Motor City Comicon Fall 2025 was one of those shows that reminds you why you keep doing this work, even when other weekends leave you stressed, limping, dehydrated, and wondering why the universe thought selling things in person was a personality trait you should have. This show — smooth load in, solid organization, explosive Saturday sales, profitable Sunday — earned itself a place as my second highest grossing show of the year out of three major weekends. And considering this was only my second comicon as a vendor, the success wasn’t just a financial win — it was productive data. Insight. Clarity. Direction.
Because business growth comes from reflection, not just revenue.
Two years ago I vended at C2E2 in Chicago for the first time — a show with more than 100,000 attendees and a level of congestion that felt like rush hour inside a human ant colony. It was a good show financially, but it was intense. Expensive. Skill-testing. The kind of weekend that teaches you quickly how to talk to strangers for 12 hours without forgetting your own name. Now, two years later, with better inventory, cleaner booth structure, and more experience managing long-form events, I walked into Motor City Comicon with more capability and less anxiety.
I also walked in local — no hotel, no interstate haul, no trailer careening through traffic like a metal brick of stress. And that detail alone made a measurable difference.
We arrived Thursday afternoon for setup, and I cannot emphasize this enough — it was the smoothest vendor check-in I’ve experienced in years. Staff at the Suburban Collection Showplace were swift, organized, friendly and present. We were processed within minutes, directed without confusion, and then handed what felt like a golden ticket in vendor language:
Drive your truck directly to your booth.
If you vend shows, you understand how rare that sentence is. Most events treat your vehicle like contraband. You park a mile away, dolly through gravel, sweat through shirts, lose inventory to gravity. But here? The booth was just inside the loading bay — close enough that unloading felt like cheating. I packed the truck to absolute capacity, but with no trailer to maneuver (thank heavens), setup didn’t break my spirit before I even began.
Side note — if I could convince my husband to install a cap on the truck bed, I would gain at least 30% efficiency in my vendor life, plus the emotional stability of weatherproof storage. I love having the trailer for Renaissance Faires where space is sprawling and time is long, but indoors? No. Trailers indoors feel like flashing neon signs reading if your backing skills are bad, now everyone knows.
Never again if I can avoid it.
We unloaded in about an hour. The venue provided two eight-foot tables and two chairs. I brought one six-foot for behind-booth storage, tablecloths, my sparkle curtain backdrop, all tiara displays, racks, hooks, and my rolling checkout cart. The ceilings were cathedral-high — the kind of height that makes you rethink vertical merchandising entirely. To take advantage, I placed my roll-up banner behind the booth on the six-foot table where it sat above head level and remained visible even when crowds stood in front of my displays. This is one of the best adjustments I made all weekend — high banners matter more indoors than we realize.
We arranged tables into a corner-facing “L” layout, set the tiaras underneath tablecloths to keep them covered overnight, confirmed signage visibility, and walked out exhausted but finished — and with peace of mind, which is often worth more than the booth fee.
I could have set up Friday morning, but anyone who has ever vended a multi-day show knows the truth:
Sleep hits different when your booth is already done.
Friday arrived with a 12–7pm window — and Friday was slow. Not just slow like casual browsing slow, but slow like I may have chosen the wrong universe timeline slow. Traffic flowed lightly through the morning and well into afternoon. Guests trickled. Sales trickled. And there is nothing like a sluggish opening day to make a vendor question everything from pricing to product to personality.
I had thought the show started at 11, so when noon came and nobody flooded in, I panicked quietly (and by quietly, I mean my soul paced). But by late afternoon, as people got off work and filtered in, momentum improved. Still — it wasn’t the kind of day that makes you float home euphoric. And when I did get home, my kids were already asleep. That part hurt more than the slow sales. Vendor guilt is real — time spent earning money is also time spent missing bedtime stories and sticky cheeked goodnight kisses.
But then came Saturday.
Saturday is always the day.
Every vendor knows it. Every comicon proves it.
Crowds arrived early, heavy, colorful, full of energy and disposable income. Cosplayers stopped to sparkle. Renaissance Faire regulars recognized the aesthetic and dove in. Boyfriends whispered covertly while choosing gifts. And brides — my favorite surprise customers of the entire weekend — bought wedding tiaras with the kind of spontaneous confidence that makes the universe wink.
I’ve done shows where nobody stops. Where sales fall flat and energy drains. Where you stand and stand and stand, ready but unseen. Saturday was the opposite — steady, active, profitable, validating. It didn’t beat Renaissance Festival numbers, but it held strong enough to secure its place as my second-highest grossing weekend of the year.
And with expenses already covered by Saturday night, Sunday became pure profit.
Sunday at Motor City Comicon has free admission for kids, which means waves of tiny humans in costume. And children, predictable as sunrise, went straight for the largest and heaviest tiaras like baby raccoons choosing the shiniest forbidden treasure. I gently redirected parents to the “little tiara” collection — light, colorful, flexible bands with thin prongs that bend easily without snapping or stabbing. They’re perfect for little heads that wiggle and twirl instead of sit still.
Cosplay highlights included a ten-year-old Officer Judy Hopps from Zootopia (badge present, moral authority intact) who could’ve written me a citation and I would have complied. Also a gorgeous Poison Ivy, multiple Ravens from Teen Titans, and so many Velmas it felt like an alternate Scooby Doo dimension. Matthew Lillard was the headline celebrity and the autograph line was reportedly two hours deep — Velma representation soared accordingly.
Vendors rarely get to shop at conventions — our sightseeing window is the walk between booth and bathroom — but I still managed to spend at least $40 on LEGO mini-figures for my daughter. Bluey, Mario, Sonic, several characters I didn’t even intend to buy. I also dispatched my dad (unpaid employee, booth assistant hero) to find a purple bracelet for my outfit, because I try to bring home one meaningful item from each show. Purchased, traded, bartered — doesn’t matter. It becomes part of my vendor archive.
Now let’s talk financials, because vendors need honesty more than highlight reels.
Outdoor Renaissance Faires typically cost me $150–$250 for a 10x20 space. Indoor comicons often cost $1500–$2500 for a 10x10. That’s ten times the price for half the footprint. Add lodging, meals, gas, childcare, replacement inventory — you can lose money fast if the market isn’t right.
Motor City was profitable because it was local.
No hotel. Minimal travel. No trailer stress. No overnight hauling.
And because it performed beyond expectation, it shifted my strategy. Rather than avoiding expensive cons, I’m now evaluating which ones draw the right buyers — because if I can replicate this weekend elsewhere, the ROI could scale meaningfully. The right market is worth the cost.
Load-out, in contrast to setup, was survival chaos. No vehicles permitted indoors. The back exit looked like a nesting ground for U-Hauls. Parking lot jammed so tight I prayed no fire marshal walked by. But with my dolly and a short distance to my truck, I shuttled everything in three trips, twenty minutes total — and was on the road after about ninety minutes, comparable to festival teardown.
The only downside to no trailer is my inability to pack lightly. Everything expands 20% during breakdown. No one knows why. Science has not caught up.
By the time we drove away — my dad surrounded by overflow merchandise, the truck bed just barely closed, my back screaming, my feet plotting mutiny — I felt satisfied. Proud. Certain I would return.
Motor City Comicon was high effort, high sparkle, high payoff. Not perfect — concrete is a villain, teardown is chaos, Friday was slow — but overall? A solid vendor weekend.
It wasn’t just profitable. It was data-rich. It was clarifying. It was a show that taught me the Detroit crowd buys.
And most importantly —
I would do it again.