BizBaz Club at Home Vending Experience 4/23/23

Cost: $50

Attendance: 38 peak people on their Twitch stream (from what I saw)

Sales: $0

Venue: Online Convention hosted on Discord/Twitch

More Info:

I vended at BizBaz Club’s online convention in April and I want to write about it in a very factual/unbiased way to potentially inform people who were thinking of vending at their monthly online event. 

Pre-Event

To be included as an official vendor for BizBaz Online, artists must purchase a Vendor’s Box for 50 + shipping from the BizBaz website. Included in it is a themed sticker, themed enamel pin, postcard, vendor badge, sparkly cardstock character, and member badge (I may be forgetting something but that was definitely most of the vendors box). 

The vendor box is cute, sweet, and a good, easy way to promote the event but I honestly would prefer an online badge over adding more shipping pollution. I am reusing the box it was sent in but everything else will eventually end up in a thrift store or landfill. 

All communication prior to the event is done on instagram messaging. 10/10. Email chains suck. And they are good at communication! They let you know what they're doing to promote and what you can do to promote. They posted 5+ times on their main instagram feed and pretty much daily on their ig story. Which is a lot of good promotion! They do have their likes turned off but going in to see who liked each post, it looks like they get about 30 -100 likes per post, with almost 68k followers. Most of the comments on the posts regarding the online event came from the artists who were vending. I’m not a social media master, so I can’t comment on any opinions on these numbers. 

All of the vendors also posted at least once on their Instagram page as per the rules of being a BizBaz Vendor. I posted on my Instagram and Tiktok (where I get most of my engagement) as well as sharing everything they posted to my stories. I don’t have the biggest following yet and not a lot of active engagement other than my friends. I’ve only been doing artist alleys for a year now, with only 2 months of actively doing it full time – I still have a lot to learn about presenting my items on social media. 

During the Event

They started livestreaming on time. The event was from 12pm-8pm with a lot of activities planned for the whole stream. I was pretty active for the first few hours while also working in my office. I wasn’t there the whole stream but the highest viewer count I saw was towards the very  beginning at 38– I can’t say if it ever peaked higher than that as I was very off and on after 4/5pm. Again, I am a social media or twitch wizard, but I think, personally, the turnout was a little disappointing. For awhile, I did blame myself for the failure at this online con because BizBaz posted a video on tiktok how if you are failing at an event, it’s you, as the artist’s fault for not promoting it as much. https://www.tiktok.com/@bizbazclub/video/7223450524790672682?_r=1&_t=8cBWZ64viCU&social_sharing=v2

This is not true. I am paying the event to bring their audience to my products. For example, if you were to sign up for an in person convention, they (hopefully) use some of your artist fee to post some ads online to get people to come. The convention, first and foremost, are the people who have the knowledge and audience to bring people to their event so that artists have someone to sell their items to. BizBaz Club doesn’t have a huge community that will support them and the artists they will bring in every month. Most of the people watching the stream were other vendors/past artists who work closely with BizBaz Club. 

Shadooga has a really good series of videos explaining further:

https://www.tiktok.com/@shadooga/video/7223858379557457195?_r=1&_t=8cBZMzMifLG&social_sharing=v2 

How does this compare to other events?

I think comparing this event to others I’ve done that have been successful is important on what to look out for when picking events for yourself so you don’t end up in the red all the time. My most recent event that I did that was way more successful than I thought it would be was a craft/artisan market (not geek/nerd/anime related whatsoever, I bring this up since a lot of my items are specifically targeted to fandoms and ttrpg players). Before the event, I saw paid ads for it everywhere online. The organizer also sent out a bunch of fliers to those indicating they were able to pass some out/ put some up. He sent multiple, detailed emails prior detailing the day and how to contact him best. 

During the event is where I believe the organizer went above and beyond. Prior to opening, he checked in with all the venues and artists at the event. As well as during the event, he stopped and talked with each of the artists for at least 5-15 minutes to make sure they had a good time. He also bought at least one thing from each vendor (which I have never had an organizer do and it really blew my mind on his kindness). He also sent a survey after the event to make sure all of the artists were satisfied with the market and to look for ways he can improve it in the future. This market was a 2.5 hour drive from my home and I would do it again in a heartbeat if invited back. 

Is BizBaz Club worth it?

No. It seems as though the artists who are successful and make back booth already have a following they built. Also, in the discord, if you have a BizBaz centric discount, you can post in the artist alley for the event and be a free vendor. Paying is only to be spotlighted on their stream and to be feature in the discord Vendor Hall (seperate from the artist alley). There’s just no reason to pay to be a featured vendor. It is fun to participate in though! I entered in the cosplay and drawing contests and overall, those were super fun to watch and be apart of. 

BizBaz Club as an attendee in the contests: 7/10

BizBaz Club as a feature vendor: 2/10

Artist Alley Essentials

Artist Alleys are long and sometimes never-ending, but they are a wonderful opportunity to get your products in front of people and meet your audience face to face. These are somethings I bring with me to all the artist alleys or craft fairs I sell in.

All the links are to Amazon products but all of these items can be bought somewhere else online. It gives you an idea of what to search.

This is the full Artist Alley Essentials List: Link

Backdrop for prints or blocking anything behind your booth. I had only thought backdrop were for people with many large prints but they are great for making your storefront stand out and feel cohesive.

Waitress Aprons are great for keeping cash safe and separated for ease of transaction. They’re easy to keep all your cash on you and for separating bills.

Storage Cubes are amazing for holding and displaying anything you are wanting to sell. I use mine for selling prints, stickers, pencil bags, totes, etc. I’ve also seen them used for holding plushies, apparel, and a bunch of accessories.

Fabric for a table cloth and for a sheet to cover your display at night.

Square Readers are essential to selling in person nowadays. Square offers free swipe readers that can be attached to any phone or tablet. The app is very easy and quick to sell through.

Clear Envelope Binder - it’s what I use to hold all my sticker designs. I bring about 10-15 pieces per design and this binder has 8 envelopes which can hold about 30 stickers each. It’s small and is very compact for travel

An Expanding Binder is great for prints, sticker sheets, or any paper goods you might sell.

Bags for people who purchase something from you — it takes a little extra time but you can put either stickers or stamp your logo on the outside.

Fan Expo Portland Artist Alley Review

Table/Space Size: 6ft

Cost: $280

Attendance: 25,000 turnstile attendees

Sales: $750

Staff: Nice but changed how artists had to enter each day

Venue: Oregon Convention Center

More Info:

Prior to this convention I had never been to Oregon. Once I got accepted into this convention, I planned a trip with my girlfriend to spend the week in Portland prior to the convention. So overall, this trip wasn’t specifically about the convention but it was nice to have a vacation that was paid for by the convention.

But about the con; there was good attendance and flow of people throughout all 3 days. Fan Expo events are definitely worth traveling for (at least within driving distance). However a huge part of the event’s draw is the celebrity guests which could affect your profit slightly because of how expensive celebrity photos and autographs are. But with the amount of attendance, you are bound to make up booth and travel costs without having to worry.

The hours for the artist alley are also super manageable, from 9:30 - 7. There’s food in the convention center and a lot of food options within walking distance of the convention center since it is downtown. There wasn’t any service and I had forgotten to rent out wifi from my library (a neat life hack I learned from someone on TikTok) but my neighbors were very kind to let me borrow theirs. I definitely recommend if you’re able to provide/rent your own wifi, I’ve heard a lot of stories that Fan Expo has unreliable internet access at best and there is not much you can do to fix it.

Overall, I won’t be back just because it’s so far away, but if you are within 5/6 hours of this convention, I definitely recommend selling in the artist alley.

Fan Expo Portland Score: 7.5/10