How to Sell Your Art at Conventions
Selling your work at conventions is like running a small business for the weekend, but can be very rewarding. Not only are you connecting with people that share your interests, but you’re also growing your fanbase. I’ve been tabling at conventions since 2011, and have picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. Aside from making sure you have enough art and merch to sell, there are a bunch of other things you should bring to make your con experience a positive one. To get you started, here is….
Tips for getting into cons
If you’re just starting out, it’s best to try local cons first. Attend them to see how the crowd is or research crowd size. Try to make sure it’s decently attended, or that the ratio of artist alley (section reserved for independant artists) tables works for the ratio of attendees. If there’s too many artists and not enough attendees, sales distribution across all the artists will generally be too low to make a profit. Ask artists how sales are going. Research the artist alley admission policy of each convention. Each artist alley does it differently.
Look up cons in your area. There’s a lot of niche interests that hold fan gatherings. There’s cons for mainstream comics, indie comics and small press, anime, books, drag queens, cats, horror movies, and whatever else you can think of. Your work is bound to fit in somewhere!
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