Pinny Arcade event etiquette?

ArcadiaExeter

I have a question i want to pose to those of us that will be at a Pax and how you would feel about this.

I have a boy scout style sash i wear that has my pins on it. it started out as part of a Lookouts cosplay last year and turned into an every year way of showing off my pins. currently i have every pin i own on it, ones that i want to trade and ones that i do not want to trade. also some of the pins are not Pinny Arcade pins.

so im wondering, do you think its misleading for me to have pins showing that i do not want to trade? I just wonder if people will see it as rude that im showing off pins that i have no intention of trading. but then again id give up any pin if the offer was good enough.

Thoughts?

PedroAsani

Wearing them is totally fine, etiquette-wise. I'm certain that more than a few peope traded for Pins and they went right on their lanyards, no problems. Anyone who gives you grief about doing so is breaking Wheatons Law, and should probably suffer Wheaton's Vicious Cock Punch of Furious Anger, with suitable gender alterations for those to whom it applies.

I'd just take a second to remind both you and everyone to Buy Locking Backs For Your Pins. Losing a prized Pin at a convention means at best you have to search folds in your clothing, at worst it is gone forever or found stuck in the bottom of your shoe, the surface dragged along the ground for hours.

Beker

Personally I only wear ones i'm very willing to trade, but thats more because I don't like telling people "no" when they ask if ill trade a pin. But I agree with pedro that its fine if you want to wear them, I think lots of people will be.

Ayefkay

I would only put trade pins on a lanyard, not too many as i would always worry about losing them or them dropping off. Was also thinking to just wear an empty lanyard to show i am up for trading, and then carry pins in a bag or something

TheAggroCraig

At Prime I had every pin I owned that wasn't a duplicate on my lanyard, since then however I have way too many pins for the lanyard so I'm contemplating what to do.

I love showing off the rare ones I have (at the time it was just the East logo and Aus Kemper), but now I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

I'm also expecting the BCEC to implement a bag check this year, considering the whole Boston Marathon thing, since they did that for Anime Boston back in May, but we'll see. I'd rather not have to go through a bag check line every day so I may have to keep the majority of my pins on lanyards to deal with less bullshit.

PedroAsani

Ayefkay wrote: »

I would only put trade pins on a lanyard, not too many as i would always worry about losing them or them dropping off. Was also thinking to just wear an empty lanyard to show i am up for trading, and then carry pins in a bag or something

This is also my preferred method.

grgemonkey

I think we can get our friendly designer to whip up some print at home badges that represent "Available For Trade"/"Just showing my sweet pins" that you can wear along side your pins.

For me I always thought it'd be good if PA released these as lanyard types, a vibrant green one and a vibrant red one or something of the sort, so you can tell just by a glance. I do like to display pins at PAX because it promotes conversation and you meet a lot of nice people, there's still a tonne of people who don't really know about Pinny and they might not spot something they like if I'm not wearing a bunch of the cooler pins (which I'm less likely to have spares for trade).

ArcadiaExeter

personally i never liked the lanyard idea. i know this is how they do it at Disney but personally i would never fill one with pins. The sash thing seems to work really well though. i'm glad my cosplay fell through so i could use it for this lol

Ayefkay

PedroAsani wrote: »

Ayefkay wrote: »

I would only put trade pins on a lanyard, not too many as i would always worry about losing them or them dropping off. Was also thinking to just wear an empty lanyard to show i am up for trading, and then carry pins in a bag or something

This is also my preferred method.

Call me pedantic, I would just be constantly checking the lanyard to make sure nothing dropped off.

I think thats a good idea about different coloured lanyards signifying whether you're there because you want or need something. Or badges that say "Hi i'm Ayefkay and i need X, and i have Y"

PedroAsani

Ayefkay wrote: »

PedroAsani wrote: »

Ayefkay wrote: »

I would only put trade pins on a lanyard, not too many as i would always worry about losing them or them dropping off. Was also thinking to just wear an empty lanyard to show i am up for trading, and then carry pins in a bag or something

This is also my preferred method.

Call me pedantic, I would just be constantly checking the lanyard to make sure nothing dropped off.

I think thats a good idea about different coloured lanyards signifying whether you're there because you want or need something. Or badges that say "Hi i'm Ayefkay and i need X, and i have Y"

Well I used the bag method for two reasons: one, I would hate to lose a Pin. Two, I am usually carrying about 100 of the things and so lanyard isn't a feasible method. Hopefully when they bring out branded bags they will be easily spotted, moreso than an empty lanyard which at a convention could just be a badge carrier.

TheAggroCraig

I was hoping around PAX someone might make up some Pin Pals business cards where we can put our usernames on them or something, partly to help spread word of the site and partly to reach out if we don't have pins on us at the time or something.

Ayefkay

Or when they release the binders i think that would be a good method, big enough to be easily spotted, and easy to carry.

gn0x

PedroAsani wrote: »

I'd just take a second to remind both you and everyone to Buy Locking Backs For Your Pins. Losing a prized Pin at a convention means at best you have to search folds in your clothing, at worst it is gone forever or found stuck in the bottom of your shoe, the surface dragged along the ground for hours.

I had purchased the PAXEast set while I was there. I put the pins on my bag, and the EAST Logo and EAST Kemper fell off, never to be seen again. When it happened, I wasn't quite sure how well this whole Pinny Arcade thing was going to take off... So I was more glad my Gabe and Tycho were safe versus the logo/kemper. Now, especially how the EAST pins and AUS pins are (rarity-wise), I'm finding it harder to find people willing to trade. While I'm hopeful I can rebuild the EAST set, it would have been much, MUCH better to just not have had to lose them in the first place. Looking forward to using the locking pin backs...

timebeing

At prime I had them all on my lanyard (it got heavy). But i would put keepers on one side and traders on the the other. That being said I would traded some keepers for things I really wanted. But there were a lot fewer pins back then.

I think next year I'll wear some trades on my lanyard and maybe get a binder or something. Wearing them helped since people would come up to me and ask if i wanted to trade, which got me a couple of extras I wanted.

Clix

Personally, I wouldn't wear pins that I'm not willing to trade around PAX. You're going to get trade offers that you don't want, plus you take the risk of your pins getting stolen (happened to an unfortunate attendee at Prime).