Teresa Moran of Acadiana Books & Comic Shop in Lafayette, Louisiana saw Noel Broessel's comments on Free Comic Book Day (see 'Noah Broessel of Pop Culture Paradise on FCBD') and responded (and updated her original comment on Free Comic Book Day, see 'Teresa Moran of Acadiana Book & Comic Shop on FCBD'), as well as responding to Donald Riordan's comments on Marvel's ads for subscriptions in comics (see 'Donald Riordan of Future Dreams on Marvel Sub Ads'):

Just read Noel Broessel's opinion of FCBD and Marvel's direct subscriptions.  I have to say that I'm jealous that he did so well with no extra outside advertising or 'gimmicks.'  We are close to a college as well and a lot of my regulars went out of town.  That is why we did news releases to the local papers and gave out free comics with our invites to the local theaters, in order to attract new people who were still in town and looking for something to do.  I like his idea that Marvel should drop their direct subscriptions and just put a full page of the comic shop locator service -- yeah!

We had a successful FCBD as we already stated, but we worked long and hard to make sure we got the people into our shop from the surrounding community.  I think timing it to be around a blockbuster movie like Spider-Man 2 or X-Men does help however.  It builds a lot of excitement and focuses people's attention on comics and we use it as an 'inroad' to tap good sources like the theaters where so many people go anyway.  However, since we have gotten such a good reputation now for having a great event for FCBD, we may not need them.  I'm not so sure that the local media would pay as much attention to us though if it weren't for the blockbuster movies tied into it. 

We actually did better this year than the previous two years that we participated, so I guess I could say that this July date was better for us.  The only problem was that the 4th fell on a Sunday so people took Monday off to have a long weekend, and left town.  Apparently not everyone left town.  I remember having people tell me that in May they couldn't come because of graduations, finals, and school was letting out for the summer.  It is hard to find a time when there is nothing to compete with.  I was just afraid that if the event was scheduled too late in the summer, that people would be pulling back on their spending because their thoughts would be that they have to save money to start buying for school books and clothes, etc. 

I still like the earliest time possible in summer, and I like it placed around a blockbuster movie.  Maybe if someone could research buyer behavior and see when it is they typically take vacations in the summer, then we could know better when to schedule FCBD.  The late shirts that we got, we did not wear ourselves.  We gave them out as door prizes at our FCBD event!

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