Cheltenham Comic Book Festival

Back in early 2014 I was told about a Kickstarter project to help create a comic book festival to be hosted at the Cheltenham Race course and if I helped with the Kickstarter by giving enough money I would have a table on the day so me and another student paid half of the table price each so then we could share a table on the day. Fortunately for us the Kickstarter was a success and we were given our table.

The event itself was held on the 7th February so that gave us plenty of time to create some artwork ready for the event. For this I created five different pieces of artwork to sell on the day, two of which was fan art which I wrote on them that I did not own the rights to the character and the name of the companies who do own them. I planned for each print to make an A4 print and an A5 print so people could place them on their walls without having to consume too much space on the wall and paid the company AJ Green Printing to print 10 copies of each size print because I was told by Andrew that I should focus on between 10 - 15 prints each so then I wouldn't spend as much money and still have a nice variety to sell on the day. The printing company sold me the prints at a good price of only £25 which was very reasonable since I needed to prints done quite quickly so I could get them ready for the event.

Below is the list of what I spent for the convention:

Table: £20
Prints: £25 from AJ Green Printing
Money box: £15
Plastic sleeves: £10
CardBoard for back of prints: £3
£50 change for the day

Total Cost: £113

When it came to selling my work I asked for Andrew's advice of what I would sell each print for and he told me that for the A4 prints that I should sell them for £15 each and for the A5 to be sold for £10 each. I had also decided by then to sell the originals to try and make back my money for the costs which Andrew told me to sell for £30 for each original.

I also decided to advertise work for a fellow illustrator that I know from back home in return for her advertising my work on her page.

On the day I had to get there for 8:30 to start setting up. With my layout, which you an see below, I believe that it was a mistake not buying a stand or something similar because it made the table look too busy and messy. Unfortunately at the end of the day I was unable to sell any work which was very disappointing but I was not phased and decided to take this as experience and focus at what I did wrong so then I can improve ready for next years convention.

Table Layout

Mine and Dan's work on the table

Setting Up

Print One

Print Two

Print Three

Print Four

Print Five