RECAP: Panic at the Plaza

On September 10, BryonySeries participated in the annual "Panic at the Plaza" event in downtown Joliet, and here is our recap.

To our surprise, sales were very low (zero books and just a couple ribbits for Cindy), which never, ever happened at previous "Panics," even the year when we and The Raven's House and were the only vendors, and we were placed next to the construction on Chicago Street.

Now, Cindy was asked to make one hundred small gnomes to cell at the 50th "Festival of Gnones" on December 5 and December 6 at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park and Theatre in Joliet.

And BryonySeries was asked to come out with our books, too.

But why no sales? And was the event worth it without sales?

Naturally, I could blame the economy. Money is tight, and people are hanging onto it.

However, the likely reason for poor sales was that vendors on our end of the plaza received few general public visitors (I can't comment on the other side).

Still, we enjoyed the ambience, much of it due to Deanna (our newest team member), who came out with her trunk full of magical Halloween decorations and added some of hers to some of ours. So do scroll through our photos at the end of the prose!

We handed out cards and chatted to the few people who stopped.

We distributed coupons for Jody's Hot Dogs, one of WriteOn Joliet's Kids Fest sponsors (Kids Fest was canceled twice due to weather), since those coupons expired on Halloween.

Of course, Uncle Barty and Bertrand the Mouse loved dressing up as bat mittens!

Now here's the story that made the entire night worth it.

At the event's conclusion, a young man approached the booth and asked if I remembered him as he browsed through our products.

Of course I did! He had come out on purpose to an open mic poetry night in April 2025 at Bicentennial Park.

He knew about the event because I had given it a shoutout on Critical Grind Board Game Cafe's podcast, he came out on my recommendation.

He was also planning to attend WriteOn Joliet's "We Can Be Heroes" radio play and couldn't at the last minute. And he even messaged me through the WriteOn Joliet Facebook page to say he couldn't.

So, yes, I definitely remembered him.

As he browsed through the books, flipping through some pages here and there, I asked him what he liked to read. 

Now while I didn't have anything that fit his exact description (it was very, very niche), I selected a copy of "Staked!" and handed it to him because the overall mood (I felt) picked up some of the moods in the themes he liked.

He asked, "How much?"

I said, "It's a gift."

He insisted on paying for it.

I insisted otherwise.

He gave me a hug (asking first) and happily took the book home.

The BryonySeries tagline is "a better reading experience."

And while the "experience" part begins with a book's idea, it doesn't end with the book's execution.

Just like we don't measure the value or impact of an event only by sales.