Worse, they had a special (expensive) rate for vans. When I got to the parking lot, I discovered it was absolutely tiny and almost full. Still, it took a good two hours before we got everything in and I could take the van to park. Two volunteers showed up with flatbed carts, which sped the process. Then we started hauling things in as fast as we could. I went over and got checked in so we'd have our badges. So they put me on one of the ramps and I was able to get into position. At first they wanted me to back into a weird little slot, but I warned them I wasn't very good at backing. So they started putting vehicles in every available space. So we ended up sitting for almost an hour, watching the three or four vehicles in front of us inch forward in line.įinally someone in authority wised up and realized we'd never get loaded in before it was too late if they didn't get more efficient. Apparently they were only letting people use a few spots, just in case deliveries came in. However, when the appointed hour arrived, they only let in the first few vehicles. Then one of the con staffers came by to let us know they'd be starting promptly at 1PM, and would be getting us a dock pass. With time to kill, I started working on con reviews. I had to circle around the building, so I ended up further back than I would've if I hadn't gotten caught by surprise. We were running early, so I was surprised to find a line already formed. Then we headed over to the convention center to find the loading dock. But I think we have a different set of priorities than the average guest at these sorts of hotels. It turned out to actually be smaller and have fewer amenities than the less expensive hotel we'd stayed in the previous night. Once I got the cart out and the merchandise back in the van, I took our stuff up to our room.
Like many high-end hotels, they don't make their bell carts available directly to guests, and we really didn't want to spend money on tipping the bellman when we hadn't made any money yet. Check-in went quickly, but the biggest hassle was having to dig our cart out from behind the merchandise so we could haul in our possessions.
Then we got our belongings out and headed downtown to get checked into the main hotel. The next morning we had the hotel's complimentary breakfast. I had several boxes of merchandise that I hadn't had time to price (we received merchandise from six different wholesalers while gone to another event, so I got way backed up on the pricing), so I brought it in and got it all priced before turning in for the night. We got there at a pretty reasonable hour. We were even able to use loyalty points and get the night free, so we didn't have to spend money before we'd made money. However, that would've been a very early start to the day, so we decided to leave on Wednesday evening and stay at a place on the Kentucky side of the river. Load-in started at 1PM on Thursday, so in theory we could've driven over that morning. This year it was held over the weekend of September 23-25, 2016 at the Duke Energy Center. Cincinnati Comic Expo is the larger of two comics conventions held in Cincinnati in the fall.
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