Almost ready for Emerald City Comicon: the importance of Convention Checklists

I try hard not to tie myself in knots, but I also fail miserably at it every year. Emerald City Comicon is a huge west coast event. When I started attending with my husband, it was a smallish con in the Qwest (now CenturyLink) Exhibition Center. The first year, it was at the Washington Convention Center, was also the first year I exhibited. It seemed big, but it basically covered only one floor. No longer. Now it takes over the entire convention center. There are tons of media guests such as Adam Baldwin, Christopher Judge, Edward James Olmos, and more…

Moreover, there are tons of after-hour parties and events in nearby hotels, restaurants, and bars.

Fortunately I have a checklist. Note: I started packing inventory for this event three weeks ago. So this isn’t a packing list, this is just some last-minute items…

1) Get Maria’s old laptop to repeat play the trailers for Other Systems. (This has ended up being harder than I expected. I am so ready to just use my iPad even though the screen is smaller.)

2) Print price cards for booth.

3) Sleeve the rest of the final order of posters and pack with other posters.

4) Wednesday get house company ready (Maria is staying at my house all weekend and my niece will be staying Saturday night)

5) Call my sister and double-check my niece’s transportation to the convention for Saturday morning.

6) Thursday Specific: go to bank and pick up change and then go to early check-in to pick up badges starting at noon. Maria arrives 10 pm on Thursday night

7) Friday Morning: Set up Booth then go have lunch. Con starts at 2 pm on Friday afternoon. Hooray!

Now as you can see, these are a wide variety of last-minute items that need to be finished up. Many of them are easily forgettable on their own which is why I suggest any artist or author who does conventions to create checklists and use them to stay organized.