Our Comic Book Artist Table for MegaCon was a reasonable price, which included two tickets for the convention (advanced tickets are $45). I was quite pleased about this. We got an eight foot table which has 2 chairs and enough space behind it that we should be able to set up a display (we supposedly have 6' behind us). This leaves us with a few dilemmas. The first dilemma is power for our laptops.
There is no point in our spending 3 days at a convention and not working on our comic. The comic is mostly done digital. This means: we need power for the laptops. The table cost with two tickets was $150; so only $60 for the table. I think that is most reasonable, it covers space expenses, set-up costs, etc. When I asked about having power, I was told that would have to be obtained not from the convention, but from the convention-center (the actual facility) and that it costs $100 for the weekend.
That gave me a big "huh?" As a reference here, the power cost for my entire house last month was $144. They are saying that in 3 days I'm going to consume nearly as much energy with two plugs at a table as I do in the whole house? No, of course they aren't. I understand this is a setup-fee... but I'm still confused. Exactly how long do they think it will take their crews to run the power cables while setting up the floor plan? I suspect, at most, our individual power run, assuming we are the only people in our row requesting power, would take no more than 15 minutes to set up and even less time to break down after the convention; so a total of 30 minutes on the outside. The power consumption would be nominal, but I'll be generous and say $5 for 2.5 days? That means that we're paying $190/hr to "run an extension chord". PLUMBER WEEKEND/NIGHT RATES ARE CHEAPER!
I've done some research and think I have an alternative. For that same $100, I can get a "deep cycle marine battery" with a safety case and a 300+ watt inverter. I now only need to determine how many Amps our PCs will draw so that I can determine how long that power would last. It is my hope that I can get about 10 hours of power out of a good deep cycle battery. If so, then it would be a great investment because I can take said battery to any show we do and have enough power for "all day use", I'd just have to bring a charger with me if we are out of town so I can recharge the battery in our room overnight.
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I was about to ask a stupid question and say "why don't you just charge the laptops in your rooms overnight?" but I am assuming (since I know you are a smart man and will give Chris the benefit of the doubt) that you have already covered that idea. $100 for a weekend power hook up is theft. The deep cycle marine battery thingie sounds way better...plus you can thumb your nose at the crooks as they walk through the convention. While it may be petty, I bet you wfeel pretty good about it anyway (plus, you can use the battery thing over and over again).
Of course we're going to recharge the laptops, but remember that we'll be sitting at a table for 8-10 hours. Laptop batteries have a 2-4 hour life. This means that we'd run out of power half way through at best and 1/4 through at worst... not a good scenario.
You know if everyone started doing this at conventions people would have a fit. I pay $75 for power at Dragoncon and yes it is a extention cord with a 4 outlet box at the end of it.
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