Scott Moore of Galaxy Comics in Saginaw, Michigan attended the Diamond Retailer Summit in Fort Wayne, Indiana and had an overall good experience in spite of a few fellow attendees:

I went to the Diamond Retailer Summit this last weekend and I wanted to get my thoughts down while they are still fresh.  We had a great time, as usual.  I use the summit as a sort of mini-vacation from the store for a couple days even though it is still store related.  We take a leisurely drive down to Ft. Wayne (about three hours) on Friday and then hang out for a bit on Sunday before returning to Michigan (this year we went to the Ft. Wayne zoo.  I’d never been there and it’s a nice zoo. When they get the African Adventure open next year that will be pretty neat.).

Anyway, the summit was great.  The food was great and the presentations were informative.  Every time I leave a summit I have a ton of ideas about ordering new product, store promotion, rearranging or remodeling my store… and sometimes I even do those things!  The summit is a chance to get me excited about the possibilities that are hidden in my “old” store.  I’ve only been in business for 14 ½ years but it still seems to be same old, same old and I need a kick in the pants every now and again to get excited about my job.  This year I even won an auction! I’ve never actually had the high bid on anything at the end of the day so I was pretty hyped.  Unfortunately, when I got back to the store I found out I won the wrong book!  Ah, well, it’s for charity.

Now for the down side... Every year I am amazed at the sheer greed of some people.  There was the guy that took SIX Wizard and FOUR Toyfare magazines from the Wizard booth... There was anyone that took ANYTHING from the WizKids booth... When they have one of each item spread out on the tables, it’s called a display.  It’s not called a “take-whatever-you-want.”  Also, and this may come as a shock, but the unopened click-bricks are NOT giveaways.  I hate to think about how many times they heard that question.  I sat with someone from Alliance at dinner and he told me that the display of figures on the table back by the Diamond display was gone in about 15 minutes.  People just came up and took handfuls of them.  The funny thing is that they were for display and were not promotional.  I don’t know what the figures were (they were gone that fast), but I think it was those Bear-bricks or something similar.

I don’t know how things run in other parts of the country but where I live that would be called stealing.  Let’s say you set up for Free Comic Book Day and had a nice display on the counter of all your FCBD books, but when people came in some of them said, “Those comics are OK but I think I’m just going to take some from your new comic rack instead. Thanks!” Same concept.

At dinner on Saturday, WizKids very generously gave out a numbered (of 400) Joker click-brick incentive figure from the new Arkham Asylum set.  The redemption figures are going to be numbered to 5,000 for the first wave so these “Summit Exclusives” numbered to 400 are pretty cool.  The people handing them out told everyone that these were specifically for people that came to dinner and listened to the presentations and, boy, you should have heard the people complain!

“My partner went back to the room, can I get his?”

“My friends left already, can I get theirs?”

If they gave them out to everyone that wasn’t there, then they wouldn’t be for the people that actually came to dinner and listened to the presentations, would they?

Do people think they have to get enough “free” stuff to pay for their entire trip?  That’s almost the easy part. Just look at the stuff Diamond and the other sponsors gave everyone (assuming you had two people there):

A box with over $150 retail price of decent, sellable items.

2 Ultimate Origins #1 – Chicago Wizardworld variants.

2 DMZ #1 Convention exclusives

2 World of Warcraft #9 variant covers

2 Dragon Prince #1 Retailer Summit exclusives

2 Back to Brooklyn #1 Retailer Summit exclusives

2 Invincible Iron Man #1 Movie photo cover variants

1 Hulk #1 – Los Angeles Wizardworld variants. (I suppose I could have gotten two by filling out the survey twice)

2 Invincible #52 Sketch variants

2 Eternals #1 variants

2 Final Crisis: Legion #1 sketch variants

2 World of Warcraft Minis promo figures

2 Heroclix Joker click-brick incentive figures

2 Star Trek phaser/communicator sets (Summit exclusives)

This is not counting any raffles or items given out (legitimately) in the exhibition hall.  On top of  all of this, people were just… taking stuff. I’m sure (at least I hope) these kinds of people are the minority.  I didn’t get any names, nor did I really want to, but those people know who they are and their sense of entitlement is appalling.

Don’t get me wrong, I love free stuff too, but I also know the difference between taking what is offered to me and just taking whatever I want.

Overall the Summit was a great time and very fun and informative.  I’ll be back each year as long as I have a store.  Meeting people like Chris Powell and Allan Caplan make the trip interesting and entertaining beyond just the informative stuff.  It’s just that watching some of the attendees makes me sit back, shake my head, and say “What the heck…?”

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.