Fan Expo Dallas was a crazy experience! It was my first time vending at Fan Expo and it was honestly a blast. This was my most packed booth to date, and set up took probably around 9 hours, beginning to end. Shout out to Gary, Stephanie, Ross, Rick, Chad, Francisco, and My Parents for being a part of the Load in/out process, and helping me work the booth over the weekend. We only had a 10x10 for our first one, and I obviously went overkill with the inventory. I was so focused on it being perfect and having enough inventory, that I stressed myself out for the 2 weeks prior to the event.
The show officially began on Friday and ended on Sunday. Friday was the shortest and slowest day, but definitely wasn't slow by any means! From the jump it started pretty busy. People were flooding into the Convention Center and you could tell a lot of people were overwhelmed as they were checking out every booth. Saturday was the busiest day, and it was insanely packed. People were coming in and out of the booth nonstop, and we had about a 3 or 4 hour period of that going on, to the point we couldn't leave for a break. Without out having my Mom, Rick, and Francisco there, we wouldn't have been able to keep up with everyone.
Luckily the temperature in the building itself was pretty cold, so it wasn't overly hot to the point we'd break out in sweats by just having so many people surrounding. Sunday was pretty much the same as Friday, but a couple hours longer. It wasn't slow, we had busy moments, but nothing compared to Saturday.
In the end, the booth ended up exactly how I wanted, with minor changes needed for future events. People seemed to really enjoy the variety in the booth and took their times looking around, even had to come back in case they missed something. Overall, it was an amazing time. The people in attendance were awesome and met a bunch of new people. Locals, non locals, people from overseas. It's always so fascinating how people of different cultures and backgrounds can come together for the same interest. There was a ton too look at, and I didn't give myself enough time to truly look around. I got to meet AJ Styles and Seth Rollins, so that was enough for me. Hopefully next year I will give myself more opportunity to look around and just be better prepared all around. It's an experience I won't forget.
