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If you've ever wished you could walk into the library dressed as your favorite superhero, wizard, villain, or oddly specific side character from a 1980s cartoon, Sayville Fan Fest is the day you have been waiting for!
In a much, much smaller style than Comic Con, for the fifth year in a row, our library transforms from a peaceful haven of books and quiet study into a full-blown celebration of pop culture, fandom, and creative chaos (the good kind). This year, the theme is Mario, and we will have RC car racing for the first time! We will also have a newly expanded retro arcade set up in one of our larger rooms, a board game expo, a gaming bus, a scavenger hunt, and much more!
This is the second year I have run a staff yard sale at the event, with all proceeds going to the Friends of Sayville Library. Last year was the first year I did it, and I took all donations from co-workers to see what would sell and what wouldn't. Well, a lot didn't sell lol, but we did make $130! This year, I changed things a bit and collected donations only for pop culture. Think Marvel/DC, Legos, Star Wars —basically anything with a fandom. As I write this, I have a ton of donations behind my desk, including board games, puzzles, plushies, Funko Pops, tote bags, books, DVDs, decor, and comic books, all ready to sell. I have everything sorted into bins by price: everything on this table is $2, everything on this table is $3, and so on. I would like to make more than $150 this year. We also finally got the Friends group set up with Zelle, so I am hoping we get more money that way, purely because if people don't have cash on them, they will still be able to buy things.
We promote this event on Facebook and Instagram, in our newsletter, and through signage throughout the library. During the event, we will be posting live updates through pics and Instagram stories. It really is a fun event, and this is coming from someone who is not a comic con type of person. I highly recommend that your library host an event like this; it is so much fun to set up and promote, and patrons really enjoy it, as does the staff!
Hi Rachel, thanks for the inspiration! As a comic con fan, I would love to implement a program like this in my library. In my Resources for Young Adults class, we have to come up with a final program proposal and someone proposed an interactive cosplay workshop that could be part of a series and done in the weeks before a library con. I think the con is a great idea, and libraries can really get creative with the programs leading up to it as well. Rather than doing everything on the day of, you can host things like cosplay workshops and fan clubs to get a read on what's popular and what should be included. It sounds like a ton of work, but well worth it!
ReplyDeleteThis is so fun! And seems like a great way to advertise the event on your socials! I also love the yard sale idea, especially making it themed around the con's overarching theme. I hope you guys have a great turn out! I know the Middle Country Library does a kind of craft sale that highlights women-owned businesses and organizations. I love that libraries are really trying to have these big events to get people excited about visiting their library. We don't have a particularly large community, library, or budget, but we do periodic events that tend to draw larger crowds, like our scarecrow festival and gingerbread house decorating day. I bet we would be able to pull off something larger if we had better social marketing..
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