HUGE Thank-You for RTX Support!

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Drakku

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Hey everyone! Just wanted to say, a JI-NORMOUS thank you to every single person that helped make our RTX booth a success! Everyone that we interacted with was so excited to learn about us and our community, and we could not have pulled it off without the help of our fellow members!

We are already so excited to begin planning for next year. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for us, we'd really appreciate it! What worked? What needed improvement? What do you want to see that we didn't have?

Here are some generic notes I'm already keeping in mind:
- We were hit with a surprise "upgrade" to an island booth and found ourselves (initially) ill-prepared. I would like to have a backup set of tables, like we were able to procure for the convention this year. We DID make it work and I feel it was a great success, but we were definitely not ready for that kind of layout.
- Our costume fixing station was a HUGE success and should definitely be kept. We set out a tip jar for our services, and we actually raised $110 over the course of the convention: it paid for a quick resupply of materials, and paid for at least half of the cost of the banner we had printed.
- We were unable to do the raffles we had planned due to low staffing levels making it impractical to run a raffle effectively. (This, in part, because our fixing station was SO popular!)
- Demos were very popular (and requested) and should be kept.
- We had multiple mannequins of armor in various stages of completion (Ash's Spartan up front, Eric's Halo Wars nearly-finished, and Tanner's in-progress build). If we can do this again, that'd be awesome.
- We want to have in-progress examples of both foam and pepakura available to show to visitors. (Showing each step, I.E.: pepakura pieces, put-together item, item with resin, item with resin/fiberglass, item with bondo/detailer, item with paint.)


If I'm forgetting something, fellow booth-peeps, please let me know. And everyone please feel free to contribute ideas for next year!
 
As mentioned, the repair booth was a huge success. Word spread quickly, and we had a constant line of people needing a variety of fixes ranging from simple hot glue fixes, to full on re-constructions, and even some scratch built pieces to full on replace a failing/failed piece of armor. Some requests we either couldn't honor, or had to send elsewhere, mainly due to lack of equipment. One of the main fixes we had to constantly send away was anything more than rudimentary sewing due to only have a very small sewing kit at our disposal. A better kit would be very nice. I don't know if a sewing machine would be worth it, or needed, or outright overkill, but a more capable tackle-box style kit would be nice to put together.

Another request was for electronics help, which we had to turn away outright. Didn't know anyone else on the con floor doing electronic repairs. Might be handy to have a basic solder/gun/led/switch/wires kit in a small box. The tip jar helped pay for more materials: bobby pins, safety pins, glue sticks etc. Rubber bands were in high demand, but not something we had on hand. Easy enough to fix next time. One of the comments we heard most was, "This is such a brilliant idea. I don't know why more cons have this service. You guys should go to more cons!". That felt really good to hear.

I agree the island upgrade was a wrench in the gears at first, but gave us A LOT more room to work with as far as servicing multiple costume repairs at once (on three sides), but at RTX at least, not worth paying for the upgrade (volunteer based anyway). I do like the fact that we were positioned at one of the two main enterances which gained A LOT of traffic. We even caused some traffic jams with people stopping to check out completed props on the front side of the booth. Some more structured demos would be alot of fun. Potential ideas include basic, pre-cut Pepakura templates for something simple like a hand plate/knee plate/elbow, or foam templates for the aforementioned pieces to let people put them together either at the booth, or take home and put together at their own pace with a simple single page instruction set + links to 405th.

On the security side, we had no thefts, but Ash's masterchief helmet suffered significant damage, and we were not able to figure out when and how it happened. Speculation is sometime after hours someone may have handled and dropped it, and attempted a repair with super glue. Motion activated cameras pushing data off site might be something to look at, especially with those systems being so cheap these days. This system would double as a theft ID system at the very least should that ever happen.

More mannequins would be nice, especially to be able to show various stages/styles of building, eg pepakura/bondo vs foam vs whatever replaces foam.

All in all, I had an absolute blast. I was able to get a quick photo op at the RT History booth with my Wars suit in the Hog, but the rest of the time I was repairing as many costumes as I could. Got to see a lot of great stuff. It's really awesome to see peoples faces light up when they realize they can get help with cosplay malfunctions on the con floor rather than walking all the way back to a hotel room, or not being able to fix it outright. After all, we are cosplayers all. We know what it's like to have malfunctions. I know I'd be eternally grateful if I was in the same position.
 
Number One: Thank you! I was one of the troopers using tour services. My main comment is that I didn't see the tip jar; maybe make that more noticeable.
I didn't know about the warthog or the minecraft thrown until the day after I wore my suit. Maybe upkeep the forum thread and/or Facebook conversation with booth locations all costumed attendees must stop by in costume, and maybe have lists/maps printed out for people stopping by.
Hopefully the crowd funding works better next time.


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I love that the booth helps to make cosplay at RTX a little less stressful; knowing that there's a hot glue gun on the floor for possible malfunctions is gold. I'm sure you guys got sick of seeing my mug loitering around the whole time; that booth was like home on the con floor, and I loved chatting with fellow cosplayers as they came by! I used the heck out of that sewing kit last year.
Drakku drgon47 : I'm interested in being more involved for next year's booth. With kids in tow I don't know that I could devote a full shift at the booth, but I would like to help supply some of the things mentioned here for next year. I'd be happy to bring that tackle box with many different needle types (like curved needles), good scissors, and better thread. Maybe some extra snaps, velcro, and elastic too? Let me know what other things would be a good addition to it, and I'll put one together. I imagine a sewing machine might be overkill, but you guys would know better than I would. That said, I do have one I can provide. I also have a male and a female mannequin I can bring to hold a suit or suit pieces. They're retail mannequins, but I can bring them if they will be needed.
 
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