So for anyone who is following along up to this point, if you have been following from Minnesota this is where you need to realize a few things about how I run my business. Currently, I don't pay myself. I don't make any money, it's all reinvested back into new products, shipping items, backing cards, storage items, etc. This is my full time job. The whole reason I am doing events is to expand my audience with the goal of eventually paying myself and some help. Running a business alone is extremely time consuming.
That being said, I did put these expenses on my business credit card. Not everyone is even going to have one of these. I have a separate business account for my business and recommend that anyone running a company does this. It's easier when you're looking back for specific charges and costs. I'm not doing this as a hobby.
Applications, Acceptance & SO MUCH UPFRONT MONEY
So I decided in late 2023 I wanted to do events in 2024. When Momocon applications opened for vendors in November, I jumped and applied. Costs were extremely high for those spots and frankly I am glad I didn't get accepted as a vendor. In the future it'll be fine, but starting out, it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. Applications opened in early December for Artist Alley. I also applied to that.
Something to note that I never considered at the time is that some events do not let you apply for both. This event didn't care but I got lucky and this is NOT going to be the norm for every event.
So January was a month of panic for me. I didn't realize how much of convention costs were up front payments MONTHS in advance for everything. I probably should have, but I live in a world of my own a lot of the time so I'm just making this very clear to anyone who may want to do conventions in the future that there are a TON of up front costs.
January 13th I got an email that waitlisted me in the Exhibit Hall. January 15th I got an email saying I had been accepted to Artist Alley. The same day, I was sent an invoice for Momocon. I paid $372.27 - this break down is $350 for the booth + a $22.27 processing fee. So really yeah my booth cost was $372.27 as far as I'm concerned. I paid the same day but going to include a screenshot of this because not every event has this.
I like that it did tell me a processing fee on this as well as how long we had to pay this, what is included in the cost (a booth + two badges). Booth costs will vary by what you select, costs also probably go up every year so don't use this as a baseline for what you will pay in the future or even for most events. 
I will note this again later, but I had applied for Nashville Comicon January 3rd 2024 and was accepted on January 13th, 2024 (so right before this) and their payment deadline was February 13th, 2024. I paid for Nashville Comicon on January 15th, which I paid for after I was accepted to Momocon. Prior to all this, I would also like to note I had been trying to figure out how to do Tidewater Comicon. It would have been Tidewater -> Momocon -> Nashville. Looking back I am glad this didn't happen. My sister's baby shower ended up scheduled on the same weekend as Tidewater instead of June.
I didn't need a hotel for this event, but I did need to fly. We only have one car that is functional (the WRX) and I can't just take this on extended trips currently. Any other out of town events I will be renting a vehicle for either way. For this one it was expensive to rent a vehicle for two weeks + 2 hotels (for the halfway stop between Georgia and Minnesota) to and from + gas costs.
Either way January 19th, I booked a round trip flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta for $426.20 after all the wild fees.
So at this point, my trip to Georgia is costing me $798.47 and I haven't even looked at hotels or parking at this point.
Someone in the Momocon discord posted a link to reserve parking March 4th, so I went ahead and reserved parking using my mom's vehicle. Parking was $67.80. The amount of processing or service fees I have paid up to this point is pretty ridiculous. My total at this point is $866.27 and $87.90 of that price is miscellaneous service fees.
I don't have any idea what a hotel costs for Momocon since I had always planned to stay with my parents, but we needed a reservation for May 31-June 2, 2024 for Nashville Comicon.
Going to skip to Nashville cost really quickly since this is becoming a double blog.
I will not be posting the reservation since my dad paid for it with his points, but the total was like $295.74. This actually cost me nothing, so I am going to do a quick estimated costs for it if I had paid for it. This doesn't matter as much right now but will make a huge difference on whether I decide to go in the future, especially since I will not always have a free or discounted place to stay for any event.
The hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn Nashville Vanderbilt. It also has a $40/day parking cost. I went and looked to get a general idea of what it would have cost without my dad covering it and I will probably keep this in mind when I need to do my math later.
You can see the cost if I had paid for it myself was going to be $720.70. Obviously for anyone who has a Hilton account, this would vary for your if you have points to spend, military discounts, etc. This is a pretty general price to have expected either way with parking included. 
Shipping costs for products to my parents house: $342.88
Costs for my table for Nashville Comicon were $160.50 and the event is run by Incredible Conventions (who also runs Tidewater which I didn't end up attending).
TLDR Momocon + Nashville Expenses
$1,331.85
Honestly, doing these back to back did help some but the costs were still extremely high considering. I'm thankful my parents helped me out with a lot of this or I would most likely have lost money instead.
Before the Event & Setup: Momocon 2024
Thursday rolled around and it was time to load everything into the car and head to Georgia World Congress Center. I would like to make note they sent an Eventeny message with a video that was very helpful on Wednesday. The video showed the building and had them saying this is load in, and turned around saying and across the street is yellow parking. Honestly, this is where I wish I had known to park. Maybe in the future. I reserved at the Red lot though.
So doors opened at 4pm for load in. The location was very easy to find and we merely told the security guard why we were there. She told us to pull inside to the orange cart and they'd direct us.
They asked for the booth number but didn't ask if we were a dealer or artist, so they took us left after handing us the paper with a time and saying we had an hour to get everything unloaded and leave. This didn't mean people couldn't set up after they parked their vehicles.
So anyways, we get shown the way to row 800, my booth was AA-804. We walked down to find it then realized we were taken to the wrong area. I moved the vehicle while my mom used the bathroom. I was able to park right next to my table for easy unload.
Despite having set my stuff up in advance, carefully planned it so I didn't have to take it apart and all the sorting of stuff by location and type - I managed to disregard that my display has been weighed down significantly by pins in baggies.
So we got the display done very fast. Shoved everything under my table and the front fell over after the last pins were placed. We threw some weights behind it before finally putting the pins back up. Thankfully only one display of the two tipped but it was still a small time sink to get everything put back up.
After that, we took photos then covered the display. I forgot about badges entirely since the process was so fast. It took an hour and a half to get to the convention center but only 30 minutes to set up. I did walk over to find Reywind who was not there yet then over to artist/vendor registration to pick up badges. We were in by 4:20pm and out by 5:15pm. That included check in, badges, setup and leaving.
We were in Hall C for the event and left through Hall B, probably to streamline traffic in and out of the hall.
We went shopping for snacks before this and got fruit and vegetables, some fruit snacks and crackers. There was water leftover from the weekends events so we were basically set for Friday.
I would like to note there was a miscommunication with the convention center and it closed at 10pm. Some artists were expecting to have until midnight, but everyone was asked to leave at 10pm instead. So many will have to set up Friday morning at 9am instead.
Once on the road, it took about an hour and thirty minutes to get home. I will say being able to drive in and unload is now my favorite thing. I don't know how common this actually is, but it also made me realize that Nashville Comicon will be nothing like this.
The Event Itself: Momocon 2024
Once the doors opened
What Worked & What Did Not: Momocon 2024
So while this seems really silly, it is important but their social media game was strong. Socials were always updated, their discord team was quick to respond and they had a facebook group where the attendees just constantly hyped the event up (and we could advertise). All of these things were great tbh.
Vendor hall location was not great. This was not a great spot but at the end of the day this was already mentioned to be resolved for 2025, so they know. So technically this is a pro and a con built into one? They already had the problem solved in advance for the next year which is impressive.
The team takes feedback super seriously.
Warning us about parking was amazing. Prepaid is like a must have. While we failed to understand our best route early on, this paid off in the end and I will always pay for parking like this in the future. A lot of people did not and I will not park in yellow lot. Future me, if you're reading this, REMEMBER THIS. It's closer to vendors but there were break ins! Red lot is best lot.
GWCC employees seemed to be very confused about a lot. They couldn't even tell us where bathrooms were. There were lines at elevators meaning I think GWCC is not nearly as prepared to handle heavy traffic with a lot of people who have accessibility issues. Actually thinking on this a lot more, that has to suck if you have to pee. Imagine waiting in a line forever?? A lot of the bathrooms along the walk were locked as well so they didn't even have extra options available in a large portion of the convention center. I am fortunate my mother was able to walk long distances despite her wanting to use the elevator (she does have health issues that put her out for long periods of time). Anyways, just things to think about.
Load in and out were easy. I loved it. GWCC people failed at directing us to the correct location on load in, but we were prepared to deal with it again on load out since they seem to default to vendors. Despite the minor inconvenience, it was smooth.
Hours were not bad at all. They seem long in a way but it wasn't a slow event so it went by quickly.
Traffic didn't exist? I have no idea how Momocon pull this off but there was NO TRAFFIC ANY DAY during this event. I feel like we just got really lucky with the times we arrived and left or something but this was the biggest thing I dreaded and in the end was a non-issue.
Conclusion
Despite the crazy distance of walking, I did love this event enough I would return again. The crowd was so much fun to talk to, it was great meeting so many artists I adored/admired and the staff/volunteers were one of the best perks to the whole event! I LOVED THEM! AHHH!
Extra Notes: Paying Taxes
I would note taxes are confusing at first and due within 3 days of the event so if you are reading this because you're interested, have this stuff ready in advance. I mailed a cashier's check from my bank to the government, but not everyone has that option I assume. Some people managed to get an online account open but when I called that wasn't required.
If you call and talk to someone at the Georgia Department of Revenue, they are very friendly and will answer anything you need. Don't be scared. Honestly, they really just want people to pay their taxes and that's all.
The Details (TLDR)
Event: Momocon 2024
Dates: May 24-27, 2024
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, 285 Andrew Young International Blvd NW, Atlanta, GA 30313
Hours: Friday 2pm-8pm, Saturday/Sunday 10am-7pm & Monday 10am-5pm EST
Total Vendors: ~745
Attendance: 55,867
Travelworthy: Yes, but if you can keep your costs low. Not everyone will make a ton of profit.
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Booth Cost: $372.27 ($350 + $22.27 processing fee)
Total Sales: $3697.65
Transaction Fees: $90.01
Taxes: $291.62
Total Profit: $2,943.75
Before the Event & Setup: Nashville Comicon 2024
Originally the plan for Nashville was to drive up Friday, setup and then check into the hotel. My dad being sent to Qatar left my mom without a dog sitter for both dogs since he wasn't sure if he was leaving Friday, Saturday or Sunday yet. This threw a wrench into the plans which resulted in us getting a hotel in Huntsville, Alabama instead. My sister lives in Alabama and was willing to watch the dogs for the weekend we would be in Nashville. We made this plan Monday evening on the way to meet my dad for dinner after we finished loading out from Momocon.
Just a general reminder that even the best laid out plans can change suddenly. For us, this actually happened twice which made this all the more wild to me. I initially didn't want to drive my dad's truck because it's huge. He just has a giant GMC and frankly, it's intimidating. I managed to get all of my stuff into my mom's Acura RDX for the drive to Alabama Thursday only for us to get about an hour into the drive and the charging light come on. We'd taken the Acura to get a new battery the week before, so at this point it was pretty clear it was not a battery problem but instead an alternator issue. As a result, we drove an hour back towards my dad's work to do a vehicle swap. This basically started our trek off two hours later than we had intended.
We managed to get to my sister's house before she went to bed but didn't officially drop off the dogs until the next morning. Nashville was about an hour and 20 minutes from Huntsville, so we made it to the area before load-in started.
The Event Itself: Nashville Comicon 2024
We managed to get to my sister's house before she went to bed but didn't officially drop off the dogs until the next morning. Nashville was about an hour and 20 minutes from Huntsville, so we made it to the area before load-in started. Verified this was where we were supposed to be then found our hotel and came back to start loading in.
There was a line for check in that went fairly quickly but I would like to note they never verified who I was. Momocon did and I quickly took note of that for this event. I guess that means if you decided to proxy, no one would know? Not sure if they even cared anyways but just thought it was interesting.
What Worked & What Did Not: Nashville Comicon 2024
Hours were really nice. Not too early and not too late.
Advertising may have been better locally but I could barely find anything about the event. Not really anyone talking about it either? No discord or FB group either.
Location was good. It had ample parking and it was easy to get into from multiple sides. Food trucks were also there so we had good food options.
Bathrooms EVERYWHERE. I asked to be near a bathroom and they placed me between three haha. I guess I got what I asked for.
Parking for vendors could have been clarified in advance since we were expected to park far away. Not a huge deal but would have been nice.
Conclusion
So I love horror movies and given the crowd that was here, I really enjoyed it. As far as sales went, they were not great but still better than any events I had done prior (aside from Momocon) but underwhelming compared to online sales. I would probably give this another try if I can prepare some different merchandise though.
Extra Notes: Paying Taxes
If you do this event, make sure you get your tax stuff handled in advance. You do have to register online and they have to activate the account for you. I ended up communicating with someone through email but they have you pay online even for a special event. Their email communication was quick, they emailed you for everything including when payment was processed. The site was fairly similarly set up to Minnesota, so it wasn't difficult to navigate at least.
This event didn't give me whatever their ID number was. Heck they never even responded to my email about it so just know you don't need it. This was the whole reason I ever reached out to the Tennessee government to ask questions. Just make sure you have your information ready, the account made and activated, and you're set! I don't advise doing this last minute. I think it actually ended up taking me a few days to get it approved.
The Details (TLDR)
Event: Nashville Comicon 2024
Dates: June 1-2, 2024
Location: The Fairgrounds, 401 Wingrove Street, Nashville, TN 37203
Hours: Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 11am-5pm CST
Total Vendors: ~146
Attendance: 10,000 according to site, unclear how they got to this number
Travelworthy: Not great for out of state unless you can keep your costs very low. Seems very good for locals within a 30 minute window.
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Booth Cost: $160.50
Total Sales: $718
Transaction Fees: $16.01
Taxes: $58.58
Total Profit: $482.91