Balticon

I used to love this con but last year was a mess. The attendance has died out since Covid and the lack of appeal to younger generations means the current con attendees aren't the typical audience for the common artist alley seller. With each year it seems to get smaller and smaller and I feel that with how much they charge and how little security there is for the alley (vendors hall gets locked up at night, alley is in the open) it's not worth it anymore. I hope that this changes but I'm not so hopeful anymore. It used to be my favorite local con to vend at.

The staff was straight up rude. They kept confusing dealers/artists, and when they asked what kind of art I did and I said digital, they SCOFFED at me?! Any further interactions went downhill from there until they stopped talking to me entirely. I was really disappointed because it's a nice little venue and I liked attending the show in the past.

Balticon falls into the 2-3,000 range for size, skewing closer to 2 than 3. It's a four day con, favoring literary science fiction and fantasy, with tracks for art, costume, gaming, and actual science. I generally turn a reasonable profit over the $90 table fee, which includes badge, but it's not the biggest seller. In normal years, the Artist Alley is potentially 24 hours in a public hallway, but no one stays open that late. It's generally a small, friendly con that moves slowly enough to get to know people.

This year things are going to be different. This year is the fiftieth anniversary, and to celebrate they're bringing back guests of honor from previous years, as well as bringing in George R. R. Martin. To accommodate an expected increase in crowd size, the venue is being moved downtown to a new location. New facilities may provide new challenges or opportunities.