A Weekend of Unexpected Happenings – Supanova Round Up

Pre-event:

• Thursday night: Cracked tooth, and one quarter of my molar is gone!
• Friday: emergency dentist appointment, bogged up tooth, and bump in for Adelaide Supanova event.

Day one Supanova:

Saturday was quiet, possibly due to the Christmas Pagent and a Viking Festival being scheduled on the same day. We muddled through. A few of my readers popped by to say hello; it was great to have chats.

Random Acts of Kindness:

• When checking out the creators in Artist Alley, I found someone selling those fuzzy worms on a string as earings. It brought back some fun childhood memories. Then, unexpectedly, they handed me a purple one (sans earring) as a gift.
• Later in the day (after a particularly slow patch) a complete stranger (now known as Rebecca) said hello, showed me a teal, baby octopus she had made as her very first crochet project. When I handed it back, she said it was also a gift. It’s so cute. And in my second fave colour! I safety-pinned it to my waistcoat. She later came back to say hi again (and saw I was wearing it).
  Good vibes all round!

Day Two

Sunday started out well…
There was a lineup to get into the parking lot, promising a larger crowd today. I remembered to post my ‘walkthrough’ video – from the front door to my table in Artist Alley.

Then…
Dearheart wasn’t feeling well.

He went for a walk to clear his head. Fifteen minutes later, he still hadn’t returned. Fellow author, Chris, checked the male toilets to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t there. I phoned him; he was in the Showgrounds First Aid getting checked out by the Ambos (Ambulance paramedics for the non-Aussies) on duty.

Half an hour later, I phoned again. He wasn’t coming back. The Ambos had told him to go home. Not long after, one of them came to my table to confirm their recommendation Dearheart should go home, and make sure someone would be there (as I couldn’t drive til the evening as I’d had migraine medication).

Then came the flurry of phone calls and messages, and realising just how many of my friends don’t drive! Fortunately, our friend Cheryl could pick him up. (Many thanks)

I tried to avoid panic attacks for the rest of the day. I had to quickly master the Square payment tech (thank you to a local artist Christie for helping out there), try to work out how to do pull down and pack up everything at the end of the day. (Dearheart usually does the bulk of it at the end of events as I’m usually borderline-migraine, out of spoons, and in pain.)

Again, the indie community came to the rescue. Matthew (fellow author, from Stonetable) helped lug things to and from the car, Christie and Kylie (regular fellow con-creators) helped with removing signs and packing (and kept me from falling in a heap), Chris (fellow author) and Daniel (author on other side of me, whom I’d never met before) helped wrangle posters and packing. I’m blown away at their generousity. Just that morning (before all the drama) Chris and I had been talking about how friendly and supportive the indie author community was. This proved it. Again.

Thank you all.

Post-Con Update

I’m exhausted and in pain, but glad to be home and glad Dearheart is improving. I’m still feeling fine. It seems likely it was food poisoning (we think we know what caused it – a ‘cookie’ sample that was undercooked, and have been told there were other negative comments about them). It was also the only thing I didn’t eat as well.

Con-wise, this was the slowest event I’ve ever attended. Usually Supanova is one of my busiest. I have more books left than anticipated. Thankfully, I sold out of my crochet bees.

It appears most of the creators in the Artist Alley felt the same way. At least I have two mini events next month.

I’m crossing my fingers I’ll sell out by then.

Note: (This post will be posted – in part – on my website blog later)