Ep. 110: How to Start a Collector and Toy Convention

Hey, y'all. It's me, Tara Strong, a.k.a. Miss Minutes for Bama Geeks. I hope you're ready to watch, and if you don't, I will have to prune you. Stay on your sacred timeline. And a wonderful evening to you. We are live here on YouTube and X. We welcome you in to the Bama Geeks podcast. We do these live streams every couple of Sundays. I'm Brock and way over there is my wife, Jess, and of course, Bo Beard and then Kevin Gardner. so glad you guys could join us tonight and we have a treat for you we've got uh we've had a weekend full of conventions ourselves and uh the two gentlemen you see here you've got derek and down below is wolf from gadsden alabama they are running gadsden collector con and uh we're thrilled to have you guys on here with us we appreciate you joining us and we're going to talk a little bit about the convention business, the collectibles, the comics, you name it. We're all geeks here. That's right. All here in Alabama. Yeah, that's right. We love to spread the love of everybody putting forth a good geeky foot in Alabama. Gentlemen, if you don't mind, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourselves. Well, my name's Derek. I own Katie's Comics. I I have a booth down in Leeds at the Bama Flea Mall, since y'all are around Birmingham. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We've been to that one, actually. Oh, yeah. I've been to that one many times. A lot of comics and a lot of video games. And then I deal in Pokemon. Okay. I go to different shows, conventions, and I help Wolf out at a store in Gadsden. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, and I'm Wolf and I own a store called Wolf Den Collectibles. We're located in Gadsden. It's just right down the street from the venue where Gadsden Collector Con is held. And we are just a variety show, kind of like the con. Pokemon, sports, toys, comics, video games, just about everything. And so we love it. We're just made for this stuff. it certainly is a fun way of life I've been a collector my entire life mom would always spoil me by getting me the new toys and stuff and of course christmas was always a good haul and you know I'm about to turn forty nine and haven't let any of it go yet even though I'm trying we're out of space in the house yeah I know that feeling we got a comment I'm gonna highlight on the screen here Howdy, howdy to you, Bama Free. Oh, we met him at Toylanta. That's right. Yeah, that's Adam, I believe. He makes all the dioramas and all. Yeah. Fantastic work. This will be his third time to be at our show. Okay. So he does great work. Yeah. Yeah, I believe he sold out of everything at Toyland, if I'm not mistaken, because we went up there and we're looking and I was debating. I'm like, we need to go back and get something. And by the time the day was over, it was all gone. Yeah. That was target market for him. I knew he'd sell out. That's me. Awesome. And then Advisory, six thousand. Hello to you. Good evening. Thanks for being here. Welcome back in. I am a staple of Gadsden Con. Absolutely. And, of course, our friend Shane. Hello, Shane. Hola to you. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. If you're in the chat, yeah, please feel free to comment if you've got any questions for these guys as we talk tonight. Yeah. Absolutely. We definitely want to make this interactive. So, again, like Jess said, if you've got any questions, comments, drop them in here and we'll all try to answer them for you. So I need to know what got you guys into creating your own businesses and into the Comic Sword and into Wulff Den Collectibles. Started off Wulff. okay I guess it depends on how far you want to go back I guess uh let's go man hey so I mentioned to you guys earlier I'm a school teacher also um so that's my full-time job um when I started selling on ebay years ago and I mostly would just sports memorabilia is what I started off with uh actually the first thing I sold was a uh unmasked wolverine marvel legends figure back in I don't remember if it was two thousand seven somewhere in that range maybe um that was the first item I saw but I didn't really do many toys like I said mostly sports memorabilia and so I always wanted to have a card shop slash memorabilia shop and as the years went by I was like yeah I don't think that's really going to cut it and um It's kind of weird. And so I started selling toys at some point. And when COVID hit, my wife was like, hey, if you want to open up a shop, you don't need to wait until you're too old. And I was like, yeah, but I was like, you know, if I open up a shop, I've got to work there, right? But anyways, I had my wife's support. So I went after it and I opened up a store in Glencoe, which is where I'm from. right on the highway. And I thought, I said, this is, you know, it'll do good. And it was tough. I was a one man show and doing the school and then trying to come in and open the shop. It just, it didn't work. Derek used to make fun of me. And I would always say, yeah, someone said something about Wolfden Collectibles and they said, he's never opened. I decided to move to Gadsden, a much better location. And me and Derek at that point had already kind of started working on the con together and, derek was like man I'll help you out and he's been a true blessing uh he knows pokemon very good and that's something I struggle with and he knows his comics really good and his video games and those are three areas that I just I'm not good in and so he has come along and just really helped our store just blossom and do really well so um yeah it's been it's been great gotcha that's awesome bo uh Bo can definitely talk video games and Pokemon with you. Well, my kid can talk Pokemon with you, not me. It's so hot right now. It's ridiculous. I guess for me, I guess about two and a half years ago, I opened up an antique booth just with my excess comics, video games, stuff like that. I kept branching out, finally went to bama flea mall that's been the best place to be so far and then I travel to shows we do different card shows uh my girlfriend helps me out she goes to every show with me and she's the salesperson I'm just there with the inventory and uh I guess last year around june or may I went into wolves and glencoe and asked him I was like hey let's start a con And he's like, well, you got to ask my wife. We already know you can't hang out in the kitchen. We already know that. So you got to ask the wife. He came back and said, yes, we have another partner. He's kind of more behind the scenes, but he helps with our website. He does all the signage. His name's Terry. He owns a store in Gadsden called Affordable Computer and Variety. I know that store. Yeah. I actually went there. I actually talked to him. Okay. Yeah. He helps out a lot too. And so we started it. We had two months to prepare. They didn't have the big room at the venue. So we had three meeting rooms and we filled it up quick and we expected three or four hundred people. We ended up with about fourteen hundred. Wow. wow wow oh that's amazing yeah it was amazing wow fantastic we were just gonna do it once a year and then a spot opened up in february so we decided to do it then we decided to get a celebrity this time tyler mayne for february oh yeah yeah and uh that one I think we had about twenty three or twenty four hundred at that one wow okay and so that was that was with uh we will cammy khan was going on in birmingham big sports show in nashville right there yeah so we we felt like we did really good for ourselves Oh, yeah. That was all happening on the same weekend? Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. That's the biggest Pokemon show in the nation, probably. Okay. The fact that we had that many people still come. Yeah. And then this one, we're hoping, you know, two to three thousand. And I think we can get there. Well, like I was telling you earlier, that's my birthday. You guys are holding it on my birthday. So I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to come up there and see you guys. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a good point with definitely asking the missus to, you know, being able to start something like that. I don't know. I think Jess would let me do it if I said, look, first inventory is everything in the house. I think she would be. It's a good start. It would be definitely a good start for us. Yeah. Between him and some stuff that my dad has still hanging around. Yeah. We have the same birthday? You can come and see us. Hang out with us and we'll all go to the top of the river. We love that place. That's awesome. Top of the river can hold a ton of people too. So it's huge. Wow. Goodness. That place is wonderful. Jess and I, our first time to Gaston, our friend, Joe Crow up there at, at Spartan pro wrestling. We went to the Gaston mall and that was the first time I had been up there and That was our first stop was at top of the river. Good eating for sure. That's a good first impression. The place is great. Yeah, that area is gorgeous up there. Very nice, yes. It's like Birmingham. You can take a wrong turn and go somewhere else. Let's be real. There's enough water there. You can take a wrong turn there and end up in the water. Yeah. Brock and I have had that kind of fantasy thought between ourselves. It's like, what would it take to like put together something like that? You know, um, if we were to have the, had the means and the way to create our own little type of collector con, you know, even in our area. Yeah. Yeah. So what, what, what goes into that outside of first asking the missus, what's the next step in starting something like this? All right, Wolf. What's next? I mean, I think just having a plan, you know, having the passion for it, which you guys seem to have. I don't know. So really for us, what helps us a lot is that Derek, he, he vends a lot of places, you know, he sets up at a lot of places. He has a, he really looks out for the vendors. Like that's his, like his heart and his, you know, his pride in that. So he wants to take care of them. So he looks at everything through their, their eyes. I'm like, Hey, or whatever we do, we got to make sure that we're taking care of them and we're, everything is set up around them. Like we don't want to have too many celebrities cause it, cause that takes money away from our vendors. And I don't know. I think it's, I told Derek earlier, I was like, when I saw y'all's, um, your, your title or whatever, what it takes to set up. I was like, man, we don't, we've never really talked about this. We just literally jumped into it. And, um, You know, just it's been great, but I don't really know what it takes, honestly. A little luck maybe. And I don't know. What do you think, Derek? I mean, I keep up with all the bookkeeping, the vendors. It's definitely a lot of work. I answer a lot of questions. We were talking earlier. We're not very technical savvy, so. I don't know how to send a text to every vendor and for them to not reply back to everybody. So I individually text every vendor. Wow. Okay. Yeah. But you know, I guess it makes it more personable, but right. Yeah. I do the vendor layout, the two D layout. I used to know how to do AutoCAD. I kind of forgot how now, but I'm learning again. Um, Yeah, I mean, you just got to keep up receipts, paperwork, all that good stuff. You got to pay your taxes, unfortunately. That's the biggest headache of it, I'll say. I did want to ask, without going into details, because I'm sure you guys have run into some situations, what are some lessons learned in running these things and doing these things that you guys could share, some things that you know about? uh measure twice cut once talking in life okay we we we'll have the vendor layout I'll have all the blueprints and do all that and I'll go measure and something's off and we have these vendors kind of next to each other because we try to get as many vendors as we possibly can sure because a lot of people want in and it's cheap And yeah, I'll go back and measuring something's off every time, even though we're in the same space. But yeah, we've learned that we got to have more than our first convention. We only had two people working the money table and the line was out the parking lot around the car. It was like, so yeah, we actually hire people and we have a few volunteers, but we, we pay people because we need help of, you know, trustworthy people. So. That's good. Yeah. There's much more, but I can't think of it right now. I know one thing, Derek's probably had to learn a lot of patience because I'm the type that just pushes and pushes and pushes and, and he has to kind of pull the reins back a little bit. And so I get on his nerves. So he's probably had to learn a lot of patience. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is get you a pushy partner to keep it interesting. That's right. Kind of a yin and yang to the whole thing. I'm the type that's like, even if he don't agree with me, I'm like, I'm headstrong and I'm just keep on. Yeah. Yeah. So, so as, as we mentioned, uh, your, your third, uh, Gadsden collector con is coming up, uh, July, just a couple of weeks away. Uh, you, you started this in October of last year, correct? Uh, I want to say our first conversation and then me and Terry started it. Like we had talked about it. Then I came to Wolf. It was probably last May, I think. Yeah. Okay. And then June, we started the page and started getting vendors. So last June, A little over a year. Yeah. A big picture person and a details person. That's crucial. Yeah. Yeah. That's crucial. That's one thing I've learned in my management role is, is my, the person I just hired to help me is much more detail oriented and I've kind of got the bigger picture ideas and we're working very well together. So I completely agree with that. Yeah. That's great. But this is your third show in less than a year. Yeah, we feel like we're pushing them out. But, I mean, a lot of people, they seem like they just miss it. You know, they want it to happen a lot. But I think two is the magic number. Gadsden's not a big city, but we do have a lot of people coming in. So twice a year is pushing it, but I think it's perfect so far. Yeah. I disagree. I think three is the magic number. So we don't agree on that at all. Yeah. Well, we learned that from Schoolhouse Rock, too, that three was a magic number. That's right. That's right. I will take it that you're on my side, so. Oh, so, so, and is it held at the venue in Gaston every year or every show? Yeah, it's the same place every time. We wish they were a little bit bigger, but it's working for us right now. Do you feel like you are getting ready to outgrow that place? Or do y'all feel still pretty comfortable there? What do you think, Wolf? No, I think we're... The venue's very... I think it's great, honestly. Here's a couple of the perks, I think. We have free parking. That's huge. Yeah, so that's awesome. Even if we grow and the parking lot fills up, there's a lot of businesses close by that you could just go park at and walk across the street I think it'd still work now at some point could we outgrow maybe I don't know um they do the venue does have another section at the end that they just haven't finished and I'm hoping that one day they will go ahead and finish it just do have it a part of it and we could rent that too if that ever came But it's a really nice. What I love about the venue, it's just so nice. Because me and Derek have talked about doing other shows other places. But our problem is we just can't find another area kind of like the venue. That's our problem. Everybody's got that covered in Birmingham, so we're not going to go that way. We were thinking more like the Oxford area, but there's not much out that way. We've seen places in a basketball gym, but that's not really what we want. Oxford's got a convention center, I think, but I don't know how much bigger it is in relation to the venue. The venue's nice. Me and my son We came up there for a lot of things. It was like a little reptile collection type thing. We came there last winter or something. That was my first time there. That's one thing I can speak of. It's nice. The cool thing about it, like you said, it's free parking. If you get hungry, there's a Buffalo Wild Wings walking distance. There's a couple places around. A Jack's. You're just about to shoot. I mean, I was about to say you guys did, you guys missed the biggest bonus is that, you know, you're like, well, just two miles from top of the river. So it's just, it's not walking distance, but I mean, you'd shop in the car, you're right down there and you got you some good food, right? Yeah, exactly. And also, we have, what, three food trucks out there this time, Derek? Okay, good. Yeah, we got three this time. Three food trucks. Like you said, Buffalo Wild Wings is right there. Across the street is a Jack's and a Burger one-on-one, which is a really great place. But one of the things about Gaston is there is some crime rate somewhere. I don't know. But really, it's a nice area. I tell people, this is fantastic. We're in Birmingham. Nowhere's perfect. Nowhere's perfect. But there's so many good places to eat. It's a lot of nice areas. Like the street that my business is on is just literally down the street. It's called Broad Street. There's all kinds of restaurants in there. It's a historical district. It's just nice. There's just so much to enjoy. So really... I try to tell Derek sometimes like, you know, he's like, yes, it's too small and I get it. But sometimes I think if people would just come to guess and they could experience a lot there, you know, and enjoy the kind of a smaller town feel, but, uh, with everything you really want. So. Yeah. I mean, we're not trying to leave there. We, we love it. Uh, The people that work at the venue are great. It's basically an old Kmart. It used to be Kmart back in the day. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. It's a big building. Yeah. It's just like there's big pillars in the way. It messes me up when I'm doing my layout. And then we have a hallway. We have like an artist alley and a hallway. Then we have the three meeting rooms. So it's just... I wish it was more open, but it still fits a lot of people. I mean, look, look, you just have to, when you're trying to imagine how the layout has to be every year, you just got to think blue light special. I was going to ask that if it's an old Kmart, did you get to keep the blue light in there? I will echo that, though. Up there, if you're going through and you like anything collectibles, you like anything thrifty, Broad Street's the place to be. There are so many nice thrift stores and collectible stores there, obviously. My gosh, yeah, we went nuts there when we were up there not too long ago. that's yes really just on broad street we've had uh we've had two that most of the a lot of sports cards but there's gas and sports cards and antiques and there's hobbies and collectibles and um both of them sell a little bit more than sports cards but they've been in business for about thirty years there and you know I remember being at a card show one time and a guy was like hey there's two card shops on the same street in your town I was like yeah I've been there for thirty years and they were like man that's unheard of and I'm like I know it really is and I jumped in there and got on the street too so uh there's three streets and then terry's got his gaming store over there it's it's it's a lot and restaurants and it's really nice yeah like I said I was thinking about because like when we were with the alabama ghostbusters we came up here one time for our first friday and there's a store called the toy exchange that was there I think the owner he passed sadly a few years ago but like I remember coming up there around that area and and like so we enjoy I said it was nice like did they still do the first fridays they do and it's it's huge yeah that's you need to come back then oh yeah it was fun like I said we there yeah We call them antique boutiques. Yes. And I will tell you this. One of those stores there is responsible for increasing my collection of vinyls by about twenty seven percent. Man, man, that's that's one of the best collections of vinyls for sale I've ever seen. It was a really nice store there that has that. What's the name of that there? It's the one that has the the eatery inside it. Oh, that that's a. Really nice old lady was up front. Antiques store? Yeah, it was like antiques, and it was boothed and everything. That's Gadsden Variety, I believe. Yep, that's it. That's it. That one's really close to me, but on down, there's a huge vinyl store. You need to come back, because it's massive. Oh, I'm coming back. I need to get more of the vinyl. I mean, I went into Affordable there, because he has some vinyl there, too, and I got some stuff there from him as well, so... Yeah. Go on down past, past, uh, variety a little ways. And that's on the other side of the street. Um, I wish I knew the name of it. Cosmic debris. Okay. All right. I'll check that out. Sweet. Awesome. So, uh, for, for this upcoming, uh, Gaston collector con, what kind of vendors are you anticipating? Who have you got signed up? Uh, who are the celebrities that we can expect to see there? Uh, I love Wolf and those celebrities, but as far as the vendors, we get a lot of compliments on variety. We do have a list. We have a waiting list. We kind of go in order, but we pick what we need, and I split people up. It's like a... It's like a science. I have to split people up to where everybody has to walk everywhere to get to every booth. Just skip his booth though. He needs another sellout. We've got coin dealers. We've got a lot of comic dealers this time because last time I had a few complaints. We didn't have enough. And, you know, it's a collector convention. You got to have comics. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that's what I mainly sell, but love to look at other comics. I'm a big comic collector. Yeah, we got, I think, a guy that deals in knives. Okay. Another one that deals in Hot Wheels. We got Crochet. We got... Custom shirts, just everything. Oh, man. But a lot of toy vendors and a lot of that stuff, too, for collectors. The majority is going to be your video games, your toys, your comics. You know, those are going to be your Pokemon. There's the most vendors for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's the top four. And then we just make a good variety. You guys got you one of those booths that tell that sells the, the custom Dixie paint. Then you'd be like an antique boutique. Every store you go in has got that booth. Every one of them. Yeah. We, we made sure like the arts and crafts, you gotta have that, you know, for the, some of the women that come with their husbands that just want to see that stuff. But, uh, we've made sure it's a lot of collectibles. So yeah. Sweet. Yeah. We'll have, well, we, the things that we limit is like, we have a three D like if you do three D printing, we only allow like one, two or three at the moment, you know, cause we don't want a lot of that. I mean, we like it, but we don't, we just, you know, um, Some things we just limit how many that comes in, but you're right. Your toys, your comics, your video games and put cards or your, the main four. Yeah. And three D printing can be just kind of a dime a dozen. Anybody can do that. Really? You know, it's so, yeah, you could definitely get inundated with that if you're not careful. Yeah. Dragons. Yeah. Yeah. It's very neat. It's just, you know, that you don't need too many of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you can, like you said, with especially people that are just, you know, the collecting, you can get like you mentioned, you got different varieties of that. You got Hot Wheels or you got vintage toys or you've got, you know, like you said, comics. So there's the collector's world is kind of, you know, you can create that a variety for, you know, and for somebody may not be into this, but hey, we've got a couple of vendors that are doing this. So, yeah. Yeah. If you're a comic person and you come to our con, we want you to leave and be like, man, that was good. But if you're a toy guy, we want you to come and say, hey, that was good. We want everybody to come happy and leave happy. From the perspective of you being the guys that are running the con, then yeah, someone leaving and going, yeah, man, I look forward to the next time that's coming up. Well, there you go. You sold your attendance right there because you're probably going to get a repeat customer that way. Definitely. yeah we try to be modest but we we love hearing how great you know of a time people have and right it's cheap to get in and they found what they were looking for like that it just makes us feel good honestly I mean we just all this hard work we do so Adam said he wants healthy competition, except for diaromas. That's right. Hey, that's another guy. Maybe the dozen. I don't know. No, we had one. He was at first two, but didn't do this third one. And Benjamin Chatham, I'm going to assume. Thanks so much for joining in the stream tonight. He said, I'd love to collab for a con in Oxford. It's been, he owns Oxford gaming center. Yeah. There you go. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mike's Mike mentioned that earlier and said, that's a great place for, for magic, the gathering. Yeah. And that's one thing I wish I got into it. Like with Pokemon was after my time. And, uh, I think magic was too. And I've always wanted to get into card games, but I've never, I, I don't understand. I need somebody to sit down and say here, dummy, this is how you do it. And just, and just walk me through. Cause I really, the same thing with dungeons and dragons, things of that nature. I kind of know a little bit, but. People need to teach me. There might be one you need to get into it because it got really huge. Like I said, I know if you're younger than you, but like around my junior, senior year, this is like ninety eight, ninety nine. Star Trek did a card game kind of similar. It was Star Trek collectible card game. It was kind of cashing in on the magic and all that stuff. Like I did the Star Wars one around that time. So that might be one you could look into the kind of, you know, since you know, I guess the lore of next gen and all that. I actually have a full set of those cards. Oh, nice. But did I ever learn? No. OK, we'll see. There you go. I didn't know that. I learned that about you this evening. It's somewhere in storage. What we need to do is apply to become a vendor and just bring everything from our house. We've got a little bit of everything. You know, we need to talk on that. I need to have a discussion about that. And we promise to pay our taxes to you when we're done with the show. Absolutely. Brock said, down payment on a new house, baby. Let's go. Hey, Not to get too far off the subject, but my dad and his Hot Wheel collection that he's trying to offload at the moment, he could probably, he's got comic books, he's got Hot Wheels. There's a lot of stuff my dad's got stored back in his building that he'd probably like, yeah, maybe we need to set up a table. There you go. Yeah, he's talked about it before, so we can definitely see if he'd be willing to go in with us and come apply to be a vendor. One of your shows. That's right. Band of Geeks table. Yeah. The next one will be the next one, so come on. When was that? I'm sorry. January the seventeenth will be the next one. Okay. We need to talk, man. That's right. It's a weird time. So they were going to roll us over February eighth, and it was going to be Valentine's. Oh, I can't do that. And then we rescheduled. Now it's on my anniversary. So either way. Well, I tell you what, if you ever have it on Valentine's day, I promise you Jess and I will make a date out of it. Yeah. That's right. That's what we do. Oh, yeah. Mike said, I'll teach Brock how to play Disney Lorcana. I really want to. Shane said, yeah. Everybody knows our wheelhouse. Jess and I are big Disney fans. We actually... Jimmy Mulligan, who's the artist who does a lot with the Disney Lorcana cards, we see him two or three times a year at different conventions. And it's to the point now where we always try to buy a print from him. He recognizes us. But he's always got his Disney Lorcana cards out there for sale. I'm probably mispronouncing that. It sounds right to me. Do you know where he's located, where he lives? No. Probably in California. I think he lives in California. Is that where he lives? I think. Maybe. I don't know. But we see him at Dragon Con every year, and he's been a frequent guest up at the Huntsville comic as well. I spent some time looking for an artist of that, and I couldn't find any that were close by. Yeah. I don't think he's very close. I don't think he's close by. I don't think he's in Florida. He might be in Florida. I don't know. He travels an awful lot. Yeah. Yeah. He's a licensed Disney artist and does all the Lorcana cards. Yeah. Yeah. Good guy. Worth having. Got some fantastic pieces because we, like I said, we've run out of space in the house. So we've got portfolio binders that are full of his art. One day. One day. One day. Do y'all go to Huntsville, the pop culture one? Yeah, every year. I'll be there. I'll be vending there next year. I know Jeremy, the owner, so. Yeah. Yeah. People to get in, finally. Yeah, we saw Jeremy yesterday down at Magic City Con. Okay, yeah, yeah. I thought he was helping out with that or something, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he sure was. Yeah. They, we were, you know, we were up at Huntsville this last year and I mean, it just continues to just, they had to open up more space there. So it's just continuing to grow and they're doing a really good job up there too, as well. I'm excited to vend and pass out flyers for ours. Yeah. So that, that's kind of a question I've got for you guys being that, you know, you've, you've now had three shows. You're in a beautiful area of the state. Yeah. Starting out with a smaller kind of convention, we've seen cons come and go in Birmingham, especially. I know you guys are aware of it. How do you find a solid footing to keep growing and keep people coming back to you? Well, we both agree that we... Having having a five dollar emission fee is, you know, because I think too many shows that charge, you know, thirty, forty, fifty bucks, they price themselves out, you know, and I get why they have to do. And when you bring in a ton of celebrities, you have to have the money to cover everything. Problem is. more than half of your guests. I mean that your attendees don't even care about the celebrities, you know? So, um, I think that's one way that kind of helps us, uh, having a cheap show, you know? Um, I think it's great to bring in guests. I mean, I keep pushing Derek to have more celebrities. That's what I love about it is trying to get celebrities. But I do understand because that's why I was asking you just now about where that artist was. Because, you know, when you fly somebody out, we're in a bad situation because we're in guests. And so our closest is Birmingham is the closest airport in Atlanta. And that still means we have to either drive and go pick them up or We have to let them rent a car, which costs more money. So I think that's the key for us is keeping a cheap show, but having good quality, you know? Yeah. Yeah. We're not, we're not going to retire off this. We put money into it and we just want it to thrive. It's just fun. It helps Wolf and Terry's business and my business. So we look at it as advertising also. So we make a lot of connections and all that good stuff. And I think that was, that goes back to kind of when you were talking about how to be successful. And I'm not saying we're successful by any means, but, but I think it's just like, it's like, it's almost like our baby, you know, like we want to, we want to see it grow, but we want to take care of it. And, and I think that's part of, you know, doing the right thing. It's just, you know, not just doing this just to make a dollar, but to actually see it accomplish something or I don't know if that makes sense, but. Yeah. Did I think, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, you go ahead. Go ahead. Just point out his comment. So I think the Gadsden area has been prime for a convention for years. Back in high school, there was nothing like this in the area. And I think that's a big thing for people, too, because, you know, they want to they want to go to these things, but they might not be able to go to. They, you know, going to Birmingham is not as convenient or going to Atlanta or, you know, things like that. So there's a lot of people that's like, hey, this isn't, you know, I'm close to this. This is something I'm interested in. I want to go check it out. Yeah. Yeah. definitely well and a lot of conventions you know I'm I'm not as huge on them as I used to be although I I just checked in with the missus and I'll be coming to this one for sure because we're going to be able to come back up that way but um I think a lot of conventions just reach too far too fast and they try to do everything and everybody wants to be like I want to be like a little dragon con And I want to do everything. And it's like you don't realize how long it took Dragon Con and all the sacrifices and everything they had to do to get to that point, to get to that expectation. And it seems like what you guys do is you concentrate on what you know best. You're trying to grow, obviously, but, you know, cautious growth. And it's kind of appreciate that. If you can bring in some artists or some artist guests here and there, then that's good. But otherwise, come and see the vendors. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, first and foremost, vendors show. Terry owns the portable computer and variety. You probably know him, Ben. Yeah. But now I forgot what I was saying. Well, for the people who do come for guests, who do you guys have this year? We just added Sean Wise, which was Goberg in the Mighty Ducks movies, and he was in the Heavyweights movie. I'm kind of excited about that because when I was a kid, I loved the Mighty Ducks and all the movies, like The Sandlot and The Rookie of the Year and all that stuff. That's just my cup of tea there. And then we've got the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase. Yeah. you know, wrestling hall of famer. We have Leah Clark, which is a anime voice actor. She's, she's done several, several, several voice roles. She's our first one we're flying in. So yes, that's a test. And I know cons do it all the time, but it's new for us. Yeah. It's a lot that we just, that's what I was saying. We're, Being in Gaston, if we were in Birmingham, I guess it'd be a lot easier to pick them up and stuff. But, you know, flying in Birmingham is expensive. It's cheaper to fly into Atlanta, but then that's further away from us. Yeah. It's just a different ballgame flying in. And I know they do it all the time, but the other cons ain't charging five dollars to get in there. Right. You can just fly them in on one of those water boats. Yeah. We also have Alex Ogle. He's done art for Marvel, like toys. He's done some variant covers for Marvel. And then John Anderson, which y'all probably know. Everybody knows John. Yeah, we know John very well. Friend of the podcast, for sure. He's awesome. Old trick talking meat. So Adam, just a couple of comments to part of market saturation is a real thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, like I said, back in the mid two thousands, Gaston was the only place to card games that, that drive is rough every weekend and F N M. Uh, again, uh, he's also the, one of your guests, he was also on boy meets world. oh my god and ellen okay and then ben oh yeah met him at the flip super awesome family so he didn't recognize terry so the flip those are the card shows right yeah okay yeah I've been I used to collect cards a long time ago but not card games as we've talked about One thing, too, you were talking about the guest. Like you said, having a guest is sometimes key because it does draw people in to visit and bring them in. You're also talking about even the admission because One thing I feel is when you come to stuff like this, you want to come and be able to spend money. You don't want to spend all your money just trying to get in the door to go spend money. I think that's a real selling point, too. You exactly get it. That's exactly our mindset. Yeah. Or come into a con and spending all that money and then knowing that you're going to spend that money and go stand in the line for at least a third, if not a half of the time that you're there just to see one person or do one thing. I hear these guys all the time. And this is coming from someone who used to do just as many cons as these guys did. And we used to cons all the time and it's gotten to where I just kind of got burnt out with it because, you know, you know, Brock and Jess and, and even Bodo and extent on some of these, they'll go to cons and they'll come back and be like, yeah, we went to see so-and-so and man, it was, it was crazy. Cause we spent, you know, most of our time standing in the line for one person. And I'm like, I'm judgmental. I get it. I'm being judgmental here, but it's like you spent all that time. You paid the money. You spent all that time just to stand in a line. Tom Kenny. Andy Serkis. I get it, but at the same time, I don't. Are they doing the Alabama Comic Con at BJCC again? We have not heard the first thing about it. You know, the two guys who were running, they were running Alabama Comic Con. They had a split. And so one created Iron City, which was just at the end of May. And then usually by now we've heard about Alabama Comic Con, but not a peep this time. I vended there last year, and I'm not saying anything bad about any cons. If I vend somewhere, I like to like ten times my money. If it costs five hundred bucks, I would like to make at least five grand. Yeah, right. And there, I did okay, but most of the vendors didn't make their table. The celebrities, they were just sitting there on their phones. Nobody was in line. I mean... Yeah. It was a, that was one of the bigger cons I've done. And I just, it was odd to me. Gotcha. Yeah. Nothing bad. They put it on. Yeah. It was just, yeah. The vendors were disappointed. So yeah. Were there other like cons or something going on that day? I remember that being something about that. That's possible, but I just remember they sent me an invoice. I was like, yeah, I'll try this one. It was, I think it was four or six hundred. It was kind of expensive, but it was right. We did OK. We did enough. Yeah. But some people were hurting the what you sell to. Right. You know, this is how it goes sometimes. Yeah. But the celebrity just saying, like some of the big wrestlers just sitting there on their phone, it was just. That's what I had to fight with Wolf about all the time. They're on their phone, so. See, Brock, you should have went to that con and come up with it. We were at the last one. Yeah, we were there. Yeah, that's where Jason Baker. That's his last name. He does all the masks. He did the mask for Bray Wyatt and a bunch of wrestlers all the time. That's where Jessica walked up and schmoozed him and became friends with him on Facebook. That's right. Jessica's a little bit of a stalker. I'm not a stalker. I like to become friends with people. I like to talk to people. That's exactly what a stalker would say. Yeah. This is a man that probably has Cody Rhodes in his contact list on his phone. Okay. Well, I created this mask. I would hope so. That's right. You know, and you know, Rhea Ripley, he might could just call her up at any point in time. So I can call Ernie Hudson. I'm having a one, you know, I'm having that degree of separation from somebody. So, he also does like horror man's right yeah yeah he was uh uh the the one that um that's just come is it black phone I think it's name of it um anyway yeah he's done horror uh he's also worked with tom savini so yeah he's he worked on the terror fire stuff yeah so so um I'll let some out this makes derrick so mad but I really want to do a horror con and uh that was a time where I was like that he would be a cool guest to have at that oh yeah he's he's great yeah he does a lot of work you know with the wrestling and the horror and everything yeah yeah that'd be huge what sorry sorry go on no go ahead yeah I was just going to say that I was about to say it about the Alabama Comic-Con. If you do a con during football season in the South, it hurts attendance. Absolutely. A co-worker of mine got married the day of the Alabama-Tennessee game. I went to the game. I told her, I said, I'm sorry, I'm not coming to your wedding. We had a bad time. Well, and too, you know, I mean, sometimes, you know, your guests are kind of a niche group for people as well. You know, we don't, we're not, anime is not part of our wheelhouse, but I see huge draws from, for voiceovers and, and anime people. And you see, you know, their, their audience, you know, it's, you have to cater to specific audiences. I mean, like wrestling is a big, you know, draw for Brock and myself for guests, because that's just one of our things that we love so much. And, you know, as well as, you know, sci-fi and horror guests and stuff like that. So, but not everybody falls into those categories. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bucket list item for me to go meet Sergeant Slaughter at Toylana earlier this year. So coming up there and meeting Ted DiBiase, I'm going to bring a basketball, you know, see if he'll knock it away from me. Sergeant Slaughter is somebody we really want to bring in too. He's awesome. Yeah. He did so many, you know, with G.I. Joe and wrestling. Yeah, covers a lot of different areas in that collector's, you know, genre right there. And that's, like I said, yeah. Such a great guy, too. Yeah, he was fantastic, too. He does, he has good interactions with people. I haven't heard a lot of people say that they've ever had a bad interaction with him, so. And that's always good to hear when you line up guests, you know, you want to bring in people that, you know, your people that are paying to come see them, that they're going to get, you know, good experience for it too. Yeah. And speaking of GI Joe and, and throwing back to things like that, my, my love is vintage toys. So what, I'm assuming that when I get up there in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be able to find some good vintage toy dealers from you guys. I'm sure y'all know Sasquatch. Oh, yeah. We do. Beth will be set up. Yeah. I don't know if y'all know Kip. He's big around here. He, he has some of the best vintage toys. I just made a, I just made a post about Kip today. He, I just told him to send me some, you know, like the heavy hitters. He sent me some of the Ecto. I saw that post. I saw you let the cat out of the bag because I'd love to have that on the down low, you know? Yeah. Brock was like, Oh, there's a Lewis Tully. I don't want it. It's a healthy competition. When I'm buying that Lewis Tully, I don't want the competition. Yeah. Speaking of which Adam, thank you. Some people call it stalking. I prefer the term shy. Shane, I want to say Alabama comic is no longer a thing as our website is no longer around. Yeah. We noticed that. Yeah. That's never a good sign. Yeah. Back to the vintage toy discussion. Sorry. We hope to have good, you know, uh, this toy Atlanta back to toy Atlanta. That was first time I ever been a toy Atlanta. They were nice enough to let us kind of come and hand out flyers and do our thing to promote our show. I was blown away. Cause I'm a toy guy. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is insane. I even have a toy store and I was just blown away by all the toys, but we will have a good bit. I think, like I said, we want everybody that comes if you're a toy guy to come and be like, that was good. That was really good. You know? Yeah. We've been to shows in Birmingham where it's like, there's no toys at all. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I, I can appreciate as, as a former Funko pop collector, I can appreciate the people who still collect those, but, but, A little overdone. It lasted longer than Beanie Babies, okay? And it's still kind of going. I'm not the one that's going to be looking for Funko Pops anymore. I'm looking to offload them, actually. A lot of them. I've got so many of the current modern... Same thing. The modern NECA figures, things of that nature. I'm trying to find some of the older stuff now. Yeah. You know, and definitely things from my childhood. Yeah. That's pricey stuff now. Yeah, for sure. There are several really cool YouTube personalities coming out, too. Yep. Bite size. Oh, he misspelled it. Bite size geek. Oh, man. It gets everybody in. I mean, come on. It's YouTube. It could literally be that. That's right. yeah yeah his name's mark man he's a great guy and he's he he came to our first show and has just been so supportive since day one and he does everything he can for us he's he films at the con he's okay he shares almost everything he's he's been to my store and did a video at my store he's just been uh just so supportive and so we really really you know give all the shout out to mark as we can Big Dub's another guy that's coming. Big Dub, he's from the Atlanta area. And most of those are toy guys. Gotcha. Okay. Fantastic. We'll have video game YouTubers that'll be there. One of them set up, Retro Wolf. And Limestone Picker, he's out in the Limestone area. He deals in video games and VHS and stuff. We'll have vendor POVs from some of these guys and we'll have Buy our POVs. It'll be great. Looks like quite a few of us are going to be there now that I said that. I'm also going to be there. Who knows? We may hit you guys up to do a Bama Geeks episode there. We can do it live. I think the last time we did one live was actually for an anniversary of ours. You can definitely get together to do another one for sure. Brock can bring some good light for me. That's right. You can fix your camera. That's the next step is to make Wolf's camera set up. He's just going to clap you on the back and go, I think it's time for a new laptop. Okay. It's like it's been in a dirty lake. I don't know. That's all right. Well, to be honest, I forgot to plug Jess's webcam in earlier. And so her laptop camera was on there for a second. She's like, oh, no, no. I had to run across the room before we started streaming and get it for her. oh yeah we would love to to to do some stuff jess unfortunately is probably not going to be able to make it up there with me this time um her company chose that day to have a family fun day yeah about an hour in the other direction from birmingham so I am I am management so I don't have the option she's got to be there I have to be there as a good show of of management so Time for a two weeks notice. Wait, if I can sell all this stuff, you know, this right here behind me, this is the, the, the masters of the universe origins attorney. I just got to come. I don't have a place to set it. So it's just covered with the blanket and I'm using it as a shelf. Yeah. I'd love to have a family fun day at the con and because it's you know it's mine and adam's birthday my my kids are going to be with me so they're they're not into going to these shows and everything like I am but I think I'm going to be dragging them up there so I'll get to see just probably the latter half of my birthday but I I think I'm really leaning on going to gadston instead and Yeah. I told him, I was like, I'm obligated. You're not. So he went, I mean, you know, I said, I cannot deny you the opportunity to do what you love to do. I mean, I love to do it too. Go see, you know, vintage toys and collectibles and Ted DiBiase. So. She says this through gritted teeth. Have fun, sweetie. This is public acknowledgement, correct? That I have your blessing to go to Gadsden Collector Con. I told you the whole time, don't worry about me. You do what you want to do. Witnesses. Yeah. That's interesting. We're not the one who's going to have to hear about it in three months. That's fine. She'll fall asleep on the couch before she starts fussing at me. It's fine. Then she'll wake up and forget about it. That's great. This is one thing as a couple. This is Brock and I. This is something that we do together as a couple. We love to go to stuff like this. This is our thing. Jess and I met through our Alabama Ghostbusters group. Well, at DragonCon, yes. At DragonCon, yeah. We got engaged at DragonCon. Met at DragonCon. Got engaged later at DragonCon. Yep. That's awesome. Well, she could finish her job and then come and meet you at Top of the River. Dude, you know, that's what we need to do. We can coordinate. I mean, it's just a little more driving. I think my time commitment is twelve to two. So you got plenty of time. Is there still time to get from where, you know, where Big Al hangs out to Gadsden? So Take you about two hours, so that would be about four. You'd still have time at the con. Two hours at the con. Great segue. What are the hours that day? We're doing ten to six. We were nine to five. Oh, Dolly Parton. Leave it to Jess. I love Dolly. Sorry. I done lost my train of thought. They came in at six o'clock for us last time. Do us a favor. They said they're not coming in before seven. So the doors are going to be locked till seven. So I want to give the vendors three hours to get set up because we can't, they want us to pay double. Like we have to pay for another day if we set up the night before. So I just, everybody's calls to go up. So we just, we do the three hours. Most people can get set up in three hours. So we're doing, we're doing this time, we're doing ten to eleven is the VIP, which is just an hour early entry. You know, be the first one to get eyes on the stuff like that. Right. And then we stay open until six. Okay. And five to six, you know, if you just want to risk it, we're not going to be taking money at that time. So we ain't going to charge anybody for forty five minutes. Okay. And speaking of the price of admission, it's how much for VIPs and then how much for general? Ten dollars for VIP. You just get a fancy bracelet in an hour early. You know, you get to get all the deals. And then eleven o'clock starts five dollars. There goes our profits, baby. You've been obligated to pay for meals, it sounds like. I don't know this, Derek. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that is beyond affordable. That's awesome for you guys to do that and keep the cost like that for everybody. That's amazing. Some of us have U-Hauls full of stuff to set up. Yeah. If Eric has to pay for the stuff, then I think it's Jax. They got six dollar dinner deals. I'm covered at B-Dub. I got reward points for days. I can treat probably one or two people at B-Dub. It's fine. Well, that is fantastic. So how many people do you think you might have for this if you've been growing in numbers just over the last two shows? We just hope for what we had last time. We don't want to go down in attendance. The only competition, I'm not even going to say their name because I don't want nobody to know about it. It's in the state, but... I'll say it. I'll say it. Listen. So, so KamiCon was in Birmingham the same weekend as our February show. This time they're in Huntsville. Oh, okay. So I tell people this, KamiCon is Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You can go to KamiCon on Friday and Sunday. And then on Saturday you come to Gadsden Collective Con. So if you're an anime person, come meet Leah Clark on Saturday and go Friday and Sunday. There you go. KamiCon. And it's not that bad of a drive from Huntsville to Gaston. No, that's not bad at all. No, it's not. Yeah, about an hour and a half. That's all it is. Yeah. There you go. This cat's out of the bag now. Well, I mean, cat ears for everybody. Well, as hard and as heavily as they've been advertising on my Facebook feed, that other con, yeah, they've had some pretty aggressive advertising going on. Yeah, they got a little more. A little more cash than we do, but we definitely do a lot of Facebook advertising and in person. I hand out a lot of flyers at shows I go to. So we do our due diligence, but we're not marketing experts. Like, yeah, we don't know what we're doing with flyers and stuff. We just put it together. So, I mean, you know, in the good old days, you know, let your, let your, let your, how you run your show, word of mouth be the way to do it. I mean, you know. Yeah. If you build it, they will come, right? I mean, that's how Camecon started anyway. I mean, I remember when we went to one of the first Camecons, you know, that's, that's how they started. That was in Tuscaloosa. That was at the student center in Tuscaloosa. Yep. Yes. One of the first ones. And that was, it was a small con. They started out small and they just been, they just kept doing it. Yeah. That's cool. Yes, Mike, it is July twenty sixth. Yeah. I mean, you never know. it's like a, what they always say is you never know until you try. And, you know, you just, you can say you want to do something and do something and do something until you step out there and, and give it a go. You know, you just, it's a, and it's a blessing that it just keeps continue to, to grow. I mean, just your numbers that you were talking about. That's great. Yeah. It's truthfully what we do. We had to leave the place, but, uh, it's been really good. We, we put in the work. You can't just not do the work, but yeah, we definitely, uh, I've really enjoyed it. Yeah. It sounds like it. It really does. And we're only a year in, we're not ten years in. It's really great for you guys because you have a passion for this stuff. You know, so many, you know, a corporation could get involved to do a cash grab and dash and everything. But you guys have a genuine love for this. And I think that's why you're going to be successful for a long time to come. Yeah. It's fans. Yeah. fans doing, you know, fans and doing this and, you know, you have a love for it and everything. It's just, I think it's just a great fostering that relationship and stuff like that. So it means more. I think when, like I said, people who are fans of stuff, they, like I said, you put it a lot more hard into something like that. Like you said, it's your baby becomes your baby. So. Yeah. The guys that run, have y'all went to the, the rocket city? Yeah. Toy and Comic Expo? I did a couple years ago. I think they're fairly new. The two guys that run that, they're setting up at our show. They do a lot of toys. And I'm setting up at their show and I think it's September. Yeah. Yeah. We've seen, we have seen them talked about. Yeah. Like I said, Bo went up there and Brock and I haven't, we've seen it. We just hadn't had a chance to, for whatever reason, never didn't work out for us to make it up there to check it out. Yeah. I know which one you're talking about. That's a good one. Okay. But yeah, they'll be bringing a lot of good vintage toys too. Yeah. That's another good thing is meeting all the other con owners and business owners. It's been good making connections that way too. Yeah. It's good. You just build that network with, with each other. Yeah. So yeah, that's always good. Absolutely. Pays off for hopefully both people involved. Yeah. So in the, in the other times of the year, outside of the two, potentially three times a year that you'll hold a gas and collector gun. We need a vote. We need a vote. Um, what, uh, how can people find your businesses and like what hours and, and, and everything like that? I'll let Wolf do that. Okay. Wolfden Collectibles. We're on at four, ten Broad Street in Gaston, Alabama. We are open six days a week. Only day we're closed is Mondays. We're open Tuesday through Friday. Twelve to six. Saturdays, eleven to six. And then Sundays, one to five. And actually, if you come to the con, the store will be open that day. We kind of open on the con. I usually send my buddy over there probably about one o'clock to open. So one to probably one to seven on con day and we are literally not even a what do you think derek maybe a half a mile down the street over the bridge and so if you come into town please come by and check out wolf den collectibles uh because I'm probably not the best vendor I don't bring all my stuff and derek gets on to me all the time about what I need to bring and how I need to do it but My store will be open, so please come and check it out. Wolfden Collectibles, we're on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Gadsden Collector Con is on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Gadsden Collector Con has its own website, gadsdencollectorcon.com. I guess that's it. I don't have a brick and mortar. Like I said, I'm at Bama Flea Mall. I do a lot of online. I do all the vending and all that stuff, but I'm on Facebook, Instagram. I think that's it. I don't think we got anything else, but yeah, Katie's comics on there. And yeah, that's about it on that. All right. Okay. And I know you have a really good booth at the Bama Flame Mall, too. I've seen it several times. I've been there. Yeah. I appreciate it. I actually got to go there tomorrow and restock. And it's out next week, so yeah. And we also want to give – we've already mentioned it, but we want to talk about Terry's shop, too. Terry is Variety Computers and Game – no, Variety – Whoa. what's affordable computer. There you go. Affordable computer and variety. And he is on broad street also. Uh, he's on, I'm on the four hundred block. He's on the five hundred block. So we're just right down the street from each other. Yeah. He's like right, right next to the theater. Like, like, like, like right. The next block over is the theater where he's at. Yes. Yeah, Jefferson's and all that, yeah. Jefferson, yes. And also, I think I mentioned it. Also, if you come to the Con on Broad Street, right next to my shop, it's a store called Hobbies and Collectibles. It gets really crowded in there. He's been in business for thirty years, but he's got a lot of cool stuff in there. And then Gas and Sports Carts and Antiques will be open on Saturday also. So, Come check out the whole Broad Street. So, Brock, what they're saying is you're going to come, you're going to pay your money, you're going to go in here, and you're going to see all this, but you need to make sure that you warn the kids. You're going to drag them to these other stores, too, because you can't leave without going to Broad Street. That's right. You've got to go there. You've got to at least go to Wolf Den, all right? Of course. Yeah. We can definitely keep coming back different times of the year when the con's not going on too, for sure. I think a lot of people, when I go to Huntsville or we go out of state, I check out all the local shops. We leave an event. I try to always support any local comic shops and card shops and any of that. A really good place for, especially if you're on Facebook, a good place to talk to several people that Adam and And Bo and I are in there, the Alabama Toy Mercs Facebook group. You can get to know a lot of these wonderful people in there. I'm much more of a, this is where I am. I'm like, Jess, I'm kind of a stalker. I just, I kind of look, I kind of look, I don't post a whole lot in there, but I did get a t-shirt the other day. Alabama Toy Merc shirt, which I should have worn that tonight. I didn't think about it. Oh, well. They have been, when I opened my business, I started meeting a lot of those guys, but they've been super supportive of our con also. And we love all those guys there too. So yeah, thank you for shouting them out. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not even in that group. So Mike said finish up at Mater's Pizza? Yeah, Mater's Pizza. It's good. Okay. Just real quick. So Derek's not a toy guy, but we went to Toy Atlanta and he bought more toys than everybody. That's for me not to sell, okay? Yeah. That's funny. Oh, that's great. And the website for Gadsden Collector Con is GadsdenCollectorCon.com. We've got a link down below in the description. You can click on that and get all the info. And is everything cash at the door? Yes. Yes. Cash at the door. We have an ATM there on site that you can use. You know, vendors is, you know, everything's up to vendors what they accept. But cash at the door, make it easy. Yeah. Okay. we got to figure it out though for future but there's so much fees on those you know yeah that uh yeah I mean we're already paying sales tax so yeah you don't want the price of admission to go up yeah yeah to account for that so yeah yeah that's a screaming deal you guys have absolutely credit card companies it's overdue for them to figure out a better way to make their money than just charging fees honestly all their stuff Like we said, it's five dollars to get in unless you do VIP for ten. Free parking leaves you plenty of money to either spend with the vendors or catch one or two of the celebrities. Cash, PayPal, and Venmo. There you go. No cash app? God, man. Okay. I definitely want to get up there and, and get the VIP treatment, get in the door. Cause in checking out Adam's dioramas again, I want to, I want to have time to browse through them and see about getting one before, before everybody comes and buys them out. Yeah. You guys have to see these things that we follow him on, on Instagram and all that's amazing stuff. Yep. Awesome. I look forward to it, guys. This is my first one going. Yeah, same here. We're super excited. So we appreciate you guys for all this. Oh, this has been a blast. It's our pleasure, man. We appreciate you guys coming on here and looking forward to fostering this friendship and everything in the future. And anything that we can do to help support, we absolutely are happy to do that. Thank you. Yeah. I'll have the booth right by the door. Wolf's kind of around the corner. But yeah, it'd be good. It'd be good to meet y'all in person. So yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I saw a picture of you, Wolf, next to the big dragon that... Yes. Was it the Mythic Legions? Yeah. Maybe the Full Horseman? Yeah, Full Horseman. That dragon up at Toylanta was gorgeous. I think it was huge. Definitely. I was going to get it, but one of the downfalls of being a having your own shop is you spend a lot of money to get product in. And I went to go purchase it. My car was kind of maxed out at the time. So I didn't get the, I didn't get the dragon, unfortunately. But for horsemen, if you ever watch, maybe you could hook us up a little bit, right? Yeah. I heard you could save on shipping if you actually went to their, to their warehouse and picked it up. I think you've got to drive up the East coast. Yeah. I think, I think we've got a couple of friends from Atlanta that are going to make that drive to pick it up because the shipping on that thing was so much. Yeah. There was some discussion at Toylano about it, I believe. So working out a road trip up there to get it. Yeah. It's, it's, it was a sight for sure. It really was. Yeah. Gorgeous stuff. So. Okay. Well, we, we've been on here for about an hour or so, just over an hour and enjoyed the conversation. We hope we can have you guys back on in the future. Absolutely. Anytime. Yeah. Fantastic. We love that. And of course, as we mentioned down below in the description, you've got a link to GadsdenCollector.com. It's going to be July twenty sixth. So come say happy birthday to Adam and myself. Spend some great money. Enjoy a wonderful show. And I'm sorry, Jess, you're going to miss at least the first half of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to miss the first half. You can catch up with him when he's doing the crawl down Broad Street. Yeah. With a sack of toys behind me like Santa Claus. And an apology letter to you for spending that much. But anywhere that you want to find us on social media, we're at Bama Geeks everywhere. They changed the colors on us. Oh, yeah. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, StreamYard. Looks different. All right. BamaGeeks.com. StreamYard changed a whole bunch of stuff, and I didn't get a chance to play with it before we went live. It looks great. We're fine. Yeah. But again, if you're on Facebook, check out Alabama Toy Mercs. But while you're on there, check out the Bama Geeks front porch. That's where you can jump in with us and chat with us. And of course, thank you so much to our longtime patron supporters. Jamie and Mike and Darnay and Jack, they've been with us for the longest and we appreciate that support. And again, Gadsden Collector Con, July twenty sixth, Gadsden Collector Con dot com. And if you guys will when we when we end this, if you'll hang out just a little few minutes, don't go anywhere. We'd love to have a chat off the air with you just to thank you guys again for being on here. Mm hmm. Derek and Wolf, thank you guys so much for putting together such a wonderful show and for coming on here and spending some time with us. Thank you. We will be back in the near future. We might have some sort of scheduled jumbling to do for the next episode because the next episode falls on Weird Al Yankovic's going to be in Huntsville during the next live stream. I'm going to be there for sure. All of us are there. It's Weird Al, guys. Come on. We will not be live that night, but we may put together something that'll be a standalone video premiere or something for you, but we'll let you know. Just keep an eye on our social media channels. So for Wolf and Derek and for Jess and Bo and Kevin, I'm Brock. We're the Bama Geeks. And we thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks for the participation. And we'll see you July twenty sixth at Gaston Collector Con. Have a great night.