Who went to Zine Dream in Toronto in August?

[Serah-Marie]

How was it? were there a lot of people? Did you do well if you tabled? I'm sorry I missed it and I was wondering what everyone thought...

[amy // twelveohtwo]

i was there -- tabling just with some flyers for my distro.

it seemed well attended. it also seemed that most of the traffic was in the main room and the front room where the music and performances were. to be honest, i felt that the event was more of an art show with music performances than a zine fair. the large/main room had djs and the music was so loud that it was difficult to speak to tablers. there were a lot of zines of drawings that were being sold for $3+ dollars (im talking heres my photocopied drawings folded and stapled in zine format). i felt that the organizers could have been more friendly (read: introduced themselves/spoken to/acknowledged) to tablers who werent already friends of theirs.

dont get me wrong, i give mad props to laura and jesjit for putting it together -- it was no doubt a load of work! and i had a fun time hanging out with zine pals new and old but it was definitely not what i had expected it to be. it made me really miss Stacy Case's 'cut and paste' zine fairs of the early 2000's.

[Samantha Trees]

I went. I was that huge dork going around with a huge wooden box asking for zine donations for the calgary zine library. I thought it was pretty good, and really appreciated all the awesome donation I got. However, I agree with Amy that it was REALLY art focused, there were VERY few personal zines, and probably 2 political zines in the whole fair. I would have liked there to be some workshops, or more highlighting of that fact that there is a ZINE LIBRARY in the same building. But I also am not from toronto and am gonna shut up. I was very happy to attend.

[Maranda Elizabeth]

I tabled at Zine Dream and had a good time because I got to hang out with a couple of my zinester friends who I don't get to see too often, but I agree that it wasn't what I was expecting. There was just not much excitement, and I wasn't too impressed with pricey zines of photocopied drawings. I can appreciate them, of course, but I LOVE WORDS and perzines, etc. I think zine fairs are a little awkward, really, I mean, it's pretty uncomfortable and feels kind of rude to flip through people's zines while the writers are right in front of you, and I also feel weird when people look at my zines in front of me, or skip my table altogether when they have just been looking at my sister's and friends zines who are right beside me. But I continue to attend the fairs, and I did alright, I guess. Plus I had delicious pizza and a knitting project to work on.