Nashville Comicon 2024
Applications, Acceptance & SO MUCH UPFRONT MONEY
I had applied for Nashville Comicon January 3rd 2024 and was accepted on January 13th, 2024 (so right before this) and their payment deadline was February 13th, 2024. I paid for Nashville Comicon on January 15th, which I paid for after I was accepted to Momocon. Prior to all this, I would also like to note I had been trying to figure out how to do Tidewater Comicon. It would have been Tidewater -> Momocon -> Nashville. Looking back I am glad this didn't happen. My sister's baby shower ended up scheduled on the same weekend as Tidewater instead of June.
I don't have any idea what a hotel costs for Momocon since I had always planned to stay with my parents, but we needed a reservation for May 31-June 2, 2024 for Nashville Comicon.
I will not be posting the reservation since my dad paid for it with his points, but the total was like $295.74. This actually cost me nothing, so I am going to do a quick estimated costs for it if I had paid for it. This doesn't matter as much right now but will make a huge difference on whether I decide to go in the future, especially since I will not always have a free or discounted place to stay for any event.
The hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn Nashville Vanderbilt. It also has a $40/day parking cost. I went and looked to get a general idea of what it would have cost without my dad covering it and I will probably keep this in mind when I need to do my math later.
You can see the cost if I had paid for it myself was going to be $720.70. Obviously for anyone who has a Hilton account, this would vary for your if you have points to spend, military discounts, etc. This is a pretty general price to have expected either way with parking included. 
Shipping costs for products to my parents house: $342.88
Costs for my table for Nashville Comicon were $160.50 and the event is run by Incredible Conventions (who also runs Tidewater which I didn't end up attending).
Before the Event & Setup
Originally the plan for Nashville was to drive up Friday, setup and then check into the hotel. My dad being sent to Qatar left my mom without a dog sitter for both dogs since he wasn't sure if he was leaving Friday, Saturday or Sunday yet. This threw a wrench into the plans which resulted in us getting a hotel in Huntsville, Alabama instead. My sister lives in Alabama and was willing to watch the dogs for the weekend we would be in Nashville. We made this plan Monday evening on the way to meet my dad for dinner after we finished loading out from Momocon.
Just a general reminder that even the best laid out plans can change suddenly. For us, this actually happened twice which made this all the more wild to me. I initially didn't want to drive my dad's truck because it's huge. He just has a giant GMC and frankly, it's intimidating. I managed to get all of my stuff into my mom's Acura RDX for the drive to Alabama Thursday only for us to get about an hour into the drive and the charging light come on. We'd taken the Acura to get a new battery the week before, so at this point it was pretty clear it was not a battery problem but instead an alternator issue. As a result, we drove an hour back towards my dad's work to do a vehicle swap. This basically started our trek off two hours later than we had intended.
We managed to get to my sister's house before she went to bed but didn't officially drop off the dogs until the next morning. Nashville was about an hour and 20 minutes from Huntsville, so we made it to the area before load-in started.
The Event Itself: Nashville Comicon 2024
We managed to get to my sister's house before she went to bed but didn't officially drop off the dogs until the next morning. Nashville was about an hour and 20 minutes from Huntsville, so we made it to the area before load-in started. Verified this was where we were supposed to be then found our hotel and came back to start loading in.
There was a line for check in that went fairly quickly but I would like to note they never verified who I was. Momocon did and I quickly took note of that for this event. I guess that means if you decided to proxy, no one would know? Not sure if they even cared anyways but just thought it was interesting.
What Worked & What Did Not: Nashville Comicon 2024
Hours were really nice. Not too early and not too late.
Advertising may have been better locally but I could barely find anything about the event. Not really anyone talking about it either? No discord or FB group either.
Location was good. It had ample parking and it was easy to get into from multiple sides. Food trucks were also there so we had good food options.
Bathrooms EVERYWHERE. I asked to be near a bathroom and they placed me between three haha. I guess I got what I asked for.
Parking for vendors could have been clarified in advance since we were expected to park far away. Not a huge deal but would have been nice.
Conclusion
So I love horror movies and given the crowd that was here, I really enjoyed it. As far as sales went, they were not great but still better than any events I had done prior (aside from Momocon) but underwhelming compared to online sales. I would probably give this another try if I can prepare some different merchandise though.
Extra Notes: Paying Taxes
If you do this event, make sure you get your tax stuff handled in advance. You do have to register online and they have to activate the account for you. I ended up communicating with someone through email but they have you pay online even for a special event. Their email communication was quick, they emailed you for everything including when payment was processed. The site was fairly similarly set up to Minnesota, so it wasn't difficult to navigate at least.
This event didn't give me whatever their ID number was. Heck they never even responded to my email about it so just know you don't need it. This was the whole reason I ever reached out to the Tennessee government to ask questions. Just make sure you have your information ready, the account made and activated, and you're set! I don't advise doing this last minute. I think it actually ended up taking me a few days to get it approved.
The Details (TLDR)
Event: Nashville Comicon 2024
Dates: June 1-2, 2024
Location: The Fairgrounds, 401 Wingrove Street, Nashville, TN 37203
Hours: Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 11am-5pm CST
Total Vendors: ~146
Attendance: 10,000 according to site, unclear how they got to this number
Travelworthy: Not great for out of state unless you can keep your costs very low. Seems very good for locals within a 30 minute window.
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Booth Cost: $160.50
Total Sales: $718
Transaction Fees: $16.01
Taxes: $58.58
Total Profit: $482.91