Atlanta Comic Convention 2024
The deets
Where: Atlanta, GA
When: Early February
Table Cost: $300
Attendance: estimated 20,000
The space
Vendor hall and artist alley were in building A at the World Congress Centre. The space was plenty big enough but it was laid out poorly.
Artist alley was set up in rows but vendor booths surrounded artist alley on all sides with little to no signage indicating if you were in artist alley or not.
The main lines of traffic did not funnel people through artist alley, so many attendees didn’t know there even was an artist alley.
The market
ACC does have a dedicated artist alley that separates it from the vendor booths. That said, the distinction is still not handled in an ideal way. Artist alley rows do not have any identification so that attendees can easily tell who is an artist and who isn’t. The layout was very confusing overall as artist alley was in the middle of all the vendor booths.
Artist alley had 180 artist alley tables which was probably too many for the size of the con. There were folks across from us that ended up making no sales the first day and they just packed up and left for the rest of the event.
The audience
This is a signing con, which means that many attendees come to get autographs from guests which are very expensive.
The sales
We did not make back our table costs at this convention which was incredibly disappointing for a 3-day event.
The rest
The table next to use belonged to a comic artist who was from out of state. He was pretty aggressive in his sales tactics, which unfortunately led to people avoiding our table entirely to move away from his table quickly.
We heard from other vendors that were from out-of-state that they only got notice of their acceptance into the con a week prior to the event starting. We also heard that few vendors all paid similar prices for their spaces, leading to a lot of frustration from those who paid much more than others for what seemed to be arbitrary reasons.
We were informed by an attendee that another big con was happening in Alabama at the same time as this con, which could have explained the meager attendance.
Pros
Unfortunately, we cannot recommend this con as it is. We hope there will be improvements next year, and are willing to give it one last chance.
Cons
February timing put it in conflict with another major con in Alabama
Lack of quality control in who ends up in artist alley
Too many vendors for the attendance rate of the con
This is first and foremost a signing con, most attendees are spending money on autographs
Communication break downs between staff and vendors