So, just a little Con anecdote in between the massive amount of stories to post…
I took a quick break to say some hellos and shake some hands out on the show floor, among them was Frank Supiot over at Iron Man statue premiere.
Anyway, we were chatting about some cool Koto stuff coming up on WU.com (stay tuned), the Con and comic books when a customer came up to ask about a 1/4 sized Final Fantasy Cloud statue.
Now, this wouldn’t have been that out of the ordinary—as almost everyone who came up to the booth asked about the statue—but this fella wasn’t just curious, he wanted it: he was a buyer. The price of his desired item? $400.
I stood and watched as Frank opened the package for the customer’s inspection.
The curious consumer liked what he saw, scrounged up $400 cash and bought the item on the spot.
Now, I’ll be straight with you folks. I find it hard to push myself over the edge to buy a $20 DVD and even harder to make the commitment to drop $50 on a video game. Sure, there’s a ton of great stuff for sale at any Con, but I usually wind up seeing loads of cool stuff and asking, “Do I really need or want that?” which is almost always answered by, “Ya know? If I really do, I’ll seek it out later.” So, to see someone step up, check out the merchandise and in the course of 15 minutes decide that he definitely wanted to drop 400 big ones on an item…well, it was kind of awesome to see!
It was a reminder that Cons can—and should—be a place for all of us with nerdy obsessions to go a bit nuts as consumers and buy stuff that may seem crazy to others but makes complete sense to us. It was almost inspiring to see someone so fully exemplify that mentality…in fact, it was inspiring!
Mark my words, I’ll forsake my I’ll-get-it-later-if-I-want-it-that-bad attitude and splurge a bit on something this weekend. Be it t-shirt, trade paperback or toy…I will make a purchase!
