Grand Rapids Comic Con 2024

I applied to this event in January 2024 and approved fairly quickly. I asked later in January if I could split my booth with another vendor and I could, so Lizbie became my booth partner which was really exciting!

I reserved the hotel the same month and basically forgot about everything until October when we started getting emails about load-in for the event. I would like to note that the vendor booths are 10x10, they come with 8 foot tables, 2 chairs and 2 badges. Extra badges at this time were $60 each and we both had to get an extra badge for each of our helpers.

We also joined a stamp rally for this event that was based on the chinese zodiac. My choice was dragon and Lizbie picked rooster. 

Before the Event & Setup
We actually left late since my daughter decided she wanted to go to school. So we basically dropped the dogs off at the boarding facility, loaded up the rental vehicle and then picked her up an hour or so after we dropped her off so she could take whatever test she was going for.

The drive there was pretty long - I want to say about 10ish hours give or take stops. We had a small hiccup with how check-in was working at the hotel we were staying at. Apparently even though Lizbie was added to the room and allowed to check in, they needed her card if she wanted to check in. Since we were paying for the stay, we had to call and get them to send over something authorizing that we were okay with her checking in and paying. So that took a little longer than expected, but they did make it into the room after that. Never had that experience before even checking in with hotels my dad had booked for us when he was paying for them, so that was definitely different!

As a bonus, we had a very nice room with a view. The room was also setup so Lizbie and her husband could have one room and we took the other with the door separating us. 



We didn't have any real traffic or issues on the way though, so that was nice. The load-in period was from 1pm to 9pm that Thursday, but we arrived around 10pm just missing that window. Friday morning load-in times were from 6am to 11am with the event starting at noon. It was more than enough time to get everything set up at least. After we got into the hotel and dropped everything off, we went to Walmart to grab some water to have in the room and get some change for the event. Filling up our water bottles at the event was easier than at the hotel.

I was pretty excited for the event itself. Our hotel was basically in walking distance, but we drove each day because I wanted to. I don't like cold weather at all.

Friday morning, we headed to the convention center pretty early since we needed to setup still. It was a little confusing since there were two areas you could pull into at Devos. One looked like it was where we should go and it had little ramps for vehicles to back into and use the loading dock area. We pulled in there but were informed by security that we should be using the underground parking which was the entrance closest to the bridge on the same road we came in on. There were vouchers for the first 2-hours for vendors doing load-in, but we ended up leaving our vehicle in the garage for the entire day. This cost us $25. 

I feel like vendors are pretty terrible at parking. People really need to learn to leave space for people to get into their vehicles. We parked near the access to the freight elevator, which would brought us behind the exhibitor hall. This was a short walk and the elevator ended up being available until noon. Parking near the freight elevator was on the opposite side of the public parking elevator, so there was a lot of space for parking and unloading things from the vehicle.

Badge pick-up was relatively easy, and they managed to provide the purchase of additional badges without issue. One of my friends ended up not coming in the end so we needed a refund on one of the badges we no longer needed (and had initially purchased that morning). Refunding the unused badge became difficult as there was only one staff member with that power and they were not easily found. My husband was handling it and left a note on the badge with another staff member. This was how the refund ended up being processed.

My husband and I set everything up rather quickly and I finished things up while he and my daughter did the morning coffee run.

A nice feature of the Grand Rapids downtown area is that you can access a large portion of the area using their skywalk, or building to building hallways. Starbucks was attached to this, but going outside for a short walk was not terrible either. Additionally, there were several alternative food options in the area, though a lot of it was a bit more on the expensive side. My husband and daughter were tasked with the coffee run Friday & Saturday, so they became very familiar with this over the weekend.

The Event Itself
To start the event off, the convention center had their orchestra come out to play a few pieces such as the Star Wars introduction which really hyped up the crowds. It was too bad that this was only leading up to to the event, and not part of the whole thing as they played excellently. 

A common issue throughout the day was cell phone service, as the exhibitor hall area was essentially a faraday cage, while facility WiFi services were offered for extra charge. We made do with our cell service/hot spot throughout the event.

Lizbie can definitely take up an entire 10x10 space by herself. She made the cute standees for us and someone on the first day came by to ask if they could buy them. We declined and they said they would still want them later if we were gonna get rid of them by the last day. They never did come back, but it was interesting to hear someone want to buy a display haha.



Friday morning was fairly slow but it was due to people browsing, not due to lack of people in attendance. Honestly, for a Friday, I was shocked so many people were even there so early in the afternoon. Lizbie joked they (staff) thought she was a cafe and that is why we were placed next to all the food vendors. We got to smell pickles and listen to the drink vendor across from us yell for the entire weekend. I thought she'd actually go more hoarse than she did in the end. I think people ended up blocking our area or standing in it more because of our placement next to this drink station. Some people came over after standing there, but I think it was more of a problem than a good thing for us in the end. A lot of people just stood there blocking our booth waiting for drinks or friends who were in line.


The food within the convention center was fairly priced with burgers at $8 and hot dogs or pizza slices at $6, though the pizza by the slice was a vendor specifically not the convention centers. There were many vendors that had closed shop around 15 minutes early, and they had made 30 and 15 (?) minute closing announcements, with a final lights out the first night at 7 pm. 

I forget what I wanted originally for dinner, but we ended up eating at a place that was attached to the hotel called Big E's Sports Grill. Friday night there was some sort of boxing thing where it was Logan Paul vs Mike Tyson. We had expected the event to be broadcast at the sports grill, but it was not. We did eventually realize it was a Netflix thing and that the actual main event ended up being on around midnight. By the time it came on, I had fallen asleep anyways. 

Saturday was a blast! Understanding the facility and area better at this point helped us navigate much more quickly. We had the option of walking or driving, as the hotels are all very close; we did drive to this event and parked in the same underground parking area. The public access elevators were slightly problematic when coming from the parking garage during the busier hours of the day, however, there were stairs and other quick options for getting to the main floor. 

The bathrooms were a bit overloaded and it seemed the facility staff was unable to adequately support the traffic as consumables were constantly out throughout the day, though there were many bathroom options throughout the facility so if one bathroom was awful it was pretty easy to find a better one. This was an extremely busy day, but they had the lines well managed and were pushing people into the facility without delay while maintaining a seemingly secure and safe place. There was a lot of wide open spaces in this facility and the floors were often huddle spots for a lot of small groups of people as there were not enough tables or chairs. They did have random wall outlets located throughout so if you brought your charger you could utilize those outlets. My husband apparently found some less busy bathrooms but I still managed to not find the correct ones. At least they had toilet paper. 

Exhibitor hall walkways were tightly packed and caused a lot of traffic issues when navigating between the booths during peak hours. Most of the food vendors had extremely long lines (pizza for example), while the facilities food options were immediately available though it seems getting a hamburger was slightly problematic as they had none prepared and gave me a cheeseburger instead.

We were blessed with visits from several corgi owners, including one who brought their service corgi to see us. His name is Doug and he was so cute!

After the event, we went to dinner at a place that Lizbie recommended: ATO Sushi! It was so good. While we were waiting for a table, I guess Danny Trejo came in. I didn't believe my husband when he mentioned it, but it was him haha. Someone said something to us after we left the restaurant about it. We weren't seated near him at all. The sushi was delicious. I am not sure I'd have the cooked salmon thing I got again, but the rest was great. They even had non-sushi options for my very picky kid.



Lizbie and her husband went back to the hotel after dinner while we wanted to try and see the blue bridge. We had no success doing so on Friday night due to confusion on how to park to even get there. We were in walking distance of it from the restaurant, so we made our way over there. I wish it hadn't been so cold, but it was definitely worth seeing! There was also a sculpture park in the area, but we never made it there due to needing to drive back on Sunday.



After the walk around town we went back to the convention center to check out the gaming area. There was a game my daughter had been wanting to play (she got to play finally on Sunday) but I guess there was someone who was hogging the game most of the weekend. My husband and I played a few of the games there until we got bored and called it a night. One was the Japanese version of Mister Driller and another was some weird version of Tetris. I think there were more, but by the time I wrote this I forgot the names. I think their gaming area was not terrible, but could have been better. It is interesting to see how small or large the arcades end up being at certain events. 




Sunday morning was a pretty good morning. We slept in and sort of sluggishly left the hotel after getting everything packed to be picked up later. Got to the event hall early enough to drop off our stuff and walk over to Starbucks. This was my first time actually going to where they'd been getting the coffee from all weekend and it was a really nice location. Grand Rapids just feels so upscale and clean.


We headed back to the booth where Lizbie had already set up for the day. After I realize it was pretty slow, I left my husband to man the booth. I had wanted to explore the artist alley and vendor hall more thoroughly with my daughter. The artist alley for this event was very small compared to the vendor section. I was actually pretty shocked at how few artist alley tables there were. The selection was really good though and we bought from several of the artists before returning back to the booth. 

Sales were barely better for me on Sunday than Friday ($224 vs. $143). Lizbie's side felt pretty busy from my perspective so hopefully she did better Sunday than Friday as well.

Load-out was fairly quick. Having Kenny help me break everything down was so quick and easy. We also sold just enough plush to fill only two bags instead of the three we came with, so things fit much more nicely into the back of the Ascent this time around. The elevator line didn't even feel all that long despite how long it looked. It took a few minutes max before we were in the parking garage, paying the $13 parking cost and leaving. We went back to get our suitcases from the hotel room, dropped off our key at the front desk, and told them not to check the room out until Lizbie and them left Monday, then headed on our way back home.

The drive back to Minnesota flew by since we had a lot of thoughts and plans for future events after this one. While I know my sales were really bad at this event, I really loved Grand Rapids and would like to eventually fix my setup, add more product and apply again in the future. Maybe 2026? We'll see how much I can get accomplished in 2025. I do look forward to returning in the future though if they will have me!

What Worked & What Did Not
I think our booth placement was interesting and not sure if it worked well for us or not. I really liked being at the front of the convention center near the doors, but didn't love being placed next to pickles and the soda vendor for the event who kept yelling "chug chug chug glug glug glug" for three days.

The booth size was actually pretty nice. I think Lizbie could have easily filled a booth herself. I didn't have enough to fill the 10x10 space provided, so sharing worked out nicely in that regard. I liked having an 8 foot table as well. The artist alley booths were 6ft and the tables were up against one another. I really loved having so much space even if I couldn't fill it alone (yet).

Brand confusion has never been something I considered before. I personally feel like Lizbie and I have extremely different art styles, different aesthetics for our booths (she's very pink & I am more neutral) and she has a much wider variety of products than I do. Despite this, people were struggling to realize we weren't the same company. People for her would run up to me and tell me how much they loved my art and then pick stickers up from her and buy them or try to hand them to me for purchase. Honestly, this was a really good experience for me though. 

The chairs that were provided were uncomfortable, so my husband brought one that wasn't next to a table over for us to use. It was a much different chair than what was provided, so everyone wanted to use that one since it was a much nicer chair. Not really anything that matters, but worth noting to bring a cushion or something if you need comfort.

They gave us a trash can which was so convenient and nice, especially when we were eating or couldn't get up all the time to throw things away. Artists didn't get anything but a table and two chairs.

The printed booklets were completely wrong. Lizbie and I weren't mentioned at all as well as several other vendors. They claimed the website would be up to date as well as the phone app, but Lizbie downloaded it to check. It was not updated. In fact, Sunday there was still no map even on the app. The only map that was correct was the one on the website which simply linked to a google spreadsheet.

I really loved the convention center. It felt very artsy and upscale, especially given where it was located downtown. It was also right on the river and it had skywalks that connected so many things to one another, making it comfortable to travel if it had been colder. Reminded me of a mix between Pittsburgh and Minneapolis in that sense.

Cellphone service was pretty hit or miss the entire time. We didn't purchase anything from the event for this and were thankfully able to use our HotSpot the entire time for transactions without any issues.

Conclusion
I do want to return to Grand Rapids. I have a wonderful time and would love to explore the city more (maybe in the summer instead?). The event hall was so pretty. The area was walkable, the food and hotels were all fantastic.

I know others had issues with staff, but my experience was pleasant. 

The Details (TLDR)

Event: Grand Rapids Comic Con
Dates: November  15th-17th, 2024
Location: DeVos Place 303 Monroe Ave NW Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Hours: Friday 12pm-7pm, Saturday 9:30am-7pm & Sunday 9:30am-5pm EST
Total Vendors: 242 vendors, tbd artists 
Attendance: ~15,000
Travelworthy: Seems like it is worth travel if you have scifi and nerdy things. Wouldn't recommend if you can't keep your costs down, not likely worth it for anyone traveling a long distance.
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Booth Cost: $297.50 (Lizbie Cafe & I shared a $595 vendor booth)
Total Sales: $1,224.25 (this is before all costs are taken out)
Transaction Fees: $26.81
Taxes: $68.05
Total Profit: $831.89