Wow, I Wish I'd Thought of This Cool Convention Travel Thing Ages Ago.
I just got back from Charlotte Heroes Con, which, as always, was a wonderful show with wonderful fans. I had less display space than when I was here two years ago, but ended up having a more successful show! Wasn’t expecting that!
I also packed a couple of items that have made everything better and less expensive this convention season. I highly recommend them or similar items to add to your show experience.
I cook my own meals with this travel lunch box. It’s basically a small, portable electric oven.
And I love it.
I bought one (and only one) room service meal at Charlotte; a hamburger with chips and a bottled water. It cost me $45.
This oven cost me $39.99.
From home, I brought packaged organic jasmine rice, and a variety of 90 second packaged Indian foods featuring lentils and split peas, and a few cans of canned chicken.
I put the rice, lentils, and chicken packet in the oven, waited a half hour, and for a few bucks a meal, had a big hot pot of Indian food every night for 10% of the cost of one hamburger.
And it tasted better.
My only luxury was getting containers of sliced fruit and storing them in the hotel fridge every day. I got them at the grocery before I arrived at the show and stored them in an insulated backpack with ice for the trip.
I estimate I saved nearly $80-$100 a day from eating at a restaurant or at vendors three times a day.
I can heat oatmeal, noodles, any microwave safe prepared meal, shelf stable foods, whatever I want in there, and if I have leftovers from a restaurant, then they heat up great. I reheated the chips from my burger and they tasted better than they did when I first tried them. I reheated a breakfast bagel with no problem.
It is very compact and fits easily in my suitcase. I have been going to shows with my own meals in my suitcase for some time; many hotels no longer have a microwave in the room. If your hotel has a mini fridge, you have everything you need to create your own meals.
Does the food and oven take up space in my suitcase? Yes, it does. But it is cost effective space. It not only makes me a more efficient worker (I’m not wasting time standing in line or waiting at a restaurant,) the cost saving per meal is the equivalent of a stack of books I have to sell or a major show commission!
I call that a deal.
The oven is my favorite convention tool.
Second: a travel lamp.
I saw Tana Ford using a double portable lamp she’d picked up at a thrift shop and I realized I’d been a fool not to have better lighting with me at shows. I’d been given a fancy neckwrap light from Levenger that was of no use at all.
I found this on Amazon, which does an amazing job.
I love this thing. It fits in my carry on, and it provides a LOT of light. I can use it on a plane and at my table at a show. The base is very stable, and this item is light enough to bring anywhere. I plug it in my portable battery pack and it runs all day and barely uses up any energy. I didn’t realize just how much eye strain was slowing me down at shows until I started using this lamp.
I also tried this Ottlite item.
It has a white light range of 3 values, can be dimmed, and has a phone holder. If you are like me and you want your phone ready at a show to check reference, or even to just watch a video while working, this is a nice touch.
Unfortunately, it stopped working properly after only one day. The value switch does not work at all, and it doesn’t hold a charge very well. I can still use it as a little office spot lamp, but the Smart Go lamp is the superior choice for light intensity, portability, and it holds a charge better.
I do not have time to eat out at shows. I spend most of my time avoiding con crud and working on commissions in my room. I can prepare healthier meals at my leisure with a portable oven. I can save well over a thousand dollars during convention season preparing my own meals. If you’re trying to manage your diet, then a portable oven is for you.
The portable light made a huge difference in my ability to work. I now work more than two hours longer per show, completing all my commissions with enough energy to keep working on other projects into the evening.
Highly recommended.
This would have worked wonderfully in my sleep-at-the-local-campground-in-my-van convention days.
Thank you. I could have used one of these so many times at conventions, especially at cons where the nearest restaurant was an impossible-to-walk distance. I see so many smaller cons that stick to the same crappy hotel because, to quote one con chair, "we can get it cheaper," and the hotel is cheaper because it's absolutely impossible to find food other than the borderline-ptomaine hotel restaurant within walking distance. Here in Texas, that's particularly prominent, where guests flying in discover that it's 115F outside, the nearest fast-food place (much less a decent restaurant where the menu isn't half sodium) is nearly two miles away, and EVERYTHING in the vicinity closes on Friday afternoon when all of the office workers in the area go home. (I still can't eat teriyaki due to a nearly obscene experience in Boston in the late 1990s, where the hotel restaurant closed just as I got in and every other place in the strip plaza a quarter-mile away had been closed for hours.) I got to the point of staying at a Residence Inn when I had to do shows in Austin just so I could cook without dealing with the psychopaths on the road. This, honestly, is BETTER.