Today’s question is…
How do you transport so many costumes to a convention?
This is a question I get a lot, especially when people see me bringing like 12-14 costumes to a convention like Dragoncon!
Transporting Costumes when Flying
I rarely fly to conventions anymore, but back in the day I flew a lot. My first few conventions I had my costumes in my suitcase, but after one or two trips like that, I switched to shipping my costumes. I’ve used both UPS and Fedex, both times insured. It can be pricey, but for me it was worth not having to deal with getting my costumes into my suitcase and safely through airport security.
Shipping Your Costumes
If you’re shipping your costumes to a convention, number 1 is make sure you have a sturdy box. If it’s a good box but I feel like the sides are a little flimsy, I’ll put in extra cardboard inserts on the bottom, sides, and top. All of my costumes are bagged, in case something leaks on the box. Every single item goes in a ziplock bag, and, if possible, all the air squeezed out (like a mini space bag) to make extra room. Then I use bubble wrap or packing paper as padding. I’ve also used scrap fabric before, and newspaper. There have been times I’ve made foam inserts that fit around my props to keep them safe.
Call ahead to your hotel to get their policy on receiving and shipping out packages. Most hotels do this as a courtesy, but occasionally they’ll charge you for it. One year the Marriott in Atlanta try to slip in a $25 receiving fee when they never had before. I asked them about it, asked if that was the new policy, and they took it off the bill. I always took a pre-paid return slip with me, so I didn’t have to have the hotel ship it for me (that would cost you), all they had to do was hand it off to Fedex or UPS next shipping day.
(This is the only known photo of one of my shipped costume boxes, there in the corner. I never thought I’d need a photo of a box.)
Make sure you get tracking numbers on everything. I once shipped 2 boxes to a hotel, and when I called down to the desk to ask for them, they only brought up one and claimed that’s all they had. That morning I’d checked to make sure they’d been delivered and printed out the confirmation with the signature – I pulled that out and showed it to them. They had the second box in my room within 10 minutes.
If you’re leaving on a Sunday, most nice hotels don’t mind holding the box for you til they can ship out Monday. I have had a couple though that wouldn’t, either claimed their shipping department wasn’t open that day so they couldn’t take it, or just flat out refused to hand it over to UPS/Fedex for me. In that case, you’re stuck finding a Kinkos or somewhere that will take it. A lot of larger convention centers and convention-based hotels will have shipping locations nearby, if not right there inside the convention center/hotel. Just ask the concierge. Make sure you’ve planned all this out in advance – ask when you check in. You don’t want to be scrambling to figure out where to drop your box off when you’re trying to get to your flight.
Air Travel
If you don’t want to go through that rigamarole (which I don’t anymore!), you can carry your costumes with you. I never put my costumes in my checked luggage, and I never travel with anything that could be questionable.
If you’re going to travel with something security might question (and keep in mind, that’s a broad spectrum of props and costume pieces!), print out a photo of your costume and include it in your checked baggage, right on top, with a note explaining that it is a costume/prop. If you’re carrying it on with you, it helps to do the same – keep a photo, and seriously don’t try to carry on anything that looks remotely like a weapon. You don’t want that hassle.
Most recently we flew to Chicago for C2E2 and I chose 3 costumes that would not have any props or pieces that would raise questions in an airport, and carried all 3 in a carry-on bag that stayed with me on the plane. (Again, I put everything in ziplock bags, squeezed the air out, and managed to stuff everything into a tiny bag. It was actually pretty impressive if I do say so myself).
Transporting costumes when driving
So if you’re not flying that makes things a TON easier.
The way we usually pack for a convention we’re driving to – which is most of them – is pretty simple and straightforward: shove it in the car and go, haha.
We have multiple rubber storage bins. Some are huge, some are small. Depending on how many costumes I’m taking depends on which size bin I use. For Dragoncon, it’s always a big bin. My favourite is a big one with wheels, that I’ve decorated with Star Wars and Disney stickers 🙂
To pack this sucker up, I start out by make a packing list. I separate it by costume, and then put generic things (makeup, tights, wig caps, etc) in a separate list. As I put these things in the bin, I mark them off. I love marking things off lists.
Again, I put everything in baggies. The ziplock bags I use are 12×15, so they can fit quite a bit in them – I can fit all of Ms Marvel except the shoes in one of these bags. Fold up any clothing, put it in the ziplock bag, squeeze the air out. I also put shoes and simple props in bags, so they don’t get scuffed. Anything too large for the ziplock bag gets put in a trash bag (which will double as an actual trash bag once we’re in the hotel room! Those tiny garbage cans they put in hotel rooms are useless.)
(Here’s Fionna and Donna Noble all packed up and ready for the bin)
Dresses or things I don’t want to get wrinkled I put in a garment bag. Sometimes I will lay this flat on the very top of everything in the bin if it fits, but more often than not, I don’t do that, just carry it separately.
Delicate props and styled wigs get their own box. I usually take a 16×16 cardboard box with foam insert at the bottom for wig heads.
I take a piece of foam (like the furniture foam you can get at Joann or Hancock Fabrics), and cut it down so it fits snugly in the bottom of the box. I take my wighead and trace around the bottom with a marker onto the foam, and then cut that section out of the foam, creating a perfect little hole for the wighead to fit in. It’s pretty secure once everything is in and packed up. I’ll usually toss a bag over the wig/wighead before I start putting other stuff around it – I usually carry any other delicate props in this box as well.
This is the box I grab as soon as we get to the hotel and carry, or at least make sure the bellhop knows to put it on top of anything else since it’s delicate. (You’d be surprised at how many people see the words “FRAGILE” “THIS END UP” “BE CAREFUL” written all over a box and completely ignore it.)
Anyway, here’s my bin once you start putting things in it:
I can fit a lot of costumes in this thing – this year I expect to get 8 of my costumes in there, with accessories for other 4.
Loading the car up with the bins, boxes, garment bags, back-packs and makeup bins is like playing Tetris. Dragoncon is always the worst, because it’s me bringing around 12 costumes, Chase bringing a couple of costumes, regular clothes, a cooler, K-9, and who knows what else.
Whichever way you get to the con, I always take time to set everything out once we’re in the room. I hang up things that need to de-wrinkle, and go ahead and iron anything that I know won’t de-wrinkle in time for me to wear it. One trick I’ve used several times is, if someone is taking a shower, hang your item up in the bathroom and let the steam from the shower work the wrinkles out. If it’s super wrinkled it’s not going to get them all out, but it does help a bit!
(And bring your own iron if you don’t trust the hotel’s. I had hotel’s iron malfunction on me once and melt part of a skirt.)
Packing it back up is never as fun. I don’t use a list, I don’t use bags, I don’t really care at that point, haha. The careful, beautiful packing I did a few days beforehand is now a bunch of costume pieces shoved into a bin and thrown in the car, not to be looked at again for another month.
