[behindthemask]

I haven't gone to many toy conventions, but I have been to play card/coin shows when I used to collect Hockey cards. Same type of principles apply though.

1) bring $$ lots of it, as much as you can afford to spend, if you know you can pay it back borrow extra because if you get there and find a rare item(s) and lack the funds, you'll be kicking yourself the entire ride home.

2) Remember who your dealing with, this ain't walmart these are guys and girls who know what the collector wants, what it's retail and collector value is, and be prepaired to pay mark up prices. You may find some great tables with granny selling off her son's toys for $$ and has no idea what she has, but on average it's people like you and me who bought the item are retail, kept it moc and is reselling to double their $$.

3) Haggle, just because there's a sticker price doesn't mean it's the final price, it's not like walmart where $9.99 is not negotiable. These people lugged this merchandise took the time and effort to set it up, their goal is to sell as much stuff as possible to have as little clean up and effort to put back dragging the unsold stuff back home to sit to the next convention. There's tactics to apply, 1 is know what you want, make a list of what you want more then anything, then sub list, etc basically you need to know exactly what you want to add to your collection a rough idea what you want to pay and go from there. You can easily get side tracted and spend excess $$ elsewhere ie drinks,food, souveniors, etc. Aside from that, bulk deals usually work best, " sell me this for $10 and I'll pay full price on this guy, or what's your best price for all 5-6. SHOP AROUND!!! if you can get there early so you have time to get a good look around, last thing you want is to blow all your $$ at the first table and see some unbelievable stuff going for cheap at the last table. Pokerface, you see something rare and underpriced, shut the fuck up, give them the $$ and walk, now breathe! Your eyes buldge out of your head and drool comes from your mouth that Iron Man figure just doubled.

So to recap, bring lots of $$, check out all the tables before committing big bucks, haggle and barter with pricing as best you can, when applicable buy more as you save more, lay off vender food and stupid ass merchandise, have a game plan of what you want to add, what it's worth, and have back ups, because if you go in there looking soley for 1 figure and don't find it you'll get pissed off and forget about all the other awesome stuff around you to substitue your $$ with. Hope this helps, take pics of the convention if u can, and your haul afterwards! Have fun!