I’m an artist at a convention. To pass time and to attract customers, I do some live drawing while my partner handles customer contact if someone is interested or has questions.

Customer #1: “Wait… you drew this?”

Me: “Sure did!”

Customer #1: “But… you are fat.”

I am speechless.

Customer #1: “These are all normal people.”

Me: “Eh… yes. They are my characters.”

Customer #1: “But you are fat! Why do you draw skinny people? You should only draw what you know. This is false advertisement.”

At that moment, another customer walks by.

Customer #2: “Oh, wow! This is so pretty!”

Me: “Thank you!”

Customer #1: “Oh, don’t bother. She’s misrepresenting herself.” *Turns to me* “You’ll meet yourself one day and you’ll see I’m right. You should only draw what you know! You are stealing work from other people!”

Thankfully, the customer (or actually, non-customer) walks on.

Customer #2: “Does that mean I can’t draw gay furry art?”

Her comment made me burst out laughing. I needed a moment to compose myself, but [Customer #2] (and fellow artist) and I had a lovely conversation afterward.

I run a store selling things like buttons, stickers, and shirts. I frequently set up at conventions, and typically, I bring a friend to help me run my booth. At this particular event, I’ve left my friend in charge while I run to get us food. When I come back, a woman is arguing with my friend.

Customer: “No, you have to give me my money!”

Friend: “Ma’am, I’m not the booth owner—”

Me: “Woah, what’s going on?”

Customer: “Butt out, b****!”

Friend: “Ma’am, that’s the owner and artist.”

The woman turns to me.

Customer: “I want a refund. I got one of your s***ty shirts and it fell apart before I could get home!”

I’m already suspicious, since I use pretty high-quality shirts, and I haven’t seen this woman before.

Me: “Did you get a receipt?”

Customer: “No, I paid cash!”

Me: “That’s okay, I record all my cash sales, too. Do you know which shirt you got and about when?”

Customer: “It was this one, and I bought it when the vendor hall opened today!”

She points to a design I have on display. I immediately cross my arms and look right at her.

Me: “Ma’am, it’s probably best you leave.”

Customer: “What?! I want my refund!”

Me: “You’re not getting s*** from me. Take your scam and leave.”

Customer: “I want my f****** refund!”

Me: “I’m not refunding you for something you never bought!”

Customer: “How do you know I didn’t buy it?!”

Me: “Because that design is brand-new and hasn’t had any sales yet.”

The woman starts SCREECHING and reaches for me. I dodge her and go and hide behind my table. She then starts to rip apart my display board of buttons.

Me: “MA’AM! I’M CALLING SECURITY!”

Other Person: “No need.”

I looked, and one of my booth neighbors had already brought security over. He had seen her arguing with my friend and got a weird feeling, so he went ahead and grabbed security. They were only going to kick her out, but she started screaming at them and trying to assault them. She ended up arrested.

Luckily, only a couple of buttons were damaged, and not bad enough to take off my display. I offered my booth neighbor a free shirt as a thank you… and he chose the design the woman claimed to have bought.

I own a small board game company. I’m not a “real” retail guy — props to those who are — but before the health crisis, I attended two or three game conventions a year and of course, we’d have a booth and I’d help sell our product there, along with other team members. No doubt we’ll return to the conventions once the black clouds lift completely.

Normally, our goal at a convention is to sell 100% of the product that we brought. We HATE shipping stuff back to our warehouse — SO much so that, on occasion, we’ll sell excess stock at a slight discount on the last day (Sunday). But usually, we sell out. Another important thing to remember is that our games are highly desired, and they are often out of stock online, so people are excited to see these rare games in person at the convention where they can pick one up at last. Often people will buy an extra copy to take to a friend who couldn’t make the trip.

I am at a game convention and a guy shows up with one of my highly desired but really expensive games. But lo and behold, there’s a ding in the corner of the box. The guy wants a discount.

Me: “You already bought this game. The time to ask for a discount was then.”

The guy lays down the law.

Guy: “Either give me a discount or a refund.”

Me: “No problemo, pal.”

And I give him a full refund. IN CASH. The guy is amazed but takes the money and walks away. I have no evidence he even bought that game at the convention, but I don’t care, because I know we are going to sell out.

Then, I find out what his sinister plan was. He comes back on Sunday to see if he can pick up a copy of the game at a discount because it’s the last day. Lo and behold, we have only three copies of the game remaining, and in fact, we are considering price-gouging because people are literally fighting over who gets the last copies. We don’t, though. The guy from before asks for his discount because it’s the last day, and instead, I sell all three remaining copies while he watches.

Me: “Gotta wait in line, buddy.”

He even looked at the boxes to see if one of them had the dinged corner but no, I sold that one like an hour after he turned it in.

A friend of mine calls me in a panic. She has been let down by an agency that was supposed to supply someone to help at her stall, handing out samples, taking names, answering questions, etc. I’ve done this sort of thing before and am not keen to do it again, but she needs the help.

Five hours of traveling and setting up the stand later, I get dressed up and start dutifully handing out samples.

These events are to help companies get their names out there, find interested customers, and grow their brand. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people just looking for a free meal who will take whatever they can, often taking time away from people that could help my friend’s company grow.

Me: “Can I interest you in a sample?”

Attendee: “What is it?”

Me: “It’s a new type of rice cake, very light with subtle flavours of—”

I don’t get a chance to finish my speech as the guy nearly knocks my platter from my hands, trying to grab a handful.

Attendee: “Ugh, I don’t like this.”

He tries to put a load of food back on the platter.

Me: “There is a bin behind you.”

Attendee: “Can’t you just take it?”

Me: “There is a bin behind you.”

It is seriously closer to him than me.

Attendee: “What else you got?”

Me: “This company specialises in rice cakes; I would imagine you won’t like the rest.”

Attendee: “Oh, okay. Got any freebies?”

Me: “No, sorry.”

Well, not for you, anyway!

He walked to the next stand, grabbed a handful, and then moved onto the next. He worked his way down the row, and much of what he took seemed to go back on the plates or in the bin. Unfortunately, I had many more like him, and that’s one of the reasons small companies struggle.

During the convention season, my small game company has a booth selling our products in the dealer’s room. We have a rather hot and heavy four days of sales activity with hyper-kinetic gamer geeks flush with cash and caffeine buying everything.

Customer: “We saw [Expensive Luxury Game] at [Other Store] and it was $50 cheaper.”

Me: “Great. You should buy it.”

Customer: “Don’t you want to beat their deal?”

Me: “I am literally the manufacturer of [Expensive Luxury Game]. [Other Store] bought their game either from me or from a distributor, who bought it from me. In either case, I already got paid for it once.”

Customer: *Looking victorious* “Then why should I buy it from you?”

Me: “No reason, really. Most of those games are bought from other sellers, not from my company directly. Maybe it’s cool to get it directly from the designer. I can sign it if you want.”

The customer walked off, kind of annoyed. Later, they came back and bought a copy from me without any discount.