Getting ready for StellarCon

Ok, to the handful of people who have been following my blog on a somewhat regular basis, I have to truly apologize for not having more post this week as I had promised earlier. I have all my notes and plan to post a few game session notes from last weekend and now one from tonight's game of Power Grid (Loved it, btw!).

But, back to my explanation / apologize... I have been busy this week gearing up for StellarCon, and by gearing up for StellarCon, I mean completely avoiding the giant stack of games that needed to be priced and boxed. I know it's the same routine for every Con, and after each mad dash out the door to a Con I swear it'll be the last time that I'll be ill prepared for a Con. This is my 7-8th Con as a Dealer and I swear I am still perpetually behind on the day the Con rolls around. So, to that end, I wanted to chronicle exactly why this happens every time.

Reasons/Excuses for being ill prepared for Cons:

1. Lack of motivation: I know this seems like a poor excuse and to be honest, it totally is... but, I have to also tell you that I am a stay at home Dad presently and by the time we get my 9 year old's homework done, him cleaned up and fed and eventually off to bed... it's time to wrestle our 13 month old into his crib which might as well be made of lava as far as he is concerned. So, by 10-11 clock at night when all the chores are done and the kids have been put back to bed 6-7 times and the house is quiet, I think to myself... "Man, I need to go price my games, or go blog my notes, or build my game order for this week... " and then it happens! I lose all motivation and decide sleep is much more appealing since, I'll be up at 7:30 entertaining a very active little monster!
2. Dependency on others: This one isn't as big an issue as you might think, but when it goes bad... it's a shit storm! My best friend Zach is generally always in tow when it comes to Cons, but on occasion he has scheduling conflicts and I have to scramble to find a replacement, as I am not in love with the idea of being glued to my booth all weekend with no relief for food or gaming runs! I know this is gonna be hard to believe, so brace yourself... not everyone is willing to go to a gaming convention and hangout for a weekend or even a day sometimes. So, like this coming weekend... I have asked 8 people to either to babysit the baby for me to go setup or for someone to come and help setup my booth and hangout! Finally, after a small bribe I finally locked down my mother to babysit for an hour, and my brother agreed to help setup the booth and hangout for a free meal! And that's just the lighter side, god help you if you need to depend on someone to help you transport stuff, not having a large enough vehicle and the constant shuffle of goods in and out of your car is all by itself a mind numbing experience!
3. Stocking Merch.: Ok, like a lot of people I worked in retail when I was younger. For me I had the most experience as the Trading Post Manager at a Boy Scout Camp I worked at for a couple summers. Most people never have the joy of having to decide on what items to stock, I did at camp, but it was a no brainer. Kids love any and all candy and knick knacks, so most anything you got was golden. Fast forward to 10 years later and you've decided, "Hey! I've got $300 bucks, why don't I get a business license and start selling games to my local game group!" What could be hard about that, right? Ok, so unlike candy and chitsy little camp trinkets, board games or designer games in my case are super subjective to taste and hard to predict the hot sellers. I have seen in a single day at a Con, one person walks up and pledge his undying love for a game and turns into "That Guy", chewing my ear off about it's wondrous awesomeness! Then an hour later another guy comes along and threatens to murder Zach and I for ruining the dealers room by having this raging piece of trash on my shelf! All the while, I'm trying to figure out why the hell I'm indifferent about the game! So, to put it into perspective let's pretend you want to sell buttons, now lets pretend you can only buy 100 buttons and having more than 1 or 2 of the same kind is a no-no. Think of all the different choices you have from color, size, shape, material, and so on. How do you know what people are going to need?? I have lost more sleep and worried more of my game purchases than I think anyone should ever have to concerning anything! So, now a year and a half later, I have 225+ unique titles we regularly stock and new games are coming out at the rate of 10-20 a month. My budget and own sensibilities will only allow me to add maybe 5 new titles a month, so how do you pick the winners?? Ok, I'm serious... somebody tell me, I miss my sanity! ;)

Ok, that's some highlights for why I am perpetually behind on weeks of Cons... are they good reasons? Probably not, but hey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! I hope maybe MACE West will be different, but probably not. If you suffered through this post, I'd like to offer you the promise that I will try to catch up on my posts over the weekend at the Con and hopefully have a full Con Report for you by Wednesday of next week! Also, if your gonna be at StellarCon, come by The Card Board Stash's Booth and see us!

P.S.: Reason #4: Blogging: Yup, I totally took a break from my last minute pricing to blog my thoughts... I'm a glutton for punishment!