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Our crashout happened on a Saturday. Kale and I have been in it for over 15 years, and by it I mean conventions, and by 15 years I mean since 2012. With each new year our portfolios grow, we change or remove products, and by year of our lord 2026 our collective product catalogues have ballooned to necessitate at least six feet of space each with a stupidly tall display height of 5-6 feet off the table. If you were to ask me—and I assume you are since you're here—the perfect allotment would be a 10x10 ft corner booth in an N or U formation to facilitate flow. You can see that here at our last Armageddon Expo, I mean even I thought it looked ridiculous once hoisted onto the table.  This is actually 8ft of total display length, including the A4 poster wall. So when Kale turned to me that evening with eyes wide and face paled by computer monitor lighting and whisper 'they gave us 30cm' we freaked. 30cm tall. That's barely the length of a piece of paper. We already knew we'd be squeezed onto half a table's worth of space, and thought 'well we can just build up' this latest restriction hit us like a brick to the face and body. We took to the carpeted floor and started building. Our stands alone were 50cm tall. We continued to freak out. A note about this year's Zinefest: We're in the uniquely privileged position to have friends on both the previous year's Zinefest committee, and this year's committee, through no fault of ours, it just shook out that way. We have really cool, sexy, big brained community minded friends. Because of this, we also know a little about the ins-and-outs of Zinefest, which I won't be disclosing here because that's uh, privileged information. What I'm getting at is this: Zinefest has always prioritized the craft, and after a few years of growth and with a near complete overhaul of committee members, Zinefest once again emphasized the zine making tradition of scrapy DIY with a heavy focus on paper goods to perspective artist venders. Naturally, we understood. I love zines, and know the roots of it, how people put their whole heart into making something with whatever resources they can find in their immediate communities. It is with this renewed directive that Zinefest fully implemented its return to form. With our stands poised next to measuring tape, we begged the committee for 50cm.  me, pleading in the discord chat, ft. Kale's display Funnily, this came off the heels of filming some awesome interviews with some of the Zinefest crew over at ChimeraKrafts which I'll reserve discussing in another blog post. They saw how many zines we had. They filled up a rack, a tall one, with just our zines from the previous years, and we were actively making more. Where were we gonna put them? Thankfully, the committee allowed the height increase. Our assholes unclenched. Thank you so much, we're so fweaking grateful. With that done and dusted, I refocused on my machinations. I had two weeks to complete all my zines. What Sets it Apart  This year's acceptance emails ran a little differently from those of years past. In fact, a lot of things were different from last year's Zinefest. I'd grown accustomed to event dates landing sometime in July, with a long lead in to sign ups and early acceptance notices to allow non-Aucklanders time to book travel and accommodations. This year, dates were announced in May, sign-ups in June, acceptances in July, and the event itself took place on August 1-2. When I tell you I was (metaphorically) sweating. I thanked my past self for not booking Palmygeddon, which happened on the same weekend in Palmerston North. I would've been gutted to miss out on the Fest. This year also marked the start of a different sign-up process for Armageddon Expos—which happen all over Aotearoa—where you book in for all following year's events in August of the previous year. Once you book in for the year, you're locked in for the oncoming year, no take-backsies. Again, subject for a different post.
Lets take a moment to chat about venues: Zinefest is hosted at the Auckland Art Gallery, a beautiful four story structure built into the Albert Park hill. It's free to the public, and usually only has one new exhibition every few months which is pay-to-enter. As such, Zinefest is also free to attend. I believe the Art Gallery is the main sponsor, in conjunction with Auckland City Council. I've only ever experience the fest in the North Atrium, pictured above with one of this year's large exhibit pieces Eternity – Tianlongshan Grottoes Bodhisattva, Winged Victory of Samothrace, but the fest is spread across various galleries. This time around vendors were split into three locations: the North Atrium, the South Atrium, and the Grey Gallery. Completely biased opinion, but North Atrium vendors have the prime location, with a direct view from the entrance/main road and bathed in sunlight from every direction. The room itself is quickly filled by attendees despite it's size, and from a vendor perspective it results in a gathering of buyers five to six people deep. Thankfully, and maybe because attendees are aware vendors change from one day to the next, our customers were incredibly patient with us, holding onto their selections for and embarrassingly (on us, not them) long time. My customer service starbucks brain was suffering. Ten minute queues? Might as well take yourself out back. Dude, it's joever. For those in the South Atrium—oh boy. It's a cramped area that served as organizer tables in the past, and this year crammed eight vendors onto four tables. Not ideal. A shame, since there were some stunning artists in that little space. The entrance to the Grey Gallery is to the right of this setup. The Grey Gallery is overall a calmer affair, tucked away at the furthest end of the building. However, it's elongated design is perfect for flow. You enter and start your deliberate circle around the artists, collected at the center back to back. Our Day One Experience  Our table was 6 ft split between us, and we packed that thing to the gills. We arrived on a chilly Saturday morning with two suit cases—the smallest we've collapsed our display in years. It made for incredibly easy load in and out, and I'll be implementing this condensed set up for smaller events moving forward. Neither of us have traveled outside the city for shows in years now, and in so doing grew used to our bin-filled car carrying our entire set up to-and-fro, including chairs and tables and sometimes a canopy. It was a nice return to form in more ways than one. Really bringing us back to the era of wheeling around suitcases in downtown Seattle, up a hill, up three or five flights of escalators. But not with Zinefest. It's a breeze, and I'm grateful for it. With our car parked in the structure across the road (you can't see it in the photos, but you can see the street—it's 5 meters to our right) we wheel the short distance to the entrance and take the elevator to the Mezzanine floor. Easy as pie. But was the crowd lit? Yes, thanks for asking older millennial with a backwards cap and skateboard. I was, hmm... lets say realistic about how many sales we'd be making. Looking over past years' numbers via our very extensive sales data, I lowballed the outcome and settled my expectations. Not that the fest ever has bad turnout. It doesn't! In my experience it's always been a packed house, with little variation in traffic hour to hour. It basically stays full from open to close. I am humbled and amazed in equal measures by the amount of support we receive at each show we attend, but especially so at Zinefest. We recognize long time customers and welcome those who are new, and each time are overwhelmed by it. We are fortunate to have such a massive turn out, and I'm so sorry to have made everyone wait longer than we wanted. We'll iron out the kinks in our checkout system, but it's a work in progress. In any case, thank you. I'm fortunate that I get to share my work with an audience that loves it, as a full time job. It's a freaking privilege.  The unfortunate reality I am facing is I'd already lost out on sales, and lost out on revenue, at previous cons because a large shipment of products we ordered arrived the day after our last event. I knew I needed to recoup some of those loses, and concluded it would take more than one event to achieve. At least the majority of that order included paper goods. I debuted my sticky-notes, along with my growing collection of bookmarks. My new washi sticker sheets also had a showing, and all the die cut stickers laid flat on the table were new as well. I created two new prints to coincide with zines Trinket Town and Pikmin Pikmin Pikmin. Look closely and you'll spot a little $10 basket on our left. Inside are my new stickerflake packs Flower Fields and Shrimp Garden, which I would show but I sold out of them at the fest, so it'll have to wait. That's a whole lot of new. It's no wonder I did so well this go around. For those outside of NZ, and especially my US audience who both attend and vend at various conventions throughout the USA, the NZ convention/event space is, in a word, compact. You will see the same vendors at nearly every event, at the same time, all the time, year after year. And so will the attendees. It's paramount to have something new, or you may suffer. It's strange, as it's something I've rarely experienced at US events, to need a constantly rotating catalog. It is worth it though. In a way it keeps me accountable. By day's end, I'd sold out of zines, stickers, and sticker sheets. I was shocked by what sold this year compared to previous years, and, while we felt the rush and overwhelm of a good sales day, we hadn't realized how good it was until we crunched the numbers. Over x3 the revenue over the previous year. Holy cows, man! A note on numbers Though sales aren't the only reason we do events, they are an excellent way to quantify what our audience likes, what products to keep making or extend the range of, and importantly where our audiences goes. I view the numbers as data points. It's the business side of art that artists looking to run businesses should know about. It may feel icky to some, but I love it. I love getting to see where and what I can improve, what I should keep making, what the people wanna see more of, and finding that sweet spot between what the people want and what I want to make. But like, isn't it about zines? Ok you got me, it is about zines. What's a Zinefest if not a fest for zines? By the time zinesters received their vendor info emails, I was wrist deep into printing and editing my latest crop of goods. Gaze upon my work, the labor of days and late nights, blood sweat and pin-pricks. 
 I tried my hand at thread binding books for the first time and found it both incredibly easy and meditative to do. It is by no means faster than a stapler, but I didn't want the hassle of fighting prongs into fat reams of paper. No thank you, I'd rather it take longer and be slower in exchange for a neater finish.  Two new prints were also added to my roster. Trinket Town A4 pictured above, and Pikmin Pikmin Pikmin A5 that serves as the cover for the zine of the same name. With Trinket Town's zine and poster, I printed in three different colors (pink, blue, green) on various colored papers that I have collected over the years of participating in Zinefest, making each piece a 1-of-1. You can find some of my zines and prints at my shop here. From Vendor to Attendee It isn't the first time we've attended Zinefest as attendees, and surely won't be the last. It's a rare opportunity for us to go anywhere we don't actively vend at, so it's always a treat to return the following day, relaxed and with wallets full from the previous day's sales. We arrive Sunday, just past Quiet Hour (a feature that is perfect for a relaxed vending experience, especially good for us neuro-spicy folks) so things were already poppin off. Or first stop is the North Atrium where we encounter our friend beebsbub's amazing table setup and awesome new zines. We collect some of their goodies and continue on, squeezing through the throng of zine enthusiasts to our next purchases.
We meet Pilcro Press, a collective of student and post grad designer-photographers and I fall fast for their delicious designs. We'll come back to them in the haul section. After making our way through every stall, a bit stifling with so many people crowded around every table, we quickly scope out the community table before taking the stairs down to the South Atrium. Now, the community table is great. It allows artists who may not want a full table, or for those just starting out in their zine journey, a space to participate. Here, Zinefest volunteers and committee members sell zines on your behalf. It's absolutely worth it to stop by and see what's on offer. Back to the South Atrium. You take a walk down and through a corridor lined with gallery art, until you find the tucked away triangular room housing four tables and eight vendors. Here, we met a vendor who crates mini zines. I mean mini, as in the size of your thumb and smaller, all bound, all with pages you can turn and images you can see, displayed on a stood-up cutlery organizer. Genius. To the right, you can walk over and collect your stamp for the official Zinefest stamp rally. We didn't participate, but we saw many who did. Beyond that is the Grey Gallery. The second floor balcony walkway circles above and houses Maori ancestral portraits from the era of European colonization. Here on the first floor, two rows of stalls take center stage. We do our obligatory loop around, and stop to trade zines with Wulfpaper. They were in the middle of chatting with dapper dressed MAXIMILLION who is a local wrestler and lawyer (!)—lethal comb. We made our way back up to the North Atrium to conclude a trade/purchase with Pilcro press, and nabbed some incredible works by Nim and Joel Potter. (This is no fault of his, but he is now the third Joel I know in NZ.) We retire from the crowds (because we could this time) and take ourselves to aforementioned Albert Park to commune with the pigeons. After being thoroughly roosted upon, we scamper off to Paskatsu, scrum our yummy lunch, and go home. The Haul I would like to conclude with this years small but mighty zine haul.  From left to right, we have:
 You should come to Zinefest. And you should make some zines. Or don't, I'm not your dad.
As for me, I will be making more zines. I can't help it, it's in my bones. See ya next year Zinefest. Comments are closed.
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