C2E2 ... the comic show that is bigger than a lot of villages I've been to.

We thought it was about time that we tried to get into a Con in the USA again. The last we did was a few years ago now, MOCCA in New York, which although we enjoyed a lot turned more art and crafty year on year and eventually we stopped going as our books didn't really fit.
So.
Which one should we try to do?
New York?
Seattle?
Chicago?
Well we've actually been to the Emerald City Con (a long time ago), we've been to New York (MOCCA) and so it was an obvious choice really.
We've never been to Chicago.

All of the trips would involve a long flight and Chicago took some 9.5 hours (as we were flying via Zurich (it was cheaper)). I managed to watch a few films on the plane, the best of which was the new Jumanji and the worst being the latest Star Wars. The guy next to me was watching Jumanji too, but I made sure mine was slightly ahead of his, so I got to laugh first. I know. I'll never grow up.

I managed to use public transport to get from the airport to the hotel, which was Downtown. My aim was to not use a taxi for the entire trip.
The weather was actually colder than that which I'd left behind in London and I lost count of the number of people who told me it wasn't typical for this time of the year. Still, I'm used to it being cold and had the right clothing with me, albeit in limited quantities as the suitcase was mostly full of comics.
I did have an uneasy feeling about some of the locals however.

But had good hopes for the 3 day event.
I did some touristy things on Thursday before taking the stock to the venue. In Millennium Park I came across The Bean.

Quite a draw with loads of people taking photos of their reflections at strange angles. I took the opportunity to get a few myself,

but couldn't shake the strange chap who kept moving up next to me to get in my photos.
Thursday afternoon was set up time and so I went back to the hotel, picked up my suitcase (full of comics only this time), confused the hotel staff (who thought I was checking out already) and got on the right train to the convention centre area, Cermak-McCormick Plaza.
A short walk later and I was there.

And it was huge.
Turns out I'd entered the wrong side and it was a 10 minute walk to the right side of the centre.
It was huge.
I found the hall of the event, well it was pretty well sign posted...

and had set up in my usual quick time.
Wandering around the comic village I was stunned.
It was huge.
Competition looked fierce.
So much, such good quality... ah well... I decided to go, have some food, some beer and see what tomorrow brings.

Oh yeah. That strange chap followed me there. Still, he turned out pretty useful setting up the stall and seemed to know what was going on...

I told him he could help on the table the whole weekend. This seemed to please him.
And then Friday arrived and we got to selling.
If I had to describe the event I'd say it was a huge MCM.

There weren't as many cosplayers wandering around, and those that were were all pretty friendly...

And like MCMs the Friday was OK sales-wise but not amazing.
The creators around us told us that Saturday would be incredible and so our hopes were up that we wouldn't be taking a lot of stock back with us.

Saturday was incredible, if a little cold.

Sales were better but not amazing and wandering around the venue we found that the majority of people were browsing the merchandise stalls, of which there were plenty. Very much like the MCMs but with the Artist Alley (their version of Comic Village) positioned at the back it was much less busy.
Still we sold better than Friday and had gone through about half our stock by the end of the day. We'd made some interesting contacts and met up with old friend Mike Perkins, who invited us to a party afterwards with some of his mates.

It was great to see Mike again after about 20 years and we had a great evening.

And then it was Sunday.
Last day of the Con.
And that was when we got hit by as many, if not more, customers than we had the last two days combined. We had a great day and sold out almost everything we took over with us.

The suitcases were much lighter taking them back to the hotel. We'd pretty much done all we'd hoped to do.
As a celebration we went to Giordano's for tea.

We'd been told about the Pizza pies by photographer Greg at the Timequake event the week before. We had to try it.

It was huge.
Luckily we followed the advice of the waiter and went for the small one.
Yep, that is the small one.
Half eaten.
It was challenge of Herculean proportion but we finished the thing.
And so a couple of well fed, happy Brits, made it back to the hotel.

Monday and Tuesday morning were tourist time.
We took in the city and had a great time wandering the streets, taking in the architecture, taking in the comic shops,

going to the top of Willis Tower (and Colin standing on the Sky Ledge (I discovered that I suffer from a bit of Vertigo I think)).

A great city.
A great week.
Great people.
A great Convention.
A city that lives in the shadow of the Trump tower.

We will try to go back next year.
It'll never pay for itself sadly and will always need to be considered as a holiday but we really enjoyed ourselves and introduced a lot of new people to our work.