Cosplayers and Conventions: The vendors versus the players

Perhaps I am really stepping into it here, but oh well, not the first time.  During the past 6 months I've seen a lot of vendors take to the internet complaining about how shitty sales are at the cons, where not so long ago, you were guaranteed to make your table and then some.  I have seen this myself in the cons I was at this year.

Part of this post was inspired by reading a post on a Cosplayer's facebook and I want to maybe try and put some sense behind it, from both sides.  The author of the article shared was going on about how Cosplayers are ruining conventions for vendors because their sales have gone down.  I too saw this amongst the veterans of the cons I was at.  Here is the thing for me:  we are in tougher financial times, so maybe we need to lower our expectations on sales, but then again, neither should a vendor have to shell out $3000 for table, travel, lodge, food and so on and only make $300 over a four day convention in a major city.  That is bad for the convention all the way around.

I appreciate that the Cosplayers put a lot of time, effort and money into their costumes as they all go way beyond even a fancy halloween costume, but the problem lies in when you go walk around the aisles of vendors, which are often too narrow, people crowd around you and you essentially cause a traffic jam in the aisle.  Potential buyers come around, see the traffic jam, and say fuck it, and move on, all potential sales for those vendors in the aisles now gone as they usually don't come back.  I had the experience of a Cosplayer take up residence across from my booth for 30 minutes, who wouldn't move their ass, and caused such a traffic jam, I had no one at my booth during that time.  How many potential sales did I lose during that time?

As much as the cons are both vendors and Cosplayers, Cosplayers, listen up.  You want to stop being blamed for vendors losing sales, then instead of taking up valuable space in the vendor's area in your costume, you can do 1 of 2 things:  either don't wear your costume when in the vendor's area, or better yet, if you get stuck in front of a booth and are blocking people from getting to vendors, chip in and help the vendor sell for a little bit.  The vendor will be grateful and may just give you something for your troubles.

Keep in mind, it is also the responsibility of the people running the convention to make sure the aisles are wide enough to handle this kind of traffic, that they keep rates reasonable for vendors, and to maybe encourage some of you to go pick a booth you like and help sell stuff.  Rather than work against each other, work together, it is far better.  Some of you may think this is very simplistic, but sometimes it is simplicity that wins the day.

Wish I had a pic there, but nah, not today, so I will leave you with a random video: