Good morning, I’m writing this post from Maryland! things have been pretty nonstop since I started my journey. I did my first event this past weekend in Knoxville, TN. A big part of this travel blog will be to tell you all my feelings about events. I am an overly honest person who will always give you my 100% honest opinion of events. This particular event I had signed up for in 2020 after it was recommended to me by some folks I’d met in 2019 at Zombie Fest. When 2020 blew up, I had them just float my vendor fee to this year. It was a little touch and go as to if we’d get the event this year. The only Way it could go on was with a very strict mask mandate. Jennifer, the organizer, emailed all vendors several times over the year with updates and information, and especially with the lead up to the actual go time. This event gets top rating for communication with vendors! It truly was wonderful to be Informed in great detail through everything. That is really important to me. Several emails were sent to the vendors in the weeks leading up that were about the mask mandate. These emails stressed the importance of masking. It was very clear that the expectation was for ALL vendors and patrons to remain masked at ALL times. For some I’m sure this felt like a burden, for me it was something I was celebrating. I was thrilled that it was being enforced and that I could feel a little safer getting back out there. In my corner there was one vendor who just refused to wear a mask. They gave her a sheiks, and she wouldn’t wear that. It was infuriating. Several staff came and talked to her. She was ousted early on Saturday and I was very happy for that. The expectations we’re clear and if you aren’t willing to follow any of the rules for an event you shouldn’t be there. So I really love that Creepy Con set that standard and enforced it. The actual event took place Friday night from 6-10, Saturday from 11-8, and Sunday from 10-5. I arrived around 1:00 on Friday for set up. The set up was so smooth. I pulled up to the back door, staff offloaded my items onto a cart, I parked and returned to having everything waiting at my booth.
Friday evening was a pretty slow start. The vendor to my left was Dinky Inked Arts, and she was fantastic. It’s always nice when you have someone next to you that you like! Her work was wonderful and although I missed out on getting the “lewd” cat painting I wanted I did manage to get a beautiful print from her. There were so many great Vendors there. I picked up a few fun items as gifts. Blake Best gave me a copy of his new book. It’s always wonderful to see Blake and his lovely wife, Lisa. Lisa is the cosplay queen. She wore different costumes every day.
Saturday was the busiest day as it always is. It wasn’t as busy as I’d anticipated it being, but given the recent spike in Covid cases it makes sense that some people would rather not venture out into the world. I was pleased with my sales overall. It was 100% worth the trip.
I also love doing events near Knoxville to see my friend Brittany and her family. Her oldest child was my work assistant for most of the event. They let me stay at their house, we always have fun. Brittany is awesome and I adore her, her husband, and her offspring, so that part of the trip is especially nice. Events like this are wonderful too for all the fanfare and people watching. The intricate costumes some come up with are just so amazing. Sunday when it was time to go the load out was not as smooth, but that’s because unlike set up which was staggered, when it was time to go all the vendors were ready to go. But I managed to get out at a reasonable time. While I was in Knoxville, my friend Brittany shared with me that covid home tests were available over the counter. I didn’t know you could test yourself. This is wonderful news, because most places will not let you test unless you have symptoms. I’m fully vaccinated and might have covid without ever showing any symptoms. So this is a huge relief for me and worth the cost to do. So after Creepy Con was over I did my first ever covid test from inside my car. I didn’t think about filming the process of the actual test taking, but I did do an Instagram live video about it during the 15 minutes I waited for the results. My results were negative! I will be testing again before going back to my parents house. I’ll also test after every event. I’m so glad this is an option.
I left Knoxville and headed to Bristol TN to meet up with my friends at Mystic Novelty Co. More on that and my trip to Snallygaster Country next time!
