So Vendors this year has been harder than other years. The thing is, this year we opened really early compared to previous years. So when we had to fill it in two weeks, now we have two months.

The vendor room is small. It has 18 spots. 18 spots means there will be a lot of demand for a small quantity of space. We can not make the vendors room bigger until we see a much larger population of attendees. Or 2017, whichever comes first (we said we wouldn’t for 5 years). So if we hit … I dunno, 3k or 4k, then we can justify a bigger room. I’m just pulling numbers out of the air for that, so I don’t really know what we need to hit.

I’m strongly considering making 2014 vendor area by invite only. This would mean we map out what vendors we want, let them know, and give them the option to attend or not. If we have extra spaces after x amount of time, then we open up to the old vendors for a time, then to the waiting list, then to the public after a while, as well.

I would not be stupid enough to say who I would invite or not invite openly, but it could be a thing.

The other option is to limit types of vendors but still make it first-come first-served. X spaces for this type, x spaces for that type…

I’ll discuss it with the vendor liaison and Nathan before making any decisions, but we have to do SOMETHING to ensure diversity in the room.