Okay... We're back... -ish... The early part of today HiSign and I finished putting the store back together from the convention. Mostly putting away back stock, breaking down boxes for storage, and throwing away trash.
Numbers-wise, we were up 15% over last year, and last year wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was pretty good. I believe we are reaching a plateau in terms of business numbers for the convention. We've showed steady growth for four years, and this year, while up, felt "even". While doing good business, this year felt easy. Like we've done this before and it's no big thing. Now, with five years of doing this, we and the Gophers have it down. Things went pretty damn smoothly with the only hiccups on our end being arriving at the convention too early to set up and forgetting extension cords and power strips back at the store.
Through it all, hiring HiSign has been one of the best moves we've ever made. His calm, relatively even demeanor (compared to Loq and myself, and even Skribl, who are quite passionate) and his ability to do whatever is asked of him to a very high standard has made *MY* job easier. Eventually, he'll make my life easier once we get the new point of sale in and I can feel settled there...
Now I'm off to find dinner for myself and the kids...
-- GopherDave
I dunno Dave, a 15% increase in sales, during a long recession, hardly seems like a plateau.
ReplyDeleteYour crew rocks.
Your probably correct, GC, but it *FELT* like things have reached an apex, even with the increase...
ReplyDeleteAlthough, depending on what happens next year, we may not shut the store and run a stupid amount of MtG pre-release events to go with it all, and keep the store open during the convention. Or, even better, Don and I spoke a bit, and we might be able to have it at the convention next year after all.
You're... sigh... where'd my "edit" function go?
ReplyDeleteThe only downside I can see to having it at the convention would be if players had to play convention admission to play in the prerelease. If that happened, I wouldn't be surprised if some players opted to go (gasp) elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if it could be worked out as free, or very cheap, then I could see it being an additional draw to the convention. Heck. You could even run events all weekend like a Legacy or Vintage event in conjunction with the prerelease.