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My Convention Setup | From mockup to real life!
🕑 Added 2025-06-16 20:56:48 +0000 UTC📷 IMAGES BELOW! With the completion of my updated convention booth setup, I wanted to provide an in-depth process for my Patrons of how I came up with the design and how I managed to execute my ideas properly! This setup took a total of around 20+ days to achieve but it is important to note that I had a previous booth design that I was able to build off of. 
INITIAL DESIGN: This was my original booth that I had designed for my first convention back in 2024! It was definitely decent and comfortable for my first time doing something like this, but I knew that I wanted to expand and improve my setup for future conventions.
My first step was to incorporate a monitor into my setup since my goal at conventions is to market my animated series. With a flashy monitor displaying the actual episode, I knew it would give me a new advantage to be able to hook people in the aisle better and potentially draw them in, giving them an actual feel for the show, the animation, and the characters that my booth is centered around.
I also wanted to expand the setup to fill up more table space, and designing all of the signage and products in a way that was more coherent and simplified so that it was easier on the eyes to find a spot to rest. 
FIRST MOCKUP: This was the first mockup drawing that I was able to create based on my preexisting design. I focused on expanding the setup with its height as it gives a better advantage for my booth to be seen from aisles away. I also wanted to add prints to both the sides of the table to keep customers locked in on my table when they are viewing the products, if they look to the side and see an empty space they might decide to move on, but with prints extending to the sides blocking that space they have a better chance of not getting distracted.
Something else that was important to me was the interactive elements of the booth. With products that customers can actually touch and pick up they might feel a better sense of connection as opposed to the products just being displayed and customers having to ask for it upon purchase. Every product featured besides the large poster prints were set up in displays that customers could grab. I made sure to raise the actual products that you could touch to the customers eye level.
After this mockup was complete, I did a test build of the idea in real life to make sure that it was something I could achieve. I ran out of building squares here, so I quickly made an order for more. 
SECOND MOCKUP: I suddenly had the idea to include lighting in my design as I felt this would illuminate the products in a desirable way and also again catch people's interest from a farther distance. I wanted to add LED strips surrounding the edges of the table but when I attempted to execute this in real life, I found it was quite blinding, and I quickly scrapped that idea. I ended up ordering smaller portable spotlights that I planned to stick on the top of the booth, illuminating the prints since the overhead squares would block out the natural lighting of the building. This allowed me to control the lighting more and to prevent potential glare that would hide the artwork.
With majority of the Hazbin and Helluva cast being invited to the convention, I knew there would be a large indie Animation scene that I could market to easier. I made sure to include Indie Animation wording in big letters around the monitor that would be playing the episode to catch the attention of my target audience.
I thought including star designs in my booth would be cute and match my aesthetics perfectly, I originally was going to create star shaped cutouts that I would glue to the edges of the booth lining the posters near the top, but I ended up changing the square price tags into stars which was an easier and more simple approach. 
I worked tirelessly to make sure to order all the correct supplies that I needed and designed all the artwork and signage that would be featured in the booth. I Stressed a lot about all of these things arriving on time since I only had 1-2 weeks left before the Convention.
I tested the monitor placement to be featured in the center of the setup, but I ran into struggles with that since it would block a lot of my body and make it difficult to smoothly reach over the monitor to serve customers. I had two overhead squares that connected both sides of the booth, but I decided to remove them since they really served no purpose and might have been a problem if the sides needed to be shoved closer together to fit onto the 6ft table.
Something that worried me was electricity and this was something I stressed the most over. I first attempted to find a portable power station that could power the monitor for several hours, but those can get pricey fast and can really only last a certain amount of hours regardless of how much wattage you get. I ended up just buying electricity from the con, it was an unfortunate amount of money but it turned out to be worth it. The electricity prices will fluctuate based in which convention center I decide to table at, so this may not be a problem for future events outside of this city.
The monitor was moved onto the shelf which granted me the advantage of having it be eye level with customers. One important thing to note is that Customers do not look down when walking in the aisle, especially in the more crowded hours. The Mirandamations banner that spans across the bottom of my table is invisible and only serves the purpose of adding to the full aesthetics of the setup when viewed from far away. Its important to move all of your main signage to the eye level or very top of your booth.
Moving the monitor made me lose a shelf for my Lanyards and button pins and it proved to be a real pain when trying to relocate them properly. I struggled with that problem specifically for a few days finally deciding to place them at the bottom of the table Infront of their signs. I really wanted to have my most important products right next to the monitor since it was the main eye catcher, but the display trays for the Keychains and Holographic prints were way too large and needed to stay separate from the smaller displays of the Lanyards and pins.
With one day left before Load in, I ran into one of the worst problems I could have gotten. Originally the monitor was hooked up to my Ipad with a docking station, but without air play videos will not play fullscreen and resulted in the monitor having very chunky and visually displeasing black borders to fit the square ratio of an Ipad screen. Air play did not work without internet and the convention center was charging $160 for spotty wifi that would not guarantee that I would have a connection stable enough not to run into problems. I am extremely grateful that my mom let me end up using her laptop for the setup since there would be no problems with the ratio display and the laptop didn't need internet to play a video file. For future conventions, I will need to invest in a personal laptop of my own if I would like to continue featuring a monitor in my setup.
And finally, the final setup in all its glory! I did something different this year which was include bulk bundle offers on all products, 3 for $20 keychains, buy 2 get 2 free holographic prints, etc. This definitely had an impact a lot of sales I got were from these offers.
I did free autographs last year, but I decided to include signage that actually pointed it out, I think this helped a lot of sales with prints because they were some of my worst sellers last year, especially the holographic prints. But I sold a ton this year and signed every single one that was purchased! I might not offer free autographs forever if demand gets too high, but since I am still in my humble beginnings, I totally don't mind doing that for in person events.
I had so much fun at this year's Animate and I doubled the number of sales I made from last year! All of my hard work that went into this absolutely paid off and I even noticed that I pulled a large amount of people this time, both existing fans and new comers, sales and no sales etc. 
Comments
Hyper Saber
I honestly envy the fact that you were a vendor at a convention... >:D I hope you made good money! And as always, I support REAL artists, not 🅰️👁️ Also- be sure to take care of yourself. Health comes first before any project 👍 also, have a turtle! 🐢
Avalon Bernd
This is so cool! I hope things went smoothly for you at the con!
