10 Reasons Why Flame Con Is Awesome
6. Everyone's On A Level Pegging
Most comic cons you will find that there is an Artists Alley where creators are placed, allowing the rest of the room to be used by vendors selling merchandise or multimedia exhibitors and booths. And often those Artists Alleys (or Comics Zones or Villages or what have you) contain the small press, independent exhibitors who paid for their tables; the guests, 'name' creators usually working with Marvel, DC or Image or some other publishers, will be placed elsewhere.
Now, obviously comics fans attending a show are coming looking for those creators. They already know them and/or are familiar with their work. So when they are all put in a separate area or tucked off to a special 'celebrity' corner, most attendees will be aiming in that direction at the cost of the other exhibitors.
It's disheartening at times.
However, Flame Con decided to opt against such structure. Instead, the big name guests like Detective Comics' James Tynion IV, Justice League of America's Steve Orlando, Kim & Kim's Magdalene Visaggio or artists Kevin Wada and Kris Anka, were dotted throughout the main room, mixed among the other exhibitors.
This gave them a chance to meet and talk with small press creators who might rarely get such a chance (usually pretty much chained to their tables in order to recoup their costs and spread their work) and also making sure they got a fair shake of the full audience of the show.
When many other shows will often try to use excuses like easier line management and crowd control for the other method of organising how guests and exhibitors are arranged, it was refreshing and nice to see.