Overview

Robot Dragon Studios blog covering my first experience vending at Cloud 9 Con in St Cloud, MN. I reflect on organization of a first year event and learned the origins of this con.

Applications, Payments & Planning

Initially I was very confused about this and wasn't going to go since it didn't sound like a con and nothing was mentioned cost wise. I ended up emailing and finding out the cost was $100. This was on April 8, 2026. He answered my questions and explained all the rules, including having to have signs that were printed not hand written.

After talking with a friend and the event organizer themself, I felt a little better and they made an exception to let me come vend without paying first since I've been fairly tight on funds with how much I spent on my Buster Frankencorgi project at the time.

It sounded a lot more like a craft fair style event where you bring your own table and chairs, and I still didn't understand how the overnight stuff works for a mall event.

They have a FB group but no Instagram. Since I was unsure about the event, I did ask Brittany from Wolf Dynasty Studios if she wanted to split but she didn't for this. 

He reached out May 23, 2026 to find out what sort of information I'd like shared about what I am selling at the event. Late on June 1st, I sent photos that could be used to advertise but I am not sure if they were used at all.

An email with all the information we needed as well as our booth locations was sent out on June 8th. Straightforward and easy to understand at least,

Before the Event & Setup

We woke up around 6am to get ready for the event. I had used my artist alley checklist the night before to get my things ready for the event. I probably spent too much time when I woke up. I wanted to bring the SUV initially, but opted to bring the WRX since I was bringing far less stuff than I normally would for larger events. 

Load in was between Scheels and Macys (which is no longer there), but it was the only location in the parking lot with any vehicles. That alone made it super easy to locate. We were able to park and unload right next to the door and then park the car not that far over in the parking lot. I think we arrived slightly after 8am.



My location was over by Games by James and directly across from 89th and Madison. It was also fairly close to the bathroom and near Target. I do recall telling Jesse I just need to be near a bathroom, so I appreciate that was taken into consideration. I wasn't the furthest away from the load-in area, but if the table wasn't balanced nicely across the boxes, it would have been a pain in the butt to carry out from where we were. 



I didn't fully appreciate my location when we first arrived, but being under the skylight gave us so much natural light. The map was blurry so it wasn't super clear as to where each of us were exactly and there was nothing taped out to indicate our locations. 



We asked if we could move our tables against the wall and were allowed. The others weren't since they were directly across from stores that were actually opened and we had nothing but what appeared to be a Target storage area behind us, hidden with a giant sticker.



It took me until about just before 10am to finish getting everything together. Stickers tend to be the slowest thing for me, but I made sure to organize everything the night before and sort the stickers into labeled bags by tray so I could more easily throw everything on the tray. Definitely increased the speed at which my stickers got out. I also had them nicely organized in the order which they were placed into the box I use to transport them.

The Event Itself

Saturday was pretty slow. I still managed to get more sales than I was actually expecting. I mostly spent a bit advertising on all my socials and it did bring a lot of people to come see me as well as inform others about the event. Not sure where the event was advertising, but I learned when I tried to tag them that they did not have an Instagram at all.

I did also get an online sale for large Frankencorgis which was pretty exciting. I managed to kill time by spending most of the evening chatting with my booth neighbor, Color Me Katelyn. Ya'll, she's in her first year of vending and her booth is like 100x more put together than mine is haha.

Booths are expensive so I'll forever neglect mine while my products are costing me a ton. Hers is hugely inspirational either way, so maybe one day I'll put more care into mine.

My husband went and got us Panda Express, which I actually thought was in the food court but it was not? I guess it was actually somewhere outside the mall. After lunch I took a stroll around the mall to see what was up. I noticed there were 48 spaces listed on the map initially, but I think only 34 ended up being filled? It's unclear, either way a majority of the space around the walkways of the mall was not being used by the con.



Sakura from Anime Detour staff stopped by and said hi. I had completely forgot that one of the staff, Dave Vetrovec, passed away a week or so before. They were having the annual picnic this same weekend and also had a memorial for him there. Really sad to hear about. I can't say I personally knew him, but it's never great to lose someone who is a great part of the community.

We left at 8pm when it closed and drove the hour home. I would be lying to say I wasn't going back and forth about packing up and just not returning on Sunday at all. I decided to stick it out in the end. I needed the money to pay down my plush on my credit card. Its insane you need to be making $100k a year to get a loan for a business, but whatever. I am figuring it out and the sales from this did help at least to some degree.

Sunday I woke up around 7am instead of 6am (I know I turned off TWO alarms) and got plenty of sleep at least. The hour drive to this event so early because the mall opens at 8 or 9am for walkers is really what makes this annoying. I cleared my booth of all my items at least so not super concerned about theft.

I thought we showed up late considering the event was set to start at 10am, but almost no one was there when we arrived at 9am. I also spent 20 minutes waiting to use the bathroom once we did arrive. Maybe there is a second one somewhere in the mall, but I don't think I looked closely enough. All the other bathrooms (nursing and family) were locked for some reason, so I didn't have many other choices but to wait. Either way, I appreciate the women working there letting me use it even though she wasn't done.

I spent the next 20 minutes getting my booth set back up after clearing nearly everything out. My husband said I actually did more work this time around when all I did was put out extra plush (including the large frankencorgi sample) and bring some of the cards I had made for licensing expo.



Several people had seen my posts earlier in the morning and came by throughout the day specifically to see me. I doubt they will read this but if you do, thank you! It's always really exciting when people say they came just to see me! I was even informed my mention that the con itself was FREE to attend was a big reason they decided to come on over. Since it was a mall convention and a new one at that, there wasn't really a ton going on that you'd associate with a normal convention. They did have a gaming room though.

We had Panda Express again for lunch since I guess there wasn't a huge selection. They had a new brisket thing I guess and my husband was excited to have that instead of our usual. I mostly just chatted with people then went to pay Jesse in cash the $100 I owed him for the space. Most everyone there was friends with him it seems. I'm not from Minnesota and definitely not from St Cloud, so I guess they have a pretty nice local artist community.

I did end up asking if I could leave early. I would like to note that we were not allowed, technically due to the mall rules. We did start very slowly packing up though and left around 5:30ish (it officially ended at 6pm). So a little earlier than we should have but we had a long drive and it was very, very dead. I will understand if I am never invited back, but a 2 day con for a first year con is also extremely optimistic. 

What Worked & What Did Not

Parking was free. I will never complain about free parking.

Advertising for the event was lacking enough that people kept commenting they knew nothing about it. Most of the people who came to my booth mentioned they only knew it was happening because of my social media posts.

My location was fantastic and I loved that we were in a spot that allowed us to push our booths up against the wall. Add in the skylight. Perfection really. 



Not a lot of foot traffic despite being in the mall, but compared to my other mall con experience, it was better sales wise. 

I don't like having to haul my own table for a con, so it felt more like a craft fair. But, Maple Con required the same thing so I guess it's a mall thing more than anything else. Very minor gripe just because they are so bulky to move around.

This should be a one day event until attendance grows quite a bit more. 

I think some people just never showed up which wasn't great? Some people were also not held to the same standards as were outlined in the email. There were definitely handwritten signs on tables. Definitely saw someone asking where a vendor that was being advertised as being there was located. I never saw them at all despite being familiar with who they were. 



I appreciate that he was willing to work with me in order for me to come and give it a shot. I think that made me really put more effort into showing up and trying to bring people in.

Conclusion

I learned from Jesse, the organizer, that the whole con came to be due to Quad Cities Con not communicating to people expecting it to return about it returning or not. This prompted him to do the research and talk to the mall about how to make something happen, and they worked with him. Obviously, running events is a massive undertaking as it is. I have to say that Maple Con had substantially more people there because their advertising alone, but this con had a better group of people attending to purchase. 

I think over time this could grow and be a really good event to attend. For now, I'd suggest it to locals only. The hours are quite long since you have to stay there for the mall hours (which makes sense). They did even get it mentioned on the local radio and news, so they were trying!

I would probably return in the future. It's affordable for vendors, attendees don't have to pay to come and it definitely got me in front of a lot of people even if not everyone was trying to buy from me. I'd prefer if sales were better, but I think this has a lot of opportunity to grow if we all work on advertising it better.

The Details (TLDR)