Show retrospective 2019

My show year is done, and I thought I would do the thing and tell you about it.

Last year I spent $13,750 on 19 shows and made $31,819 in revenue, making an $18.069 profit, a $1389.92 average per show.

This year I spent $9.752.50 on 13 shows and made $25,229.44 in revenue, making a $15,476.94 profit, an $1190.53 average per show.

These are both down from 2017, where I spent $9,875.00 on 30 shows and made $35,300.00, for a profit of $25,425.00, though the per show profit in 2017 was only $847.50 due to me doing A LOT of small shows.

I also got a lot of comped rooms in 2017, which I haven’t gotten in the last two years. If you want to see all my costs and revenue from the last FOUR years of conventions, I make them available on Google Docs. 

Convention sheet link

My goal for a show is that I clear $1,000 profit for me to think is wasn’t a waste of my time, and you can see that the last two years I’ve been doing that pretty consistently.

I did way fewer small shows this year than last year, so the fact that my average profit for shows went down is troubling, but it’s likely because when you don’t pick up small shows you have to travel more, which means more costs, which means less in profit.

Because of my size, I’ve never found out how to consistently make over $3,000 at a show. My average on a travel show is right around $2,500, and my costs are almost always the same, right around $1,000-$1,500, which means I’m stuck making the same $1,000 of profit every show.

I have tried a lot of things to boost that number, but I fear that unless I start getting booths with higher traffic, I just won’t get that traffic to let me breakthrough to the next level.

And since booths are so much more expensive than tables, I fear that I won’t make enough to cover the 2-3x more in table costs.

Next year I’m trying some new shows along with my old favorites. I’ll be traveling to Denver, Vegas, and SDCC again, along with likely Silicon Valley. Then, I’m going to Houston and Portland to do their shows for the first time, along with my usual local schedule. If I can find a way into ECCC or C2E2, you’ll see me there as well.

Honestly, at this point, I’m just doing shows to do shows. I feel like my money would be better spent in advertising, but I KNOW shows work, so I’m doing that and trying to build up that audience for the Kickstarters by breaking new markets.