Behind the Scenes at a Book Conference

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a large book conference? I was honored to be part of the local committee for Left Coast Crime 2023: Trouble in Tucson. Tucson Sisters in Crime wanted to help with the conference and we divvied up the various tasks, both before and during the conference. Fortunately, there weren’t any after-the-conference needs because we were exhausted! Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at everything we did to get ready for the book conference. 

There are a Lot of Books

One of the tasks the locals take on was providing a site for all the materials to be sent to and collected. Often, storage facilities are used, but I offered up my garage. It turned out not to be much of a sacrifice since I had to have my car’s transmission rebuilt during that period, so the garage was empty. I was glad I didn’t go with a different storage site since I had to move each box that came.

I was impressed (and relieved) that the publishers sent reasonably sized boxes since books can be very weighty. None were too heavy for me to pick up and move into the safety of my garage.

All of the delivered books are ready for the conference. Most of the delivery drivers very nicely placed the boxes back by the garage, so all I had to do was carry or drag them to the pile. The only boxes delivered to my front door, unfortunately, were the incredibly heavy ones that contained the conference booklets! I had to use a dolly to haul them to the back of the house.

And More Books!

A great group of Tucson people arrived to move the boxes to the resort on our designated day and time. When I volunteered, I thought my Ram 3500 truck would be big enough to transport all the boxes to the conference site. I was wrong. Fortunately, the helpers had brought their trucks and cars and we crammed the books in. In total, we needed four trucks and SUVs to get this box pile to the resort.

We were able to transport the entire box pile in one trip. Of course, once at the hotel, we had to unload the boxes and haul them through a banquet room to get them to the conference rooms. All the boxes were subsequently unpacked and arranged into meeting bags along with those incredibly heavy booklets.

I was delighted to have my garage available for my car again. The repairs on it were completed the day before the conference.

Many people commented on the volume of boxes for the conference. I proudly stated that I had personally touched ALL of them, at least once.

Being responsible for the box collecting was very satisfying and I was pleased with this contribution to the Left Coast Crime Conference: Trouble in Tucson.