It's not always about the sales!

Well that was fun, Accent UK were exhibiting at last weekend's Manchester MCM, our 'hometown gig' and it was, as always fun. However unlike previous year's it wasn't a record breaker in terms of sales for us. In some ways, our recent success couldn't continue but it is always interesting to try and understand why sometimes you haven't done so well as before.

The Judges wondering where their order of doughnouts are

In this case we couldn't fault the crowds, tickets had largely sold out in what promised to be another record attendance at this enjoyable show and we got plenty of browsers through our central Comic Village spot, although noticeably more and more said they were 'doing the rounds' browsing before buying and while some returned to buy, many did not, but whether this was due to them finding something else more to their tastes or simply limited budgets is hard to say.

We also had 5 new titles since last year's show so there was plenty new on offer although disappointingly our launch of the new WesterNoir trade was unexpectantly postponed due to technical difficulties with the book, meaning that we quickly sold out of the few remaining #1's of the title which effectively killed off it's sales for the rest of the weekend.
 

Team West resting - wait a minute are those doughnuts they're scoffing!

That said we still did pretty well and with it being the 'hometown gig' we had no additional accommodation costs to cover meaning it was still a good 'un overall and I was personally pleased that once again my own Moments of Adventure comic sold steadily over the weekend.

Sketching away!

We of course enjoyed catching up with regular faces on the comics convention circuit and renewed our recent Belfast acquaintances with Jenika Ioffreda and Gary Erskine, this time joined by smiling Steve Tanner (who reported that his Flintlock book had sold like proverbial hot cakes, proving that not everyone was having an 'ordinary' show saleswise) and Lorenzo Nicoletta, talented artist on Steve's afore mentioned Flintlock book who'd flown in specially from Italy!

Storage Hunter's Jesse & Sean interviewed

And, proving yet again that you should never judge a shows performance purely on sales we not only met several folk from comics' fandom who may feature our books in forthcoming reviews etc but we were presented with three highly interesting opportunities which, if they proceed, will certainly raise Accent UK's profile by taking our books into new areas!

Favourite cos-player of the show...

....Aidan, whose Mum had made this super Jurassic Park adaption!

As is the way of such things, we can't really say anything about two of them at the moment, however the third is something that has been brewing away in the background since last October's London MCM show and that is that we have been invited to attend Asylum, Europe's largest steampunk festival in Lincoln late August bank holiday weekend!
 

This really follows, regular MCM attraction, the Victor Steampunk Society's (VSS) interest in our comics, most notably WesterNoir and Stephenson's Robot at previous MCM shows and thinking they may be suitable for their authors exhibition area to be set up in the Steampunk Embassy in Lincoln's Cathedral Centre.

Colin and the VSS's Alan at London MCM last year!

At Manchester, the VSS's good Major confirmed that all our papers were in order and that we would be receiving our deployment orders soon, so all exciting stuff, of course this does mean that we will have to dress up and Dave has that troublesome big head to find a hat for!