the price of power for the weekend.

ACen Pictures

Soooo, ve gots peeektchers. Lots und lots ov peektchers...  (No, I don't know why I'm doing a "Girl Genius" Jaeger accent):

First out, the layout as it happened:

The bottom edge is our front.

Going from left to right, the overview shots:

And now the closeups. Starting at the left-hand side:

Then turning the corner around the belts into the center opening (left side):

Along the back wall, from left to right

Turning to the right side of the center opening:

And turning the corner around the belts to the right side of the front:

Yes, there was a strange blue curtain-like apparition in those last two pictures!  How very, very odd!  Was it the The Phantom Donald E. Stephens Convention Center?  Join us on the next episode of "In Search Of..." when we'll investigate this phenomenon (muh nah ma na na, phenomenon, muh na na na, phenomenon, muh nah ma na na na na na, Na na na na na na)

ACen Report

tl;dr version: ACen was good. Am tired, fall down go boom now.

Let's see if I can produce a coherent report:

Thursday's Adventures in Plumbing:

Getting the septic tank pumped didn't fix the plumbing issues; had to get the plumber back out to rod the main line out to the tank. But the cost was lower, as he was able to work from the tank back toward the house instead of draining the pipes and working from the house out.

The minimum charge for Servicemaster to clean up anything water-related is $450. I declined to pay that much for cleaning a half-bath and small area of the basement and cleaned up myself. Cost: a bottle of bleach (which I had on-hand and didn't use up anyway), a basin for bleach water (because it'll probably go out to the curb tomorrow), water, a couple small rags, a half-hour or hour of my time, and hot water and soap for my shower after.  I also threw out the mat from the bathroom and the "dog towels" used to contain the mess, which I told the Servicemaster estimator was the plan.

Our plumbing issues can be blamed on simple old age. The house is in the neighborhood of 75 years old. The lastest crisis (and a good honest plumbing company - ABC) led to diagnosis of another, larger, related issue we can now take steps to fix before it gets to crisis mode. -

Thursday ACen Setup:

Ron stayed long enough to get the trailer unloaded and the gridwall set up, then had to get the truck and trailer out of the exhibition hall. 

In 20/20 hindsight, we should have made a couple-few fewer pouches and taken an afternoon weekend (as in the weekend before ACen) to re-tag all, or at least most, of the existing merchandise. It took longer than hoped for Xap and the three Minions to do that job.  

It was a really good thing that I had come up with a layout last week, since I wasn't there to figure it out on the fly. There was still some flailing, Xap says, but very little of it was of the "where does this go" variety (because I did forget a couple things). 

I think Xap and the Minions got back to hour house about 7 pm?  By that time the plumbing mess was cleaned up, and so was I. I had held off on making dinner until after that, because eww. Fortunately, we'd gotten pre-made chili from GFS, so I could heat it on the stovetop (as opposed to wanting to have it cook all day in a crock pot). 

Bodies! Everwhere!

There were bodies everywhere Thursday and Friday nights - Three Winsauer humans plus two Winsauer dogs, three Eslers, and Marmaduke.  Fortunately, Robin's room was clean enough to accomadate a cot, so Wash could sleep in a less doggy room, and up off the floor (allergies, and aversion to Robin's loft).  Saturday night was a smidge less crowded, since Marmaduke had a room at a hotel.

In the evenings I pretty much got home, ate dinner, and went to bed. In the mornings I took refuge in the dining room. 

Foods:

The mostly-GFS food plan worked out pretty well. We got breakfast casserole-ish things, which were decent; sausage, cheese, crackers, granola bars and pistaschios for lunches and snacks, plus lots of bottled water; and various things for dinner. There was a small problem with the wet burritos Robin tried to cook Friday night not being hot when we got home, so in disgust he gave up on it and fried pierogis instead. Yum yum. Saturday night was lasagna, galic toast, and chips and guacamole (we'd stopped for more OJ on the way home and the guacamole jumped out at me...). 

Friday:

Friday morning I took Wash and Marmaduke and went down early-ish. Which was mostly unnecessary, as I only made one change to the layout, condensing all the fiber-ish things to one corner instead of two.  Ron and Xap followed up with the other Xaplet, with a stop at the bank for what turned out to be Stupid Amounts of change/bills for the cashbox. Which was fine, I'd rather have more than necessary than to run short. 

It was busy. It was noisy. I wanted to kill whoever was in the same location as us, but one aisle over and playing the music TOO DAMN LOUD for us to hear the customers, or even each other when right next to each other. So ACen staff had a talk or three with them over the course of the weekend, since Xap and I asking politely (at two different times Friday and Saturday) didn't help. 

As noted in previous posts, I expected being next to Blonde Swan to be dangerous, and it was. Ron got two new hats, a steampunk-ish one with a pair of goggles, and a fez; I got one - a "Kraken" topper, which is black with dark silvery grey tentacles. 

Pouch #1000 didn't even make it through one day. We did get a picture Friday morning. 

Saturday:

Saturday we squashed all 6 of us (Robin stayed home, as per the plan) into the truck. I wore my silver and black corset over a black chemise and skirt, and am told it looked very good with my new hat.  Ron's new vest looked very spiffy. We kept forgetting (all weekend) to put the Minions/Booth Babes in the green vests. 

Saturday afternoon Xap re-arranged The Grinch contents between The Grinch and Max. 

It was busy again. A bit more sales than Friday.

Sunday:

The original plan was for Ron to stay home Sunday, until time to bring the truck and trailer down with Robin. We'd been busy enough we changed the plan, and we took two cars down, with Ron. Good thing, we needed him. Sunday's sales were a bit below Friday's, but not hugely. 

Ron left about 3, by which time things were calming down. The hall closed at 4, and by 5:20 we were on the road/hiking to the parking deck. I have no idea where/how most of the merchandise got packed, only what I dealt with myself. 

Got home, parked the trailer, saw the Eslers off, dropped Marmaduke off at his house, dinner at Toreo (more guacamole, and meat, red meat), got home, and went to bed.  After the dogs celebrated having room in the house by a rousing game of Rip Your Throat Out at the end of Ron's bed. 

And that, I think, is enough for now.    Pictures to follow.  Also analysis of the weekend.

Is that a wall up ahea . . . WHACK!

Monday night, instead of doing any of the things that I mentioned in Monday's blog post, we made sporran hangers and sporran adapters.

Oh, wait, we did get the 2-ounce bottles tagged.

Tuesday Ron sold two sporrans and a set of sporran hangers to a co-worker.

Tuesday night we went food shopping. I felt like I was shopping for a "Deadliest Catch" crab-fishing boat, but then Robin and I concluded I maybe had one day's worth of food for a crab boat. Maybe.  

Last night I did the second side on a stack of business card coasters (finishing them), then moved on to a third stack. Then I got Ron to change polymer plates and finished that third stack. IIRC a stack is 125 coasters, so that means I did 500 impressions. 

Vests and shirts arrived yesterday, they look good. The issue with the plain vests (Ron got a fancier one) was not having black in stock, so I got green instead, and they look good. 

This morning, in order to punish me for thinking that things were going pretty well, and teach me not to wonder what was going to happen to change that, the plumbing gods demanded a sacrifice, in the form of, well, unpleasant things going "blorp" out of something used to get rid of unpleasant things.

We suspected a blockage in the main line out to the septic tank. The plumber we called did not concur, and strongly suggested we call a septic company to pump the tank instead. So now I'm waiting for that. And Service Master, because the phone estimate for getting the tank pump was for much less than I was afraid it was going to be, so maybe I can afford to have somebody else clean up the ground-floor bathroom, and part of the basement.  And mop the kitchen floor, but I think the mud there was tracked in from outside by doggy paws and strong young men who were packing for ACen.

Because ACen prep continued with not too much interruption. Ron, Xap, Wash, Marmaduke, and Robin went to Rosemont to do setup, armed with the labelled layout that I finally did finish yesterday.  I stayed home to invoke plastic, since Ron's better at backing up the truck+trailer combination.  

Ron's on his way back with the trailer now, apparently Xap is worried she'll mess something up, but I'm not.  And the hall opens for setup at 8 AM, and we don't open to customers until 10, so if there are problems we'll have time to fix them.

Septic company called, driver is on the way, so time to wrap up here and put the dogs to bed (I don't need them helping, or worse yet getting out of the house and out the big gate that we'll have to open to get the pump truck to the septic tank). 

Hill Crested, Picking Up Speed...

We're accelerating toward ACen at a fairly breakneck pace at this point - from a non-ACen point of view, today is Monday, tomorrow is Virtual Wednesday, the next day is Virtual Friday, then The madness that is ACen weekend begins.

Typing this with the on- screen keyboard on my iWhatsit for Reasons, so to summarize since I last posted:

Ron continues to be very happy with the label printer and the P-Touch software.  All the tags for older merchandise subject to the (scary) price increase have been printed.  New stuff is being entered into inventory and tagged as we finish it.

I keep finishing pouches, lacing-wise.  So much so I started marking and punching 4 purple soft-ish pouches I'd previously accepted would not be done for ACen.  They still may not be, and I'm still OK with that.  Although I am heartily sick of black lace.

Finished the leather satchels and related soft machine-sewn belt pouches (18 things). Finished 22 small drawstring bags, abandoned several more with minimal regret (leather was a bad choice).

In a marathon day of mass production yesterday, that actually started Saturday, We did all 12 of the 8-ounce cobalt blue plastic bottles, and 40 of the 42 2-ounce glass bottles: 18 cobalt blue, 11 amber, 11 clear.  The only reason for not doing all 42 was not having enough bottom cups molded.  If we really wanted ewe could have molded them last night and dyed/waxed/assembled Wednesday, but we decided it isn't necessary.  

For both size bottles, 1/3 have black leather parts, 1/3 have tan.  Which used rather a lot of leather, snaps, and rivets - per bottle that's one bottom cup, one top collar, three body straps, one belt loop strap, 2 snaps, and 6 rivets.  Making one is not much materials, 52, OTOH...

The living room is a mess, little (and some not-so-little) leather scraps everywhere. Thank goodness the Cleaning Fairies come tomorrow, which forces us to pick up/put stff away, and the cleaning they do.

Shirts, etc. are still supposed to get to us by Thursday evening at the latest, despite a capital-I Issue with the plainer vests. As of 3:30 the order status was "Ready to Ship".  The order is coming from Connecticut, so I'm not too worried. Or trying not to be.

Still need to finish the business card coasters. 

Tomorrow night is food shopping - going to get the ingredients for a big batch of chili and to GFS to get some frozen meals, which Robin will be in charge of.  That way we don't have to wait for delivery or try to remember to order on the way home, and we get not-quite real (ie: home-made) food.  And in the case of the chili, it will be real food - we'll probably do that Thursday, as it is the least predictable day, and a little more or less time in the crock pot is no big deal.

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick . . .

The clock is ticking down to ACen. Things are getting done. Other things . . . may not be. 

Ron picked up the label printer Monday after lunch. We got a Brother QL-700, which is supposed to play nicely with iFruity computers, deal with database-type output, be fast, handles labels of various sizes, including continuous ones, and didn't break the bank. In 20/20 hindsight the similar wireless model might have been worth paying a bit more, as then we wouldn't have to find room for it within cord range of the computer. OTOH, it isn't something we expect to keep set up and ready for printing at all times, so it can have a less convenient storage location.

Ron is very happy with it. It does indeed play nicely with our system, and it sounds like the Brother P-Touch software is easy to use and flexible. IIRC Ron hasn't read the instructions at any point. The printer a very simple barcode printed on the back side of the label roll to determine what size is in, and will tell you. We're using a continuous roll of label tape, and you can set the software to make all the labels a certain size, and set different lines in different maximum type sizes (it'll scale as necessary to fit), and AFAIK change the font for each line. If you're printing out of a table you can tell it to print lines X-Y. 

And it is fast. Monday night we started printing new price labels for belts, and it was shooting labels all over Ron's desk (auto-cutter). Oops, so much for keeping them in the order they came out. A small plastic tray solved the problem of labels everywhere. 

We display one of each type/color of belt on the belt displays, and they get a 2" round plastic tag, on a brass clip, which we re-use. I was thinking I'd have to re-write all of them, but we determined that we could print a label of a reasonable size to display the size and type of belt, so new printer for the win. 

Except I didn't have enough blank plastic tags. Fortunately, the best source, even with shipping, is ULine, which is local. Those are out far delivery today, with only standard UPS service. Also more zip-ties, which are used for assembling gridwall (faster and easier than the "proper" gridwall connectors), hanging things, etc.

Last night Ron got all the larger bottles (29 of them) into inventory, printed labels, and I helped get he tags on them.  Then we moved onto hard pouches (22 of those):

 One of Max's drawers, pretty much full of bottles (corks are in another drawer for the moment). If you embiggen you can see one of the tags. 

 
Pippin's wondering what I'm doing standing over the bin of pouches, or am I going to deposit food into Elrond's bowl for him to steal?  It isn't obvious, but under the pouches laying flat is a full layer of pouches up on edge.

I think tonight I'll work on finishing off the satchels and soft machine-sewn pouches while Ron gets them into inventory and makes tags. 

Monday afternoon I stopped at the Container Store and picked up a couple hanging fabric magazine organizers (the version in shades of brown) to display knitting patterns and the couple leatherworking books we have for sale. We have a folding metal literature rack, but that takes a big chunk of table space, and I think that the hanging displays will be a good alternate choice, especially when table space is short.

I think Ron finally came up with a viable layout for ACen last night:

10' x 20 space (light blue), front is to the bottom. Quarter-circles are the belt displays, heavy black lines (which includes the straight sides of the belt displays) are 6' tall x 2' wide gridwall, heavy green lines are 5' tall by 1' wide gridwall, and the diagonal lines in the corner of the gridwall on the back wall are corner shelves.

The width between the tables and belt displays is 8' wide. Each side space is 4' x 6', with a 2' wide opening between the table and the gridwall wings coming out from the back wall.
(Thing 1 and Thing 2 are taller than our 4' tables, so we'll probably actually swap the Things and the tables, but that doesn't make an appreciable change in terms of this drawing). This layout gives the most table space yet, reasonably demarcates the public and private areas, and has space for Marmaduke, Wash, and X2 in addition to Ron, Xap, and I. 

The private spaces are split, which kind of splits us up. The belt displays will also break up the visual connection between the Things and the tables, but I think those are tradeoffs we can live with. 

Later today I'll probably take a stab at labeling where I think we should put what merchandise - for instance, the bottles, especially the little 2-ounce ones, will not go out front, they're a little too easy to have wander off. Per-capita I don't think the risk of shoplifting at ACen is any higher than any other event, but the population is umpty times higher, so the overall number of naughty people will be higher. Plus, with more people shopping comes more possible distraction. Therefore, I'm trying to think ahead a little.

Last night Ron was questioning if we could get everything done. I think its a good thing Ron started getting merchandise into inventory and tagged. That, and printing new tags for existing merchandise, is a job that has to be done. If we don't get as many more bottles made, or a few less pouches finished, is less important.

FWIW, I think we'll get at least pretty close to finishing, even though we're taking most of Saturday off (my birthday/Mother's Day lunch, MuseCon meeting, and Spamalot in the evening). I think we can get the inventory/tagging done evenings, and on Saturday morning and Sunday get a good bunch more of bottles made, along with hopefully the two bandoliers I have strips cut for. And I keep working on lacing up the soft-ish pouches at lunchtime and evenings. I've pretty much written off the few that aren't ready to lace, but I'm plowing through the rest.  And one evening should finish off the business card coasters we have started (stalled while we debated a printing issue).

Trying not to get antsy about the shirts and vests. I approved the proof Monday, and the salescritter said he'd send them to production ASAP in his response. No shipping notice yet, but it should only take a couple days to get to us from Connecticut, and I did pay extra to guarantee arrival by end of the day a week from tomorrow. 

Table runners for neatening up the belt displays are scheduled for delivery this week. I have a possible grommet plan for those if time permits, but it isn't necessary. Still waffling on another couple side-drape shower curtains, but we wouldn't need them if we go with the layout above, and they'd be picked up from a local brick-and-mortar store if I do decide we want/need them for ACen.

Layouts and Displays for ACen

As mentioned in my last post, last night I (finally) started trying to come up with a layout plan for ACen, a process Ron was quickly sucked into. 

Most of the time we go to an event with only vague ideas of how we're going to set up, but for ACen that isn't as viable a plan as it could be. There is nowhere in the vicinity of the venue to park the truck and trailer, so we need to unload, unpack the Things, return the Things to the trailer, send the truck and trailer back home, and do setup without Ron, or with Ron there only while the truck is.

Also, while we'll have help in the form of Wash, Marmaduke, and X2, and possibly Robin while the truck is there, they have less experience helping set up. 

And we also need to put new tags on lots and lots of things. Which would be best to do Thursday, before ACen opens. 

So, going in with a plan is something we should do.

It was not entirely successful last night, in large part because Ron and I were both very very tired. But here's what we've got so far. The first one is mine, the second Ron showed me this morning:

The light blue box is our 10' x 20' space. "Lon's Lair" and "Blonde Swan" are the booths on either side. The front of the booth is down.   

The thick black (or dark grey, when they've been overlaid by the edge of a table) lines are 2' wide x 6' tall gridwall. Heavy green lines are 1' x 5' gridwall. The Quarter-circles are belt displays - two pieces of gridwall supporting quarter-circle hang rails. The right angles of gridwall with a straight line between is where a corner shelf is. Things like tables and the Things outside of our space were objects dropped into the original CAD drawing but not actually used.

The bits of gridwall right on the front line, at each corner, are to hang things on to get attention - last year it was tails and hanging pouches, which I think is probably going to be repeated this year. 

We usually use two belt displays, but we seem to be leaning toward only one for ACen (which we did last year, when we were squooshed into a 10' x 10' space). Yarn usually goes on the corner shelves.

At the moment I'm thinking of a modification to Ron's layout, swapping out the corner shelf for a belt display - I think the belts will be a better attention-getter. And moving gridwall from the Lon's Lair side to in front of Max and The Grinch, for security-ish reasons. 

Other display thinking/shopping I've been doing is for a couple more shower curtains (we got two white fabric ones for ACen last year), to make the sides/back of the gridwall look tidy. We probably won't need them so much for ACen, which has something like 8' tall back and 3' tall side drapes for booths, and considering what I expect our neighbors to have for displays (I expect our sides and theirs to mutually hide one another); but Anime Midwest has no drapes included with booths. Last year I had a horrible time finding inexpensive white or off-white fabric shower curtains, but this year I'm having more success.

Last year the belt display was facing in at one front corner, and I realized that all the belt ends stuffed into the pie piece were both visible and untidy from the front of the booth (usually the right-angle of gridwall faces our back space). Fortunately, I had a spare curtain piece that's usually used on the belt displays, which hid most of the mess, and the tails hid the rest.

Had I been thinking, I'd have used some more of the off-white muslin that I made the belt display curtains out of, and made 2' (or 2' + an inch or two) by 5' curtains. But I didn't think of it until last night. And I've still got probably too much to do. This morning I thought of table runners. 

Unfortunately, most table runners are 16"-18" wide. I did find a couple 26" wide ones on-line, for stupid amounts of money.

I did eventually find party/banquet/wedding supply places, with narrower runners, for stupidly inexpensive prices. So I got ordered some 14" wide ones, and I'll use them in pairs as necessary. Or singly behind 1' wide gridwall, thinking about it. They're something like 108" long, but I can either trim and hem, or fold over, possibly hem, and add grommets for easy hanging. Which would work better than binder clips, come to think of it.

At one point last night I said I wanted more gridwall, which Ron said we could do. On further reflection I think we're good, since there's no room in the trailer for long-term storage of gridwall (transport, yes, but it couldn't live there between events, Ron says). 

Still have to decide if want a second UPS - buying power from the convention center is way too expensive. We haven't run down the UPS in one day yet, but a second one might be a good backup.