Asheville Anime Regional Convention

I was super nervous about AARC, because I was unable to be in the AA. Although I design and illustrate all of my merchandise, the coordinator insisted I be in the vendor hall, which meant I payed $200 for my booth as opposed to $75 for an AA table. I also had an air bnb for the weekend, so my expenses were out of my comfort zone. This was AARC's first year as a two day convention, and Day 1 was painfully slow at first, but by the end of the night we had almost covered all expenses. I had some friends in the AA that were profiting by the end of the first day which is awesome! The vendor hall was located on the bottom level of the venue, and the AA was on the whole top floor. The AA's layout is actually very awkward, and I prefer the openness of the vendor hall. It sounded like they encouraged attendees to walk through the AA upon entering the venue, which is awesome for artists! However, the vendor hall was dead for the first hour of the con. The vendor hall was relatively warm, and had awful cell service. I would suggest getting wifi ahead of time. Overall, Asheville is a strange and expensive city. I probably would go back to AARC, but I'm going to give it a few years to work into a two day con. It seemed like attendees didn't have a lot of things to do... (There were 2 cosplay contests and 2 lip sync battles. This was weird to me!)