FLUKE 2024 Pre-Registration Opens January 13 BUT IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME

 Hi, friends. 

We're going to open pre-registration for FLUKE 2024 on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 10:00 am, but we're handling things a little differently this time around. 

Last time we opened registration, in January of 2023, exhibitor spaces sold out in less than 2 minutes. While it is exciting to us that people want to exhibit their work at FLUKE, this nearly instant sell-out is kind of stressful because it means that people have to be sitting next to their computer and refreshing the page like mad just to get a spot. 

For FLUKE 2024, we're going to try a lottery-style registration. It's a significant change in the way exhibitor tables are sold, but we think it might alleviate a little of the associated stress without FLUKE having to become a juried show (to be clear, we do not want to become a juried show).

Here's how this is going to work:

• In the past, we have sold 60 exhibitor spaces (one half of a 6-foot table) online. These are the spaces that sold out so quickly. In the past we usually have approximately 30 people on the waiting list after tables sell out. 
• On Saturday, January 13, 2024, we're going to make 100 "tickets" available on flukeathens.bigcartel.com for ONE DOLLAR each. People can only buy one ticket. If you buy more than one ticket, you will be removed from the lottery and will not have a chance to be a FLUKE 2024 exhibitor. 
• Each ticket purchased will be assigned a number, 00-99
• On Saturday, January 27, 2024 we will ROLL THE DICE (standard 10-sided percentile dice) and let them randomly choose 60 of the 100 entries.
• Those who are chosen by the dice will have 7 days to pay the $15 exhibitor fee. If someone does not pay their table fee within 7 days, we will ROLL THE DICE to determine who takes their place. 
• We're going to try to be really silly and live-stream the dice rolling, but that might not work out because as of today we don't know how to do that. 

THIS MIGHT NOT WORK, but we're going to try ti this time around to see if it alleviates the stress of instant sell-outs. There have been some questions about why we don't just find a bigger venue and there are three main reasons. The first is that we consider The 40 Watt Club our home. we like working with the people there, and moving FLUKE somewhere else would make it feel different. We like the way it feels now. The second is that we want to stay within easy walking distance of our main sponsor, Bizarro-Wuxtry. FLUKE would literally not exist without them, the best comic book store on the entire planet. Third, moving to another venue would increase (likely greatly increase) the cost associated with FLUKE. We don't make a profit from FLUKE, and we've been able to keep our financial situation at a delicately balanced "break even" point for 21 years because we aren't interested in making a profit. But moving to another venue would increase the costs to us and we would absolutely have to pass that increase on to the exhibitors and attendees. 

Mathematically-minded readers may see the above and think "wait... this seems like a way for FLUKE to raise an additional $100 through the sale of these 'tickets' and still charge the selected vendors the same amount." Good work, nerd. You're absolutely right. This little bit of extra money will be used to pay artists a little more to make poster designs for us, have some more stickers and buttons made, and maybe (depending on ongoing pandemic progress) have cake available at FLUKE once again. 

If you have any questions at all about any of this, please email Robert at secondperiod@gmail.com. He's ready to discuss it with you. 

Thanks for reading our silly plans. We hope to see you at FLUKE 2024 on March 30th at the 40 Watt Club!