WORST NEXT STORE NEIGHBOUR

Hi folks what a year, just this year alone I think i went to like a total of 8 conventions, sometimes traveling with a traveling buddy, sometimes traveling with Green Bear, but always traveling with my trusty llama. Same thing next year, I will be exploring parts of Australia I have never been  before, and MIGHT even travel overseas who knows! I think Ry is starting evolve into Ryu from Street Fighter, proving his skills in different parts of the world and making new friends while soul searching on this challenging journey, yes I am turning into a road warrior.




I also made a few friends with my next store neighbours, it just happens you know? When you sit next to them for hours after hours, you just can't help but talk to them. Just off of my head, there were , most of them I only got to know because we were next store neighbours! And its a wonderful thing meeting other talents, but just like in real life, not every neighbour you get are good, sometimes you get assholes.

And this journal is about those assholes (__*__) Now just to clarify, I waited a long time to write this journal because I didn't want anyone to guess who these people are, I'm not gonna start dropping names. I'm also afraid they might check my Deviantart after and realise I am talking about them, but whatever I don't think they have a Deviantart account anyway because they ain't artists, yet these people are on the artist's alley :I And it was just my luck that one year I was next to them, as usual they would sell their 'products' (With official artworks from anime and games inside, not sure if they have license for it) and what they do is, they try to sell you this product and if you buy it on the day they will throw in a "LIMITED EDITION POSTER" (They say limited and keep bashing on about how they are running out if customers don't get it now, but I always see them getting out more from beneath the table) for free to make it seem like a sweet deal, again its questionable whether they have the license because that particular poster is of a very popular franchise that I highly doubt they have rights to sell. If you still try to leave they would stop you and kinda make you uncomfortable by telling you to quickly flip through it and take a look before not buying, and if you make an excuse like you don't wanna crush the products in your bag, they will be like "Its ok you can pay us now and leave it here, and pick it up later when you leave!". LOL these cunning bastards would do ANYTHING to make you buy it, they have every possible scenario planned out to make sure you buy their stuff, and if you still walk away they would be all polite then when they turn around they say shit about you like "Oh that stingy bastard didn't buy it". I was right next to them and I heard everything man....

I actually bought one of their product before in another convention, I couldn't handle the pressure of them forcing me to buy it and gave in :'U I went home to explore it only to realise the content was gutter crap, its literally stuff you can find on the internet easily! All they did was copy and paste stuff they found off the net, maybe changing a few words here and there.. ARGH! I could've made that product in an hour! Their table consists of a boss and a few co workers, for us artists we would want the money but mostly we want people to appreciate our works right? Well these guys just wants $$$$, their main goal is to get rid of their main stock in the highest $$$$ way possible while keeping extra stock under the table to sell for more $$$$, I was next to their table one time and this girl wanted to just buy the poster, and remember how I said before they had a deal if you just buy the product they would throw in the poster for free? Well guess what? The guy sold her the poster for the freakin product price! And I was thinking 'ehh... you can pay the same price for the product and get the poster for free so WTF man?', I was looking at the boss and he kinda kept his head down, didn't wanna look at the customer and didn't say anything, he kept his silence. LOL He was so hyperactive trying to hard sell his product before, cat got your tongue all of a sudden?! I MEAN THE POOR GAL GOT RIPPED OFF! If I was just a random person walking by I probably would've said something but I was at the table next to them so I didn't wanna cause too much trouble with the neighbours... arghhhh... I didn't want controversy at the convention... I'm sorry..

BUT THE WORST THING OF ALL ABOUT THEM is the way they market their shit, for me I don't usually like to hard sell my stuff, My way of thinking  is that if you like what I do, then feel free to buy them, I won't force you to get something you might not like. And being an artist I know not everyone likes the same thing so its ok to let them look at my stuff and decide whether they want it or not. HOWEVER these mofos next store only care about getting rid of the products, so they were selling it like we were in the fruit market! See they don't have a sentimental feeling towards their product, all they care about is getting rid of the stuff and earning money, they don't care what the customer thinks of their product as long as they can drain every penny of them. So they were shouting "COME TAKE A LOOK! COME TAKE A LOOK! ONLY $XXXX! ONLY $XXXX! LIMITED STOCK!" and walking around pulling in customers and showing their product around (I give up... The product may or may not be a magazine), they were invading MY AREA TOO! How's that fair? You only purchase the table and the tiny area behind the table, you can't go around expanding your territory! Thats not cool! Bloody hell it was just my luck to be right next to them that year. At one point a customer was looking at my work, then the guy CAME OVER AND TRIED TO STEAL HER AWAY! Yo Let me repeat this, HE ACTUALLY CAME OVER, AND TRIED TO STEAL HER AWAY! NO RESPECT FOR THE OTHER STORES, I was shocked by his action, but the customer was loyal and just said 'no thanks.' and continued to browse through my folder, she even said 'wow that was rude.' and I almost broke down in tears and wanted to hug her knowing someone understood how I felt that day, I replied "Yeah he's been doing that all day!". Not to mention their store was SO UNORGANISED, they didn't have enough change for the customer, so often the workers would ask if I could swap some small notes for him, I did for the first and 2nd time, but when he asked the third time I was like dude back off, I need the change for my customers too. *sigh* But I know that its not the worker's fault, they are just doing what the boss tells them to do, and the boss encourages stealing customers and ripping people off.



Ever since that dreadful time, whenever the exhibitor form allows you to write down tables you don't want to be next to, I ALWAYS WRITE THEIR COMPANY'S NAME DOWN. Lesson learnt there kids, stay away from the assholes. Interesting though the worker who was stealing customer from me end up coming by my table to buy prints in a few conventions after, I don't know if its because he felt guilty or maybe he just liked my stuff. But one time he wanted a particular print and I ran out, so he asked where he could find me and I told him he could come to my Deviantart, and he was like 'What is Deviantart?". At that point I remembered 'Oh yeah these guys don't draw! How silly of me to think so highly that he might be an artist.' >:I