Free Comic Book Day 2025 Wrap Up
Looking back on our biggest day of the year
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our Free Comic Book Day Primer, featuring everything you need to know about the annual event. See also the write-ups on FCBD 2023 and FCBD 2024.
Free Comic Book Day is quite literally our biggest day of the year. Biggest in sales. Biggest in attendance. Biggest in love. Biggest in stress. This year was no exception.
Logistics & Challenges
Running 3 Locations
This year we had not only the usual staffing crunch for Free Comic Book Day, but also the Superstar Comic Con in town. The show runner, Mike, was very kind and let us know many months in advance about the conflict and worked with us to mitigate the impact. The Clubhouse was also open normal hours. So our team was pretty spread out. Which lead us to the need for…
Volunteers
We always have volunteers for FCBD, but this year, we upped the number from 4-5 to 10. Many of these volunteers were new to the store and on the younger side, so hopefully we’ll keep them around a few years. As with any new team members, there’s a bit of camaraderie building and training to do. But they were a smart group and a big help. Also, our cosplayers were amazing this year!
Media/Marketing
In the past, a press release was all we needed to get advance and day-of television coverage on all three networks, plus newspaper and alt-weekly pushes. This year it was… decidedly less. Two TV stations used B-roll video I provided or footage from previous years. No press was there on the day of the event. We always do our own marketing with posters, flyers and email blasts along with a torrent of social media posts.
Distributor Woes
Diamond Comics Distributors is the owner of Free Comic Book Day as a brand. They field for bankruptcy earlier this year and the future of the nationwide FCBD push is in jeopardy. That uncertainty caused many smaller publishers to cancel their FCBD books without a reliable warehouse and delivery mechanism.
Shipment Timing
Shipments for Free Comic Book Day came from 3 different distributors and dripped over multiple months. So the storage, cataloging and preparation was an extra hassle this year.
Being a Good Neighbor
We always warn our neighbors that FCBD may be a hassle for them. There are the lines, the extra bodies and stressors on our facilities, including the bathroom, which we do not maintain. That was a special pain point this year as the plumbing wasn’t designed for the influx of people. That caused a ton of added stress for all involved.
Our Size
Our retail footprint is only 900 sq. ft. We needed to throttle the customer flow into the store to maintain positive experiences for all customers. Having the cosplayers and photo ops outside helped by giving visitors something to do while waiting for the store to churn through.
The Results
Our gross revenue was down 5% from 2024’s Free Comic Book Day, making this event our second biggest sales day in our six-year history. Despite being down, the day was still up 35% over two years ago. The average spend per person ended up being a little over $10 which was short of our goal. We had 300 people in the first hour, which was a huge rush. The team did a great job with line management and store flow.
Andrew MacLean
Andrew MacLean was an amazing guest. Because of the added events of the weekend, I decided to focus on a single creator for the day. Not only was he the perfect artist stylistically to visit our community, he was also kind and patient. His wife Erin and pup Lola only added to his excellent visit.
Pros Dinner
On Sunday night we hosted a catered “pros” dinner at the shop with Andrew and many of our local comic creators. It was a great chance to network and exhale after a busy few days. I hope we’re able to do this going forward as it was a ton of fun and had great reviews from guests.
Obligatory Photo Montage
Huge thanks to Sarah and our friends and volunteers for snapping some pics!