My first 6ft Artist Alley table and first two day event! It was a very fun experience for myself, my sister, and my partner Malks. Very grateful that we were able to come home with a profit and BOXES of Kraft Dinner.
Leading up to the expo, I kept trying to think of prints and art in general to be able to fill a 6 ft table. Just a few months before I had just enough to fill half a table with my art, so to fill another half with MORE ART… it was pretty daunting. Thankfully I’ve been even more inspired the past couple of months to pursue art a little more as a career. From making a new zine, to working on new comics, to making more fan art! It’s been a very fulfilling couple of months since MCX 2024. With the table fee being $226 (with tax), I really wanted to make sure I had art that people would enjoy too!
For Toronto Game Expo (TGE), we had to set up the Saturday morning. My partner and I woke up at 5:30am to get breakfast at Tims and then headed to Toronto to set up (set-up start time was 6:30am). Once we got to the building (around 7:30am) it was smooth sailing from there! Set-up was done in about an hour since I decided to switch the display around. Afterwards we still had a lot of time to kill before guests arriving at 9:45am, so we made sure that our cash and our square system were all good, and we made sure that the art prints and stickers were clearly labelled and easily accessible.
Once the expo opened it was… sort of busy. It wasn’t as packed as I thought it would be for a Saturday, tho I was comparing it to their numbers in previous years as TGE used to be a one-day event. I was glad by the end of the day to make over half the table fees back. Throughout the day, myself, Malks, my sister, and her boyfriend took turns walking around the expo and grabbing as much Kraft Dinner as we could since they were free. Probably the main highlight of the day was the Wii remote cosplay I saw and watching people take the Kraft Dinner Mario displays. Overall, that first day was okay!
The second day was the more eventful one. A lot more traffic in Artist Alley, and was able to make more sales! I also got the idea from other artists of adding a little reading light at the corner of my booth to highlight more of the stickers. That corner of my booth was a bit dark, and I noticed on the Saturday that not many people were looking at that set of stickers. By adding the little reading light, more people were noticing our second set of stickers, driving more sales! In addition, I was able to meet new artists, and meet up with artists I’ve interacted with before, either online or at previous Artist Alleys! For example I was able to meet Leimkylabs for the first time in person! We had interacted online beforehand, but never got the chance to meet until that Sunday! It was so cool to chat and visit each other’s booths. I even bought cute magnets from her booth!
The Sunday was a lot shorter, with the event ending at 4pm. it went by pretty fast! We packed up, said goodbye to our table neighbours (both of which were very sweet), and headed back home to get some post-con pho.
As someone still getting used to cons, this con was still okay in my eyes! I can’t say the same for other artists who have more experience than I do. Maybe I’ll be a vendor the next time it rolls around. We’ll see!
Pros:
- Close to public transit
- So much Kraft Dinner
- Indie devs were really cool to see!
- Wide aisles in front of the booth! That really helped since we didn’t feel so jam packed with all the con goers. We lucked out and had a bunch of space behind our booth cause of pillars, I can’t say the same for other artists since it seems like some didn’t have as much space as they wanted behind their tables.
Cons:
- Artist Alley was packed in terms of artists, it felt like there were too many quiet times to warrant that many artists and vendors in general (over 300 artist tables, 600+ vendors in general). I’ve heard other artists say that they just barely made their table, or didn’t reach it at all. Some of us were lucky to make a profit.
- Why was it two exhibitor passes but one chair for a table??
- AI art and drop shipping vendors were present everywhere
Date: March 29 to March 30th, 2025
Event: Toronto Game Expo 2025
Some of the new art I had on display:
My Set Up!
Noemi’s Corner 