Reed Exhibitions, on redefining the word “con” for Chicago: or, C2E2 recap

Note: This letter was sent to the Chicago Arts Community on 22 April 2010, and added here on the blog that evening.

Hello, art lovers and fellow Chicagoans!

Last weekend, numerous press sources touted Reed Exhibition’s C2E2 event at McCormick Place as “San Diego Comic Con comes to Chicago”.  As San Diego Comic Con has become synonymous worldwide with both spectacle- and more importantly, excellence- I felt compelled to comment.

A contrast in crowds: Chicago, and San Diego.

 

Next weekend, the Merchandise Mart hosts Artropolis, Chris Kennedy’s brilliant gift to Chicago’s art scene.  One of the largest events of its kind anywhere in the world, we are lucky to have the stellar international array of art talent in the heart of our city.  For my staff members who are recent additions to the company, I am using these two events as examples in contrast of how to do an event correctly, and incorrectly.

For anyone reading this who is not familiar with our company, Century Guild is an art gallery specializing in Art Nouveau and European art from 1880-1920, specifically lithographs and art objects, and we are proud to call Chicago our home.  Midwesterners will be excited to know that there are a number of pieces now on permanent display in both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Detroit Institute of Art that were from our collection.  We are the only exhibitor who can claim a major presence at all three events, San Diego Comic Con, C2E2, and next weekend’s Artropolis, which gives us a unique position from which to comment on the ways these events are handled by their organizers.

Michael Zulli and an Art Nouveau installation by Century Guild at C2E2

 

We have been a presence at San Diego Comic Con since 2004, when we brought a ten by twelve-foot Belgian Art Nouveau room with its sinuous, curving walls, and recreated it as part of our installation.  With the original costumes from the Lord of the Rings movies across from us, it was a potent and breathtaking way to educate art lovers as to the connection between pop culture and art history.  Our booths at San Diego Comic Con every year since have attracted dramatic attention and been a rewarding means of presenting historically important art to younger art lovers, and have been featured on the cover of the Arts section of the major local newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune.   Teenagers we met in those first years now visit us as Art College graduates, and we are honored to be told that we were of some small help in their eyes being opened to the rich history of art as a potential influence on contemporary creativity.

In 1999 we set up our first booth at Artropolis’s earlier incarnation as the International Antiques Fair, and haven’t missed a year since.  Our exhibits at the Merchandise Mart events have been featured in the Arts sections of the Chicago Tribune, and objects in our inventory have been photographed for numerous local magazines.  We are honored to have been called upon as a consultant for the show’s marketing campaigns and direction.

At both of these shows, the attention to detail and quality can only be defined as spectacular.  Justin Dutta at San Diego Comic Con, and Laurette Lutiger at the Merchandise Mart are aggressively competent, focusing on the numerous challenges that will crop up during any event of this size, and quickly moving past the difficulty to a happy solution.  The way that these two individuals can see the importance of the big picture while being able to focus on and repair the smallest ripples is something that has been an inspiration in my own business dealings.

In contrast, Reed Exhibitions who touts themselves as “The world’s leading organiser of trade and consumer events” gives the impression that they gave “the kids” a “funny book” show to play with.

Would-be-thieves, take note: on the first night of set-up, Reed’s administrators were asked about security as I looked around at the numerous open bay doors and persons coming and going unchecked.  The response?  “Well, just try to make it look not so enticing” with the other site manager chiming in, “I mean, I wouldn’t leave anything over a thousand dollars or anything.”

At which point, we completely re-loaded our truck to bring everything back the next morning.

If I try to address my experiences with San Diego Comic Con and the Merchandise Mart, you will quickly become bored with how pleasant they’ve been.  Manpower, heart, and soul are directed at each and every moment of these events, from inception to completion and it has been impossible for me to be anything but thrilled with every single staff member of these venues.  Security is tight as a drum, and set-ups and load-outs are flawless.  The events themselves?  Even better.

It should be noted toward any comment of this being C2E2’s first year that the first year of Artropolis was a much greater undertaking by far, where dramatic logistical difficulties did in fact present themselves, but were quickly and efficiently surmounted by dealing with them directly and passionately.

Alphonse Mucha and Gail Potocki by Century Guild at C2E2

 

In contrast again, two small examples to give a glimpse of Reed’s very different method of handling things: A local artist- internationally recognized as one of the most famous in the world of graphic novels- was one of the major guests at the show and his attendance undoubtedly sold a great number of tickets.  They had the following exchange with Reed Exhibitions:

“Can I get a hotel room for the weekend so I don’t have to do the drive in to the city each night?”

“Ummmm… no.  You’re local.”

“Ok, what about parking paid for?”

“Ummmmmmmm… no.”

So this creator- who undoubtedly sold thousands of dollars worth of tickets by their presence- had to pay their own $19-a-day parking.

Second example?  We had one of the show guests sit in our booth for a book signing, and were told that we would have to pay $66.70 if he wanted to sit.  That first day, he signed books standing up.

I understand that Reed didn’t have control over the weak attendance.  I understand that Reed can’t control the fifteen hundred dollars we were charged to move in.  We all understand that Reed couldn’t control that people couldn’t find the event, or the poor signage, or that it took three hours or more to get vehicles from outside the building into where they could be loaded.  Chicago might be the City That Works, but on this weekend it was poorly managed.  When there are so many things that are genuinely beyond our control, the things that we can control, we should.

From our point of view, Century Guild had rare and priceless silent film posters, original Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt artworks, original massive paintings by comic industry legend Dave McKean (The Sandman, Coraline, The Graveyard Book), and 19th century Art Nouveau furniture.  One might think after taking the time to bring something as dramatic as we did to enhance a comic book show that someone from show management would come by to see how we were doing, but after that initial confrontation over lack of security the Reed Exhibition floor manager thought the best conflict resolution was to avoid us for the rest of the weekend.  We also never saw the face of the show manager the entire weekend.  It made for a bit of a flea market feeling.  On a leaking raft.

Art Nouveau, Michael Zulli, and Dave McKean by Century Guild at C2E2

 

The artists and exhibitors at this show are already struggling to bring beauty and creativity into the world, like swimming upstream against a strong current.  The least that could be done is to treat them with some sincere respect. In the face of worldwide depression and epic economic struggles it is important to support creativity, and nurture and preserve the cultural and artistic elements of our society.  Don’t make it impossible for people who aren’t making any money anyway to at least enjoy the process of sharing art and culture.

Let me tell you, then, as someone who has been there: this was in no way San Diego Comic Con comes to Chicago.

San Diego Comic Con is a spectacular experience, and I personally would love to see our city have something comparable.  Reed Exhibitions’ tagline for C2E2 was that theirs was the event “Chicago deserves”.  If this is true, then at this time they clearly do not feel that we deserve very much.  Let’s hope they change their mind, or that someone who cares about quality steps in.

In the meantime, we will be very, very excited to see you at Artropolis!

With all best regards,

Thomas Negovan
Head Curator
Century Guild
est. 1999

http://www.centuryguild.net

http://centuryguild.wordpress.com

The finer points of publishing keepsake books; or, not.

I had a sad moment yesterday.

I’ll start at the beginning; we published a beautiful hardcover book- one of a proposed two volume set- a few years back that was not only fine art, but sequential as well, or for the peanut gallery, “comic art”.

We want every book that comes out under the Olympian Publishing heading to be more than just a pile of papers- we focus on the hand of the paper, the weight, the surface, the translucence, and compare these factors to the material soon-to-be impressed onto their surface.  We try to find print houses that will do things that they might not have been asked to do in a hundred years or so, and pay whatever it costs to retool their setups to make something old new again.

For this book, a halloween themed graphic novel, we wanted it to feel like an old leather bound book.  So we found a top quality “leatherette” (wholly animal friendly, of course), had heavy metal die stamps made to deboss the cover for gold foil in a way that wouldn’t rub off in our lifetime, even had special endpapers made that had raised cobwebs, to ensure that from those very first pages the reader felt as though they were stepping into a musty library.  We used paper that had a textured high gloss, so that it gave the appearance of high gloss but with the utmost readability.  The interior material we had to work with was Master Level, and we applied the most sophisticated and respectful of design around it to give it a full cinematic presentation.

These were very very costly to produce, but we wanted to make sure that fans of this artist received something really, really special.  And we were able to do so for a retail price of only $29.95.

Nine out of ten people, I feared after watching the crowds for a year or so, couldn’t tell the difference between what we had made and a paper sack.  But every now and then, someone in the book or art industry who I respected would glow profusely and articulately on how much they appreciated the attention to detail that we had applied, and this made the shrugs from the other 90 percent worth it.

When we parted ways with the artist of this book, a very successful publisher was happy to complete the two volume set, and the artist stated publicly that this publisher would be applying the same level of quality to the second volume.  This made me happy- I am a fan of these books first, and was very excited to hear that they would be following our lead.

But I had the opportunity yesterday to finally see this Volume 2, new in stores this month.

No special endpapers, just flat black paper; the extensive sections previously published in black and white that we wanted to see properly colored to make this a special edition stand out as boringly stark in their original black and white format on such glossy paper.  They echoed our design of the first volume just enough that it looks more like the same book than something completely different, but I was heartbroken that the sensitivity of the book design, the materials from the cover to the interior paper, even the interior layout all are what can only be called mediocre.  Even the beautiful logo, debossed and foil stamped on our cover, appears on this one as if it began rubbing away the moment it left the printer.  And to top this aesthetic insult-of-packaging off?  The retail price for this affront to taste was HIGHER than the first volume.

Should I be happy that this makes our edition look SO much finer?  No.  Because, like Oscar Wilde (and perhaps Hugh Hefner), I want to live in a world of Beauty.

Should you still buy the second volume, if you’re a fan?  Absolutely.

But I just had to post a rant:

“Kannst du nicht allen gefallen durch deine That und dein Kunstwerk—mach es wenigen recht. Vielen gefallen ist schlimm.”

Watching the Watchmen being Watched at Wondercon.

I was inspired to start this BEFORE I saw the abovementioned movie and now that I know how sad the cinematic experience was for me, I am only posting this for the practice.  So here we go…

San Francisco was bright and only slightly cool; great weather for walking, in the two days before Wondercon began.  Gail Potocki and I were very excited to get to spend some time with my friend and guru Allen Spiegel, and our good friend (and loud snorer) John Siuntres would be arriving and sharing a room with us the next day.

I wanted to support Jeremy Bastian, whose new book Cursed Pirate Girl we are publishing (and who I represent as an artist), and Gail wanted to see Sergio Aragones and John Wayshak.  You’re not living until you’ve heard Siuntres do his spot-on impression of Sergio, by the way.

One of the things that John (Siuntres) had on his list of things to do for Newsarama- the one that interested me- was interview the cast of Watchmen.  I showed up at the end of the “print” part of the press event with a 21st century-tiny HD camera to get the footage John needed for the web interviews.

For those of you who don’t know, John Siuntres is the best comic interviewer out there, period.  I’ve called him “The Charlie Rose of comic books” and I stand by that.  Some kid gave John a t-shirt with a picture of Charlie Rose on it and the caption, “The John Siuntres of non comic media” and I think that’s pretty accurate as well.  Newsarama is one of the most popular comic book sites on the internet.

So out of the interviewers in the room, my personal feelings aside, John as an agent of Newsarama was without question in the top three most important news outlets in the room.  There were other smaller websites represented, and they all had ridiculously massive camera and light setups that looked VER-y professional.  I could only hear the questions posed by the girl next to us, but the questions were inane:

“So, do you plan to do more comic movies?”

Jackie Earle Haley: “Yeah!  I’m going to be in the next Superman movie!”

“No way!!!”

Jackie: “Yeah, check this out!”  (he flexes) “I’m the next Clark Kent!”

She didn’t seem to get that he was joking.

So anyway, Jackie walks over, grabs Siuntres and poses for a photo.

“Oh, shit!  That does video?  Cool!  Ok, let’s go!”

And John gave a very smart interview.

When we had arrived at the show the day before to get our badges, I was given an exhibitor badge because they give you more freedom on the floor, you can skip lines, that sort of thing.  I asked if the press thing would be a problem, since John’s badge was a different color, and the rep said, “No, you’re on the list for press, it’s fine.”

Well, it wasn’t.

I laughed as they checked and re-checked my name in between interviews, security checked me out, and this one peculiar cackling woman seemed very concerned that we were in there.  And with such a small camera.  And nothing duct taped to our microphone.  “You can’t do both print and video!!!” She insisted, to which John replied, “When I called to register they asked me print or video, and I said both, they said ok.  What do you want me to say?”

For your viewing pleasure I have included an example here:

Were I adept at linking video, you could watch her throwing her banshee head back and shrieking as Malin talked about love, sparks, and Doctor Manhattan.

All of the hubbub really bothered John; “They call it Public Relations, but their job is the exact opposite, ” he moaned.  But I had a blast.  I was happy to be able to help him at his job, and didn’t mind being checked out the three, four, five times the banshee and the security guard worried about it.

Everyone else was great, and very helpful.  They only let John talk to Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, and Malin Ackerman because my camera was too small, but those interviews went up here and garnered vast, vast numbers of hits.

The guys who moved in next to us, though- with the big camera and the sign stuck onto their microphone with visible electrical tape- got to speak to everyone.  Asked goofy questions, to be viewed by hundreds of fans instead of a hundred thousand on John’s spot.

Remember?  Never judge a book by its cover…

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