Convention Round-up - MCC & Malta Book festival
Hey all!
Fleur here! I just returned from Dragonmeet, marking our last convention of the year. I’ll prepare a write-up for that one later on in the week, but for now, I have a recap of the two local events we participated in at the start of November!
The two events, Malta Comic Con and Malta Book Festival, coincided on the same weekend, which meant that Chelsea and I had to conquer and divide to participate in both events. Thank you to our respective husbands, who joined us at our respective conventions 🙏
I think this pic is very cute <3 Fleur (left) and Frazer (right) at the Malta Book Festival
Malta Comic Con (8-9 November)
We returned to Malta Comic Con again for the 3rd time in a row as The Wanderer’s Tome. I tabled MCC alongside my husband while Chelsea manned our booth at the Book Festival.
They changed the venue from the MFCC to Eden Leisure, which was the first time I experienced this venue change. I thought the venue was pretty good, and we were well-positioned in a corner and near the entrance. As a bonus, the venue is just a 5-minute drive from our home. Honestly, it was a good event. We had a lot of fun, caught up with friends, and I’m happy to report that everything went smoothly.
Costs:
Exhibitor Space - 160€
Parking - 11€
Misc snacks and food
Total Cost - 171€
Sales:
Deadline & Broadsheet - 9
Deadline only - 5
Flabbergasted - 1
Camp Make-Believe - 2
Wanderer’s Companion - 2
Achievent Badge Sticker Sheets - 8
Enamel Pin - 9
Mystery Bag - 14
Suncatcher Sticker - 1
Flabbergasted Lucky Coins - 3
Flabbergasted Dice - 3
Total Sales: €608
Profit: €437
Some thoughts:
Mystery bags did very well at MCC. We had to return to the office and make more for day 2.
Prints do not sell at all. We’re gonna retire them from conventions and even on our webstore.
I was happy with the interest in the Flabbergasted Dice and Coins, and they sold better than I anticipated!
Shoutout to Garfield wizard, who had hands down my favourite cosplay of the event.
I think I heard Golden played 20 times over the weekend 💀
May we all be blessed enough to get a visit from the Garfield Wizard
The Malta Book Festival (5-9 November)
Straight to the point, this was the first time participating… and probably our last. It was not worth our time. It’s a 5-day event (YES, 5 DAYS) that is open from Wednesday to Sunday, 9 am - 9 pm 9 (YES, 12 HOURS) dedicated to celebrating books, literature and Maltese publications. Busloads of schoolchildren are shepherded in with 20 euros worth of vouchers in hand, sponsored by the government.
Length of convention aside, this all sounded really promising on paper. We had just launched our Kids TTRPG Camp Make-Believe, and thought this had a lot of appeal for the local scene. Pair that with kids arriving with 20 euros in hand, which they are encouraged to spend, and we anticipated a successful event for us!
The reality was that most kids are just dropped off by their teachers at the major book vendors, 3 or 4 of which make up 70% of the event floor space, and encouraged to buy something quickly and not stray too far from their sight. An understandable instruction when you’re supervising 20+ kids, but this meant that there was no interest in wandering and perusing the smaller indie publishers that had a small catalogue.
Some thoughts and numbers:
Booth costs and expenses - 50 euros for the booth, which was thankfully inexpensive. Aside from some takeout, we had no other expenses.
Sales - We may have sold 8 books of Camp Make-Believe over the 5 days.
The convention is nicely set up, and I had my artwork featured in 2 different exhibitions going on at the Book Festival, which was lovely to see in person.
If we ever participate in the Malta Book Festival, we’ll instead host a 2-hour launch event of some kind and pass on having an exhibitor booth.
Shout-out to our table mates, Il-Beżżul Bieżel, who made for a great chat and made the time pass faster.
Our booth set-up was pretty cute though
