I spent last weekend in Austin, running the art show for Armadillocon 32. I think this is the 6th or 7th year in a row that I've been in charge. If the sales are any indication of the state of the economy, we're coming out of the doldrums. We had 37 artists, one did not show up after requesting space.
It ended up being a nice layout, and a number of folks were heard to comment on the quality of the art. I think we did a good selection of art this year.
Thursday:
Up bright and early (5:30 a.m.) to do final packing and hit the road. I made it Granger around 9:30 a.m. and picked up my order of kolaches and 6 links of sausage from the store in town. Then it was on to Austin. I stopped at Central Market for my weekend supply of root beer and then made my way to the hotel to do a partial unload.
I then drove down Lamar to Aikido of Austin where I dressed out and joined them on the mat for a workout session. It's amazing. They had about 12 to 14 people on the mat for a lunch time session. (We struggle to get 3 folks for an evening session. Admittedly, it's a Friday evening session, so that probably has something to do with it.) I had a good time and it was interesting seeing how another branch of the aikido family works.
From aikido, it was back to the hotel to finishing unload the truck. After that, I had a couple of hours of free time until the pre-con dinner. So, I went down to the pool, caught some rays and did some swimming.
The pre-con dinner was at a nearby Mexican restaurant, more inner than Tex-Mex. Pretty good stuff.
After dinner, it was time to assemble the art show. It took us about 2 hours to build the show. I then hung around with Diesel LaForce while he hang a small portion of his collection of art from his days as a TSR artists. It was amazing! While he was hanging art, I was laying out the show yet again. I think I did that about 4 times before I was finally happy. I also distributed the boxes of mail-in art to be at the spots where they would get hung in the morning. I got to bed around midnight, I think.
Friday:
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show to start hanging art. Tomi Welch provided a priceless amount of help in helping me hang the art. We were ready to go by about noon, and folks started coming in around then.
We were open until around 7 p.m., when the Dealer's room closed. Due to the layout of stuff this year, the Art Show had to close when the Dealer's room did. Not ideal, but it did mean I got some rest this weekend. Dinner was at North by Northwest, a brew pub nearby. It was pretty good.
Saturday:
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show. The day pretty much flew by all the way through the auction. We had 13 pieces go to auction where Cat Conrad and Rhonda Eudaly did a fabulous job getting folks to bid. We did a total of $4900 sales in the art show for the weekend.
Dinner was in the hotel restaurant due to time constraints. I had a conversation with the waiter recommending changes in their Creme Brulee. The dish it was made in was large and flat which made the large of amount of caramelized sugar overpower the flavor of the custard. I recommended they change the dish to be taller.
Sunday
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show. If Saturday flew by, Sunday was exceeding speed limits. the next thing I knew, the art show was torn down and all of the artists were checked out. We unloaded the art show supplies at the storage unit and headed off to the post-con dinner at County Ljne Bar-B-Q. It's ok stuff, not great.
Back at the hotel, I had to do final paperwork and packing of the mail-in art for mail-out on Monday. Laura Domitz and Jimmy Simpson did a fantastic job of packing up the art for me.
I hit the Dead Dog party for a bit, and then went to bed.
Monday:
Up early, without breakfast, to pack the truck and to try to hit UPS, USPS and FedEx when they opened so I could mail out all of the packages. I think I managed to get on the road by 9:30 a.m. I made it home by about 12:30 p.m.
Next year, I do it all over again.
