Thanks Chris! Sorry for the late reply. It's all great and really helpful/dead-on advise.

They really need to have a memo like this on all of the convention sites for the artist to look over before going to any event. It'd really help out a ton of people.

Fortunately or unfortunately however you wanna look at it, I also fall under that same category of being more business-minded than artistic. As a result the last couple of shows I attended(just as a spectator), I walked around taking notes and reverse-engineering the whole thing to figure out what works and what doesn't.

I had also enlisted 2 of my friends for the event to act as like "carnival barkers" to greet people, give away handouts and let people know what I was selling. I was standing for basically all 3 days doing this as well which was wonderful because it meant there was always someone at the table looking over the prints, or talking with one of us, or buying things. (Downside was I didn't even get a chance to have restroom break all day Sunday.) It really helped as well having the extra hands and additional sales people, that way if I was signing(was kind of shocked to find out everyone wanted their items signed including the large free postcards we were giving away.) someone else was still greeting people and the other would be selling people on additional prints. As result we didn't have any actual downtime.

I'm always shocked at how soooooo many artists are spending all of their time with their heads down doing commissions/sketches during the actual show, and never even looking up to great people who walk up to their table. Really off-putting to any potential customer or fan.
On the flip-side you have some artists that are smiling and talking with fans while signing/sketching and having like their friend or spouse helping out with sales. With sketches, I kind of knew from the start, only do them if your at your publisher's table and they've set some time aside for you to do just that. Otherwise just have them contact you afterwards through your site and set it up that way as more of a simple commission. Trying to do that at a show with everything else that's going on is just too much to try and juggle all at once.

Giveaways or samples* Having fun non-offensive small handouts(or in my case 6x11 double-sided high-gloss full color postcards)was a great way to constantly introduce ones' self and entice people to come over to look at what you have for sale. And the higher quality it is, the more people enjoy getting it for free.

And yes, take some business classes or at least speak with a CPA to find out all the legal requirements/taxes you need to know about/address before jumping into something like this. I know at least for the Comic-Con organization you have to provide them with BOE forms and sellers permit so at least that gives some people a heads up on "Hey you might have to pay some taxes on this."

Thanks again for all the great info Chris, and best of luck to you at any and all the shows you've got coming up.

By the way, great work on your Fallen cover you did with David!