DSNX25 Recap

Hello dear reader!

Today I’m going to be taking you through my recap of Dragonsteel Nexus 2025.

Some notable differences were that last year I was on Indie Row and I had that spot for only one day. This year I went all in and got a 10x10 booth for the entire three days of the convention. Last year it was just the hubs and I. This year Phil, Dustin, myself and the hubs all went. Previous years I have stayed in hotel right across from the convention center, this year we got an Air B&N just a few blocks away.

As with previous years, I drove this year. I had to get a rental car because we were bringing so much stuff.

So much space…

My dear sweet husband, God bless him, wanted to bring A LOT of books. So we packed the car FULL.

In hind sight, we brought waaaay too many books. I think we packed over 300 books into the rental. We’re just not well known enough yet to be selling that many books in a weekend. But dream big and live and learn! Upon learning that you can ship you wares to the event host ahead of time, we decided it might be prudent to do that if we are able to attend this event in the future.

This was my third year at Dragonsteel and I have always been very fortunate with weather. This year, not so much.

Huge chunks of the drive looked like this.

Because I work a full time job in addition to writing, I don’t have a lot of flexibility in terms of taking leave, so we ended up having to leave the day the weather decided to get nasty. Huge chunks of our drive looked like the road above where we maxed out at about 45 MPH. What is normally an 8 hour drive from Denver to Salt Lake ended up taking us 12 hours. T_T It was definitely not the most fun drive I’ve ever taken.

We eventually made it safe and sound and that’s what matters. I was a little bummed that I missed Brandon’s walk through of the exhibitor area, but maybe I’ll catch him next year, as I will likely be planning the travel much differently if I get accepted as a vendor in 2026.

We got in fairly late but were able to get everything unloaded and set up the night before the convention opened.

Nick and I picked Dustin up on the way, and Phil flew in from TN the first day of the conference and so we all made it! Since the three of us all live in different states it’s not very often we get to hang out in person together, but here we are!

The calm before the storm.

The next three days were a whirlwind of awesomeness. We had SO much fun getting to talk to attendees. We sold books, we saw tons of amazing cosplay, we got to talk to other independent authors and other craftspeople, we got super inspired, Dustin lost his voice. I was so busy I forgot to take pictures. The whole thing was fantastic.

Dustin brought his chaimaille vest from when he used to be involved in SCA for an item on the table for people to interact with. Some of my favorite moments where when kids stopped by and got to try on the chainmaille.

Another really cool moment from the event where when we had someone stop by the booth and say “Oh, hey, you were here last year, I got everything last year, what’s new this year? I’ll take one of everything that’s new.” I was speechless, that was just such a neat interaction. Side tangent, it really doesn’t take much to make an author’s day.

For Dustin, he had someone buy book one of the Sellsword Saga, go home, read it that evening, (it’s a pretty short book) and then come back the next day and chat with him about it. What an amazing interaction! Dustin is normally a pretty reserved human, and it was so fun for me to watch him light up when he was talking to people. It was very much a highlight of the convention for me.

This gentleman read Dustin’s book and came back the next day to give him notes on it. How cool!

I tried to buy books and prints from as many authors and artists as I could, but I spent most of the time at the table, so I didn’t get around to every booth I wanted or to any of the panels or anything else because we were pretty busy. Which is a great problem to have! Hopefully next year Dustin and Phil will feel a bit more comfortable at the booth and we can be a bit more organized about taking shifts so we can get around to seeing and supporting other vendors.

All too soon it was time to pack up and go home. Happy, revitalized but exhausted and in much need of some introvert time, we headed for home.

Dragonsteel really is a very special convention. I think both the vendors and the attendees are just genuinely great people and everyone feels happy and excited to be there. The Dragonsteel staff are amazing and really go above and beyond to take care of both vendors and attendees. If you have a chance to attend this convention, I highly recommend it.

I’m really looking forward to going next year if we’re able to. Next week I’m going to post about all the biggest takeaways from the event.

Till then dear reader, enjoy your January! <3 Tiff