Benjamin A. Trujillo of Star Clipper in St. Louis, Missouri, sent us his account of Free Comic Book Day 2006, which he calls 'another successful year.'

We had a nice line of customers when we opened up and had our biggest crowds in the first two hours, with a moderate decline around lunchtime, but steady until close, when we had to finally ask folks to wrap things up. 

Our artists were here for 4 hours and had a great time.

We ran out of our FCBD order (or most of it) about six hours in, and started substituting back issues we had planned to use for grab bags.  That worked out fine, but we ran out of those around 9 p.m.  Somehow, our final hour of sales exceeded the previous three combined.  Next year we'll probably increase our ordering by another 45%.

Really no hiccups or problems to speak of -- props to our general manager, Dan McNamara for getting everything ready the night before.

Tallies:

Revenue was 94.2% of last year's FCBD
Folks through the door were 89% of last year.
Transactions were 96.6% of last year, so more people who came in bought stuff, but spent less.
Number of items sold was 94.8% of last year.
Trades were 78% of last year.
Comics were 110% of last year.
Apparel was 101% of last year.
Candy was 13% of last year - really need to restock with HT!
Magazines were 333% of last year, but we've substantially increased our magazine selection.
Novelties were 200% of last year.
Plushes were 55% of last year.
Supplies were 185% of last year.
Toys & Models were a whopping 1400% of last year - probably because of our new foray into designer toys.
Video/Audio were 17% of last year, but we've almost totally exited that market.
Wallscrolls and posters were 94% of last year.

So it looks like auxiliary sales were generally down, but saved by our introduction of a new product line, specifically designer toys which tend to be more expensive.

All in all, another successful year.  Our advertising expenses were much lower this year, and will probably just about balance out against the reduced revenue, so we're in about the same place.  I would have preferred a 12-15% increase.  I'm wondering if we're hitting the max penetration we can for this event now, but not sure.  I do think if X-Men 3 came out this weekend it would have had a positive impact in FCBD exposure.

I'm looking forward to FCBD 2007.

Retailers -- Share your Free Comic Book Day 2006 story with the ICv2 community!  E-mail us at Comments@ICv2.com.