Awesome Con 2025

WIP don't read.

Application/Acceptance Stuff

Insurance Required
Some table drama bc they made corners only one table vs 2
DC you need to get your tax ID very early

Before the Event & Setup
load in was awful

Day one, made like $100

Day two, busier but still bad.

We arrived in DC on Thursday evening knowing load in was 1pm-4pm. We basically missed their window for the day by an hour. We had already planned to setup in the morning anyways, so we took the opportunity to spend time with my parents once they arrived.

They showed up around 5pm EST since traffic from GA was apparently worse than the traffic we hit coming from PA/WV mountains into the city. We decided to try a local burger place called Apollo. It was good. Add more info here.

After that we headed back to the hotel and dropped my mom off. After being in the car for hours, she was tired and we wanted to stretch our legs so we headed downtown.
Explored downtown, include info here about that

Got ready for the event the next day and then headed to bed for an early morning. We know major cities tend to have longer commutes because of morning traffic and we didn't pick a hotel directly next to the convention center.

The Event Itself
Morning hit and we found a Starbucks nearby for our coffee fix and a local grocery for headache medication since Target wasn't open until 8am. Coffee in hand, we made our wild commute into the city. I've never seen so many smashed front and rear end vehicles before 

There was even a driver who was so impatient they basically just drove next to another car, over a curb and in front of them. Maryland drivers are actually terrible.
Once we made it to the convention center, the challenge became finding load in. We did eventually figure it out.. kind of. There was a long line so we did get into that after having to do a few gymnastics on the roads to get on the right path to wait. With how many cars are parked on the sides, it definitely made it difficult for cars to get past us (the line). 
Once we made our right hand turn, we noticed people were doing a u-turn. We watched some people talk to the guards and eventually I just rolled down my window to ask someone else what was going on.

Also at some point there was a guy in a van who was screaming stuff in anger. We saw him two hours later when we were finishing load in.
The lady was not that helpful just yelling that people are trying to cut in line and that we need to wait and I was like we were literally in line and she was idk not having it
Either way, the load in with no staff I could see was a mess at best. We had been told we can't bring wagons to the con btw and people definitely had them.
We found parking outside of the spot hero app and opted to just keep parking there for the duration of the weekend.
My husband took the brunt of load in carrying the grid cubes and enamel pins.
If I had attended and sold by myself, I have no freaking clue what my game plan would have been. We also learned later we could have pulled into the side near the con and unloaded there.
Maybe useful information for someone, but staff didn't give the best information in their email about anything :joy:
And a note about spot hero that they linked, some places don't allow for your vehicle to be an SUV so you have to verify what parking ramps you can even park in.
Overall the day was very, very slow. Made like $179 in sales. Apparently Saturdays were supposed to be the day this event was worth being at.
It's also very location dependent? I felt my location was actually very good despite how bad sales ended up being for me.
There were definitely corgi people here but it felt more like a mix pit, bulldog and Frenchie crowd for pets.

I guess talk about meeting Sina, Jin-Ji, Natalia and Kristen
We had plans with Kristen for her bday

Mention we ate at Unconventional Diner for lunch before the con started and we ate at founding farmers after dinner with a reservation
Was really fun then we went back to the hotel to crash for the night around 10? I forget.
Woke up around 7am Saturday, I think VIP access was 9:30 which was mostly people just standing in line.
People want their signatures
We walked around and met one of the backerkit people lone wolf who had the children's campaign
He's a professional comic book artist, web designer and something else
Graphic artist maybe idk
Hair claws felt popular compared to anything else I had
Crowds were busy, but not buying
Kenny sent me to fetch food which is usually something he does and my god that was harder than I expected.
I'm picky about ingredients so that also makes it hard. They didn't have a ton of choices and everything in DC is overpriced af.
I stood in line for a bit for burgers and chicken only for them to be out of fries and chicken.

Ended up having to go to the third floor for food. It was busy and they were running out of all kinds of things, especially napkins. Then it was a race back down to the exhibit hall without crashing or dropping the food.
Crowds were thick and they didn't give us covered food so I was like very concerned about people being gross while I ran around.
The chicken was okay at least but it's not something I would have opted to eat if we weren't some sort of captive food audience
The exhibit hall was freezing af
Been slow for sales even for a Saturday, maybe bc of tariff announcements, dropping stock market and protests over those who knows

Saturday bathrooms kept closing apparently due to water issues and the men's bathroom that was on that same side smelled like piss.

Sol Mexican Grill in walking distance, but nowhere near as good as Pancheros or Chipotle. Definitely an improvement from the convention center food itself though, none of which was spectacular and all of it overpriced.

Sunday notes: received a load out paper, bought some stuff, Sina brought us donuts from Astro Donuts

Sunday women's bathroom in the back had a line. Two of the front bathrooms near the escalators where you enter were closed.

What Worked & What Did Not
There were hardly any staff anywhere for anything, especially load-in and load-out. People were yelling at each other in line the morning of. 

The information packet stated we couldn't bring a wagon, maybe handcarts, I forget. Many of us followed the rule while others didn't. Without proper load-in access, we couldn't use the convention center to bring our stuff in and had to walk it from a parking garage to the center. This took two trips. We realized later we could have parked near the door, but it didn't really change the fact we had to still walk everything down the stairs to our table. Grid cubes are heavy, ya'll.

Improper spacing, probably a safety issue. There were comments made about calling the fire marshal, but also retracted later when they realized they'd miss out on sales because the convention center would be closed down.

SpotHero felt kinda useless. We tried to reserve a spot then realized afterwards it didn't allow SUVs, so had to get a refund. Someone else tried to use it as well, went to try and park and they told them no, we don't do SpotHero and told them to call to get a refund. They were late to the event on Sunday because of that. I don't think Awesome Con should have recommended them at all.

I felt our table size was pretty good. It was 8 ft, but my table neighbor to my left didn't like it. Apparently in previous years the tables had been wider. Some people also didn't get their corner tables while others did - nor would they refund people who paid for the corner booth for not providing them what was expected.

Food was lacking but this seems to be pretty true of any convention. I do feel like even the outside the convention options were extra lackluster, however. I expected a lot more from the local area.

Parking wasn't nearly as terrible as everyone made it out to be. Perhaps we simply got lucky, but we parked for $25 each day in the same parking garage in the same general basement spot across from the convention center. The parking garage hours were more of a concern, so if you park in DC, check the hours. My parents definitely had issues getting out of the garage they parked in when they met us for dinner.

Conclusion
Nope, never again. Load-in alone was enough of a reason to never considering returning to this event. This event was definitely a comic and super hero convention with several people saying they only come for signatures and comics, one even saying they didn't like my stuff but stopped to look simply because I said hello.

Main thing to note is that Washington DC is very expensive for parking, hotels and food. If you're making this a vacation convention and staying extra, it's probably fine. If you're not and you need this for money, maybe only consider if you are local and you think you'll at least make the table back.

The Details (TLDR)

Event: Awesome Con 2025
Dates: April 4-6, 2025
Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Allen Y. Lew Place NW, Washington, DC 20001
Hours: Friday 1pm-8pm, Saturday 10am-7pm & Sunday 10am-5pm EST
Total Vendors: 856 
Attendance: ~25,500
Travelworthy: Absolutely not. Even the locals were complaining. 
__
Booth Cost: $400
Total Sales: $1,344 (this is before all costs are taken out)
Transaction Fees: $34.61
Taxes: $73.65
Total Profit: $835.74