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I'm curious, how consistent are your prices? I mean, I sell things like plushies online all the time, but sometimes I change their prices just a bit for conventions. Sometimes they are cheaper, sometimes I add a bit more to their cost. I'm going to be bringing some plushies that I sell for quite a bit online, but I am worried that they won't sell too well at a convention because of their high price. Should I decrease their price just for the con or should I go ahead with my original selling price?

I'd just stick with your regular price. If you sell them online anyway, you can just keep them for your online stock if they don't sell at con :3. You could also kind of play it by ear, if a customer really wants it but is a few dollars short, offer to sell it to them for that price if you are comfortable with it if you feel that price is fair and you feel comfortable selling it for that price to that particular person. I'm more inclined to lower the price a little on some of my items if someone doesn't have enough if they are nice to me and honestly seems to like my work than I am to someone who flat out demands I lower the price :/. For those types of customers I just inform them that if it doesn't sell at con, it just goes to my online stock.

I wanted to try and get some contact info from a couple of the artists from AA for other commissions, so I thought I'd create this thread for anyone else who'd want to do the same. There was an artist who was selling a Hobbes doll from Calvin & Hobbes. I was interested in buying it in the near future. There was another artist that made a picture of GLaDoS and a bird which I bought (will post a pic of it later for clarification). I was wondering if said artist had other Portal or other video game pics and maybe browse through an anime pic selection if there was one. If anyone has contact info I can get on either artist, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty sure this is the person with the Hobbes doll:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/amiamour?ref=pr_shop

I would link her web page, but my antivirus program flagged something on it as a threat O_o.

I was impressed with the way AA check in was handled. It makes me wonder why the heck larger conventions such as AX can't have a check in line that breaks the line down by # or last name or something. What I didn't really get is why we had to get in another line just to get the stickers.

One thing that that did kind of bother me is that my side of the AA seemed to have dimmer lighting than the side with the rest of the AA. I don't know if it was because of the sky box/room hanging above the entrance or what. I thought I would be getting a good spot because I was near an entrance, however I found out it was more of an exit than anything since most attendees came through the door nearest the Exhibit hall exit. I've never been to Fanime and didn't know where anything would be located. It's something I would have liked to know in advance.

I also have a complaint about announcing that there would be no updates via e-mail when the AA was more or less closed and a # of artists were already gone from the alley. I don't really understand why updates will not be given via e-mail and would like to know why this is. Saying "we just can't" doesn't really make sense.

All in all it was an alright experience. I find that the atmosphere is friendlier than in other AA's I've participated in and in my opinion it was more organized than other AA's I've done.

I have a permanent seller's permit but it shows my my home address. Do I have to get a new seller's permit for the convention's address?

I have a permanent permit as well. When I asked the BoE about selling at cons, they said I could add locations by filling out a form at the end of the year and mail it in along with my CA sales tax forms. Each con that I've been to for the past year hasn't had a problem with it.

Last year I was on the waiting list for tables and wasn't notified that I didn't make it in until 2 days before the con. I suggest logging into your accounts to see if your in or not if you haven't gotten a notice. I think if you haven't been notified yet, you're not in for now since they've already put up a notice on the fanime home page saying that the AA is full. I have been reading tweets from different people and have a friend who already were notified that they won their tables via the lottery system a few days ago. Since there's a deadline to pay for the tables, perhaps there will be a few more slots available if people don't pay. For everyone who has already made items for this convention, but hasn't gotten a spot, perhaps consider going to other conventions to sell your items. Maybe the cons aren't as big as fanime, but people still do buy things at smaller cons.

I will agree that the way registration happened was somewhat flawed to an extent, but I don't think favoritism comes into play here. This is the 2nd time I've tried to participate in Fanime's AA (registered 2 weeks after reg opened last year and didn't make it in). I was expecting that the link would appear on the home page or the artist page, but it didn't until hours later. However, I learned from my past AA experiences to constantly watch any area, especially forums and facebook for information. My partner and I were constantly checking for updates and we put ourselves on the mailing list, joined the FB group and my partner was following their twitter account. I found the link on FB page (which has 100+ other followers, so it's not like it's a tiny secret organization) and it took me about 40 minutes to make and confirm an AA account what with all the traffic the site was getting. The links were then posted in the forums in a thread after 1PM and I've been reading that it also appeared as a message while the forums were down, around 9pm a non clickable link went on the main page, (which could be copied and pasted) and maybe 30 mins-1hr later it was fixed so you could actually click it.

Unfortunately, spots at large cons are usually highly sought after and they will run out quickly. For example AX, which is bigger than Fanime sold out in 5 minutes in 2008 or 2007 (can't remember which). I was at a smaller con in January that had it's AA tables sell out in 1-2 minutes. It's just not possible for everyone to have a spot. A lot of the time you have to be diligent and check for updates constantly. It's unfortunate you didn't get in on the first come first serve spot, but at least they did add additional tables to at least try to accommodate more people, which they really don't have to do.  

What a nOOb. Okay, I figured out step 5. I didn't completely finish registering yet so I didn't have a badge number. I'm good now. And super excited too!  :D

Care to tell me your secret becasue I am still having problems.

are you using the badge # in your badge registration account or the one on the paypal receipt? I was using the item # on the paypal receipt and that's what was wrong when I was getting the error. You're supposed to use the badge ID # in your fanime account.

I seem to be having an issue on step 5. Both my partner and I have purchased our badges. I bought mine the day before AA reg went and he bought his a little while ago, but it says registration not found for both of us. Anybody else having this issue?

correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for the website links they just want to see your art style, to make sure you aren't copying or tracing copyrighted things. you don't have to have everything that you plan on selling on the website.

also, has anyone been approved yet? I've been checking my email since I turned in the form yesterday after the reg. opened and I haven't gotten any confirmation. :'c I know the AA staffers have lives but is there an estimate of when we would be approved?

For all the AAs I have participated in, when they ask for a link to your portfolio they just want to see what you've done so they can see what type of work you do. I highly doubt the staffers want to look at every tiny thing you plan to make for each con so that they can check through everything at your table.

I haven't been approved yet. With all the bugs in the registration system yesterday I'm incredibly nervous about this. I wish that they had announced that you didn't need a badge earlier than the night before reg went up when they've been saying over and over that you NEED a badge to register. I bought the badge the morning before reg went up so I wouldn't run into any problems yesterday, and now I'm worried about being out $55 if I don't make it into the AA.

I've seen this question kind of addressed in the past pages. I've wanted to participate in Fanime's AA for a long while now. I've never been able to attend Fanime because it conflicted with my school schedule (I live in SoCal). I can't really attend Fanime unless I have an AA table so I can try to pay off at least part of the cost of the trip. I know that Fanime has a no refund or rollover policy and I really cannot afford to lose the cost of a badge because if I don't have a table, it's very likely I cannot attend the convention at all. Is there going to be an option to purchase a badge along with a table? I read that it was a possibility, but I'd like to know if that will still be a potential option.