ITAI Behind the Scenes

How was Yumicon? Exhausting. Fun. Long.

The night before the con started I was up till 2 am ironing dust bags and logos. I spent the entire week treating fabric in the shower. I wish I had gotten pictures. I had hung up as many bags as I could fit on clothes hangers and hung them from the shower curtain rod. And then I treated more bags and hung them up on Jack’s shower curtain rod.

The day before I had also gone to Office Dept and printed out a sign for our table.

In my opinion, the sign turned out great for being done during my lunch break.

I didn’t get to see a lot. Only a bit of the Indian dancing and Hula. I DID manage to get food though. Though I got chilli sauce all over everything.

We were lucky enough for the dragon to come past our booth.

Jack conviced me that ITAI should buy a wagon to help with moving all of our stuff after the 1st day nearly left me crying.

This was probably the greatest purchase our business has ever made. Up until now we had caried everything box by box across wherever we were vending. It would take minimum 30 minutes to even get to the elevator of the mall. With the wagon we got everything moved to our booth and set up in less than 15 minutes. We had gotten so fast at setting up since we took so much time just crying things to our booth that combined with the wagon that we were the definition of speed. Or at least it felt like it.

We had a selfie challenge finishing up this weekend. With people posing with our product in front of our grass selfie wall. We kept telling people, but soooo many people would take the photos and then forget to tag us.

We haven’t sold any bags yet at markets and cons. We do sell accessories I’ve made, such as decoden keychains and rosettes, but none of the bags have sold.

The ITAI Ita bags are my pride and joy. I spent so long designing and treating fabrics and paying attention to details and testing the bags out. In my opinion that are super cute and functional. I want to design bags so badly. I’m not sure if it’s the bags or where I am trying to sell them. People would come by my booth and tell me how cool they were, but then would say they don’t need another Ita bag or they were already planning on buying a different Ita bag.

“But my bags are 100% canvas and durable! I treat all the fabric to be water resistant!” I want to shout at them when they tell me about the amazon bag they are going to buy. I shouldn’t hate on Amazon bags. But I do. That was the whole reason I started ITAI. I got tired of cheep bags online falling apart after 6 months.

People do like the accessories I make though. Which gives me confidence.

After the con I cried in my apartment for half an hour I was so worn out. It was great though. I’m so glad we did it.

Our next event I will make sure to take more pictures.

-A. ITAI