This thread is for Forge Booth members only. See the Customer Feedback thread if you weren't a member but want to comment.
Ok folks. Time to air our dirty laundry while it is all fresh on the mind.
In regards to the booth:
What went wrong?
What went right?
What would you like to see changed?
Keep your comments in the realm of constructive.
-Luke
Opportunities to improve
Demoes were universally too long. I was astonished by the results of simply putting myself on the clock. Perceived time inside a demo is very non-objective. Frankly, getting these times down would solve some other problems (booth crowding, inability to track down designers when a customer asks). I worked my fanny off late in the con to bring the demo time down, precisely so that I wouldn't feel guilty about really pushing to get a demo table every time a customer was interested. I think forcefully drawing that connection between self-interest (I want tables!) and responsible use of common resources (I will demo quick, quick, quick) early in the con would be a great help for people who don't realize the importance of the issue on their own. Like... y'know... me for the first few days. I hang my head in shame.
There was a desire, often voiced, to get attention shifted around to products that were unjustly languishing. There wasn't, however, a system for doing so. For instance, Ron pointed out that we should all be pitching Death's Door. And I agree that it's a quality game, and I meant to get a demo so that I could get stoked up and enthusiastic about it. But I didn't. I don't know why. I feel bad about it. It wasn't laziness, there was just... there wasn't a juncture where anything about the lumpley-system of the booth gave me a path to do so without taking 100% of the initiative myself. Or if there was, I missed it. Urgh... guilt and shame.
Strengths to capitalize on
Okay, first? Jasper. If the booth isn't paying for his badge next year somebody has to tell me in time for me to do it personally. He's a huge asset. He had some direct influence on sales as a Roper (roping people in) but I think the big deal was his second-order effects. He convinced me, at least (and I think others) that we could jump out there and be friendly, aggressive Ropers in our own right.
On a similar note: The cash register was held down for most of the weekend by about six very capable people. I will list Julie, Erin, Emily, Meg, Ralph and Andy because they deserve big props. If I've forgotten anyone it's because of my lameness, not a lack of appreciation. I'm sure I'd remember the face in person. They all rawked out loud. My sense of justice and fair play says that we should spread that duty around, and my sense of selfish efficiency says that they've earned their unhappy place at the top of the meritocracy because they're so damned good at what they do. I don't really know how to reconcile the two.
We have some terrific known pitch-patterns. For instance, on sunday, everyone who came by with a shirt like "Joss Whedon is my master now," or Buffy LARP tags, or Serenity RPG games, got a PTA pitch by way of the Whedon-connection. Everyone. And a large number of them bought. There are a lot of these pitches that are known by one or two people, and could spread as a meme: I know that I, personally, was fishing for people who were in performing arts outside of RPGs, and then hitting them with my "it's a theatre troupe" lead-in for selling Kayfabe.
What would I change?
Okay, I'll be the first to ask. I'll be very surprised if I turn out to be the last. How much does it cost to get a full island?
Hello,
So we can all be on the same page about stuff: GenCon Indy (http://www.gencon.com/indyhome.aspx?file=indy) homepage, and the 2005 Exhibitor Application (http://www.gencon.com/files/Indy05/EXH-Exhibitor-Application.pdf). Please note the extreme jump in price between the endcap (what we had) and anything larger.
Let's take any and all discussion of "should we get a bigger booth" to its own thread. Although this thread is fine for voicing the desire one way or another, if it applies to you.
I will sit back for a while and not post to this thread for at least a couple of days. I have plenty to say in it, but I need to see the range of others' feedback first.
Best,
Ron
What went wrong?
The credit cards. Big fucking mess. We need to:
1) Get the same kind of phone (buy as a group?) as the Key20 folks got, or
2) Get a dedicated Phone Line, and process credit cards that way. $200 for the weekend. That's about $20 per buy-in.
On demo length: They were painfully long (save the BW ones, which were just right. There were others, too). I actually did a long one of PTA as a favor, because the player showed up to a PTA event where all 5 other players cancelled. So I ran a 25-30 minute demo. All of my others were about 15 minutes.
On that note, though, when I DID see a demo going on too long, especially one where most of the players were Forge folks, both myself and Luke would politely tell the GM that they need to wrap up. That is both polite and necissary, as really you can get caught up in that kind of thing. We need to have everyone keep an eye on that, even when the Big Guys (Ron, etc) roll over too long.
Oops, back to work for now, more later.
-Andy
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 23, 2005, 01:52:38 PM
Let's take any and all discussion of "should we get a bigger booth" to its own thread. Although this thread is fine for voicing the desire one way or another, if it applies to you.
To be clear: Please post your feedback about the booth, just don't post any solutions/mechanics. Hold off on that. I can tell you from experience, that solutions discussed now are just going to get lost in the shuffle.
-L
Stuff to work on:
1) Fix the credit card problem.
2) Tighter demos, short and sweet.
3) Retailers need take the initiative to make sure that the booth monkeys know what their games are about. We can only sell games we are exited and informed about. I didn't know anything about Mountain Witch until the second day, and I didn't know anything about Conspiricy of Shadows until the third.
4) have water more easily accessable. Talking that long is dehydrating and hard on the throat.
5) more efficiant use of personel. When things started to get crowded or the tables didn't look like they were going to empty for a few minutes, I walked around the Con with a few Forge cards. "Hey guys, what do you play? yeah? Have you checked out the Forge booth? They've got some really amazing stuff, it's over by the batman begins sign over there. Here's a card. Yeah, you should check it out. See ya." This worked way better than I thought it would. Don't clog the booth, take short breaks, widen the funnel.
Stuff that Rocked!
1) Everybody! Hot staggering *&#$! are we a bad-a$$ crew. The energy level was absolutely amazing.
2) Ben's sales stratagy: "This is my game, I wrote it because I want people to have fun. This is how it works. Did you like it? I'm glad. If you bought it, I think you would really enjoy it, and that would make me happy. I want you to join the Forge and tell me about the stories you're telling with my game. Can we get you a copy?" It's all about the human intrest angle. Awesome. Not a drop of Hard Sell to be found.
3) Watching people walk away from the booth was amazing. They would walk up looking like zombies or frightened animals and leave looking like assertive, exited humans. Our games are changing people, even if just for a little while.
Good stuff:
The Booth did very well at what I'd hoped and expected for it to do, which was provide an entry point for new designers to gain exposure and experience. I don't know how much of a priority this was for other participants, but I met awesome people who changed the way I think about playing and making games.
Not enough knowledge between us about all the games. I recognize that for myself, this was my fault. I hadn't read up on all of the represented games, and I hadn't made it clear that the Big Night was a kids' coloring book. Sitting in on each other's demos helped a lot, but there needed to be more of that information shared early on.
What Tony said about Jasper. Malcolm too.
Highlight for me was having kids and parents come by the booth, and talking with them about the Forge and what it does. There are young players and designers who want a constructive plce to discuss games on the web.
Problems
Yeah, the games on the back of the rack were being overlooked.
My own sales exceeded my expectations, but I felt like I was a drag on the overall quality and sales of the booth. For me, this was a learning experience, and I now feel I have the tools to prepare much better for next year, so it was well worth it. If anyone else feels that expectations of production value, and sales numbers were not met, then those expectations should be stated more clearly up front.
If the proper place to discuss these specific issues is elsewhere or in PM, great. I'm looking forward to your comments on how I can make next year even more productive for everyone.
What was bad:
1) Our demoes are not as rockingly honed as they could be. Polaris was about 5 minutes longer than I wanted it, and other people were way longer. Also, it isn't simply a matter of time. There's a basic set of techniques for demoing that we could all, myself included, benefit from. I think this is a matter of a seperate thread.
2) We formed the "wall of customers" way too often. I tried to break that up when I saw it, but sometimes felt that I didn't have the authority to do so. We need everyone but everyone to be conscious of exactly how visible the booth is.
3) Space was cramped, especially around the rack. Then again, we're paying blood sweat and tears for that space, so we may as well use it, but in my ideal world the Forge has a big ol' Wizards sized space full of books and demo tables.
4) While the ability to demo each other's games was better than last year, it still wasn't ideal. I tried to demo other folks games, but often there was a game (Final Twilight had this problem) which no one but the creator knew. This is for shit and, frankly, I'm pinning the fault directly on the creator / owners. Guys, if you're going to spend a lot of time away from the booth, teach two other people your demos. And I don't just mean run it once for them
5) Likewise, we need to communicate talking points and target audience to each other. I didn't know anything about The Big Night until Sunday, which was sad, because I could have moved a ton of copies to the families that were shopping at the booth.
What was good:
1) Everything else.
2) Especially Jasper (and, yes, TAO Games is paying for a chunk of his expenses next year. Others are welcome to pitch in.)
3) And everything after-hours.
What I would like to change:
1) In a purely pie-in-the-sky mode I'd love to see more space, although I understand the restrictions and difficulties involved.
2) More and different folks at the booth, especially more children's games. Diversity is awesome. Having something to sell to families is also awesome.
3) Communication needs to improve, especially around points 4, 5 above.
Only unpleasant things first:
The Bad:
1) Booth was too small (or we had to many people floating around it, but it was probablu size of the booth).
2) Display rack - it served us well thru 2003 and 2004 but not it just gets in the way all the time. Also product placement was a big issue with some people. I think we have to have a flat book rack set up on the table or something else like this.
3) One or two exchibitors smelled really bad on sunday. People you're scarring customers away. Deodorants and chewing gum are your friend, really.
4) We have to figure out some storage space or just clearly state that if you buy some stuff you're taking care about it yourself. When I was taking care about register on saturday and sunday stored shit was getting in my way all the time.
The Ugly:
1) This is hard for me but someone had to say that: I know how hard it is to write a game, promote it and sell it afterwards, but people PLEASE if someone is interested in one title go with it explain everything you know about it to them and if your knowledge is not sufficent find someone else who knows more about this product, do NOT put your game in their hands instead and and attempt to hard sell it to them. I've seen it happen a few times.
2) Never "steal" customers from recently finished demo to run them thru your own. It usually takes some time and talk after demo is finished to close the deal. PLEASE do not STEAL people away from each other wait a minute or two and then (if they do or do not close) ASK THEM IF THEY ARE WILLING TO CHECK SOMETHING ELSE OUT.
I find myself in much the same place as Allen. I got everything I could possibly want out of the booth this year, but felt like I was a downward pull on the booth as a whole.
Part of that was (I hope!) the fact that I was sick and doped up much of the weekend, but most if it was that I wasn't able to be there most of the weekend from other committments. That's gonna change next year, although I'll still be spending large chunks of time out of the booth, it won't be 27 out of the 30 operating hours.
Hell, I rode home on the same plane as Allen, and we hadn't met until we introduced ourselves on the steps into the plane.
Jasper's point about making sure your game is known to the booth is spot-fucking-on. I super-appreciated Ron's pumping of Death's Door after hours on Saturday (for all kinds of reasons), but I was seriously not assertive enough in my follow-up on Sunday morning. It is part of my job as a publisher to make sure that everyone at the booth can, at a minimum, pitch my game ("It's about ordinary people who wake up one day and know they are going to die.").
One thing I would like a better grasp on next year, is how the hell the demo tables worked. I get that there was no hard schedule, and that a hard schedule wouldn't work, but man it felt like there was some kind of weird, arcane shuffling order to the demos and I totally didn't get where I fit into it.
And just in case this gives you the impression that it didn't work well for me: Damn, baby! The forge rocked! The booth, both as a "guy there to have fun" and a "publisher there to sell games" was head-and-shoulders the best part of my whole weekend.
thanks,
James
I really don't think there was much ugly at the booth this year.
The credit card thing was annoying...but it was also the first time we've tried it and the fact that it worked more often than not is a pretty good thing. I think there were definitely a large number of sales (well into the thousands) that we got because we could take plastic. So I think the "credit cards on the cheap" made a great proof of concept and allowed us to dabble with it without large up front investment. Next year, we know it can work, we know it translates directly into sales (and larger sales as we can capture more of the "I'm not really sure but I'll try it" sales with plastic than with cash). So next year we need to upgrade and eliminate the PITA elements.
I saw alot of active selling going on. That's a GOOD thing...in a HUGE way. I know there are some customers who balk at being sold and label any kind of active close to be a "hard sell". I spent alot of time in the booth. I didn't observe anything that would be categorized as a "high preasure" Persistance is a good thing and to be encouraged. We had ALOT more persistance and active closing going on this year and it showed. A signficant chunk of our year over year sales increase I attribute to the higher degree of salesmanship going on. I wandered the exhibitor hall alot. There were alot of booths were people were just waiting for customers to come to them...and for the most part...the customers didn't. I know active salesmanship isn't something gamers see at most game stores...there's a reason why so many game stores go out of business. Every year we get better at this. Next year I expect to see even more.
We've now reached a critical size. With 23 seperate publishers represented in the booth this year (hooray) we need to approach things in a much more organized fashion next year. We got through this year without any major fiascos but honestly, from an organizational standpoint I think we're playing with fire if we continue to wing it.
Needed:
Organized game stocking space: I'm thinking break-downable rubbermaid-esque shelves with bins / crates to hold stock, in sorted alphabetized fashion. Poorly or un-labeled boxes crammed under the cashiers table doesn't cut it any more...we just have too much stuff. There were occassions where games were not on the shelf because no one could find the stock, and they remained not on the shelf until the one person who knew which corner they'd been crammed in returned to the booth to find them.
More display space: I will go on record as saying Paul's Trifold shelf rocks. The addition of the tension bars this year was clutch as well. Its unique, its distinctive, and to me...its home made...which I think is actually pretty cool in a booth about home made games. The rear shelf is actually a good thing. It pulls people in. It makes them navigate into the booth to see the cool stuff rather than do the scan and walk. The only weakness is the lack of floor space made it less navigable than ideal. Good stock rotation helps with the exposure issue. We've simply outgrown it. Unless we have a dramatic shrinkage in the number of participants and the amount of produce, next year will require (as in require, not just "maybe a good idea") more display shelving.
More organized booth monkey support: Booth monkeys rock hard. These are people who travel hundreds of miles pay for their own housing for the ostensible "privilege" of spending huge amounts of time working during GenCon helping other people make money. That's pretty insane. What's even more insane is how many people like that we have. Organization will be a key improvement next year. We've talked in the past about t-shirts or some other emblem that can identify booth folks (maybe a hat that can be worn everyday). I think that's a good plan. I think we also need to consider a sign up sheet. By and large booth folks do a pretty good job of regulating their own arrival and departure, but as number increase I think it would be worth thinking about signing up for specific 2 hour blocks (and being scarce at all other times). Those blocks should be established with an eye towards maximizing game knowledge coverage.
More universal knowledge: This is a hard one because it involves a degree of commitment to pull off, but there were ALOT of new games at the booth and not enough people knew enough about them.
More Space?: From a financial perspective I'm certainly willing to entertain ideas about how to improve flow and organization that don't involve spending more money...but right now I'm thinking we've pretty much hit a wall on space useage. Unless we're planning to cap participation and number of products (at some number lower than this year) it looks to me like more space is required. This is especially true as we consider one of the primary functions of the booth to be making GenCon accessible to new publishers. We could easily make a booth out of the top 5 (or even 10) selling companies and have none of the above problems. We'd have no space or organization problems, no product knowledge problems, and no demo time problems. It would also be a total failure of what the booth is about. I currently see only 3 options...none of which are particularly attractive:
1) Kick out the successful companies who can more readily afford to go out on their own and limit the Forge booth to primarily new designers looking for a start. Bad all around I think because without the proven games to attract existing fans I think sales for the new games would suffer.
2) Limit total booth participation to 15-20 publishers tops. At 23 we were really walking the tight rope of what was "too much" and as existing publishers add more products that number will have to get lower.
3) Expand: and find some way to structure the buy in fee such that its still affordable for the newer publishers without raping the older ones.
What went right is easy - great energy, great people, great games. The dedication of the register folks and the suport of everyone in doing what had to be done before, during and after each day. The cash register at the end of the booth, rest of the booth open = right choice, but we kinda knew that. Keeping the demo tables full - really, REALLY full - and making sure not all that fullness was due to booth-memebers went even better this year than it has before. And I still think the walk-around rack is superior to any currently available alternative.
What went wrong? Well personally, I arrived exhasted and insufficiently prepared to really quick-demo SNAP. Bad for me, my game, and the booth. Never do this [/Zathras voice]. Also, in general, we had before the con (from Andy, right?) some GREAT ideas about cross-training for demos; how to keep excess monkey's from piling-up at the booth yet still have their time support the booth by doing that cross-training thing (and having some fun, longer demo's in the process). I think we made more progress there than in previous years, but basically we didn't deliver on the promise of that brilliant idea. The absence of the in-hall "free space" tables we'd hoped for is part of it, but there's more - e.g., even for games I could demo, where were the supplies (demo kit) that would allow me to do so?
What to change? Fix what's wrong. Manage space . . . somehow better (may be impossible, but this isn't where we talk about detailed fixes, right?)
And that's all I've got,
Gordon
What didn't work?
Add my voice to the space issues. Though I recognize the challenges with increasing it.
As a first time monkey, I felt a bit lost at times & wondered what I could/should be doing. Watching experienced folks, asking questions & trying to stay out of the way seemed to get me through, but more of an orientation might be good.
Cross-demo'ing each others games was weak.
Having many people work the register was a dual edged sword. It helped those who do so much of the work (esp. Ralph, Julie, Danielle), but opened us up to errors since many of us were inexperienced with it.
Primary booth sponsors may have needed more time/energy put toward their games.
What did work?
I don't know how we would have done anything if Meg hadn't labeled the boxes. Ralph is dead on, we need even more organization.
Ron pointing out the games to be targeted was great. I was grateful to know what to focus on & wish I could have done more towards it.
Playing in eachothers' demos in the morning happened especially on Thurs & Friday. This helped me a lot. Both by helping me talk about other folks' games and by giving other people something tangible things to say about my game, since they'd actually played. It also gave the booth a strong look right off the bat, since there was activity at it starting first thing in the morning. Set the tone for the day.
From what I saw, people were very likely to point someone towards someone elses' game. There was a ton of teamwork going on, from stocking the shelves, to hawking eachothers' games to playing pass the customer to the appropriate game designer for a demo. Over and over again I kept being impressed by peoples' willingness to do all these things. In other contexts all these games would be seen as the competition. At the Forge, it's clear to most everybody that having many games in fact strengthens everyone's ability to sell since so much energy is raised and so many hands are put to the work of selling.
I loved Ron & Luke taking a day each to focus on their games. Primary booth sponsors should get something like this officially. Maybe that is the policy & I just didn't know.
The folks who did not have games like Jasper & Andy, who spent incredible amounts of time & energy selling, demo'ing and encouraging folks. Thank you, thank you.
What to change?
More cross-demo'ing and/or training. Someone suggested having everyone know how to demo 3 games solidly, and if we coordinated that we would have better coverage. Each designer could be responsible for making this be so.
If booth monkeyage time is to be coordinated, maybe signing up for half days when you'll be "on" or "off" would be easy enough to keep track of. 2 hour shifts might easily be forgotten or missed due to something coming up. Or have guidelines about how many folks in the booth is too many. We can be more active about letting folks know when there are too many of us & send folks off to learn demo's or pass out cards like Jasper did.
An orientation for new folks, so people like James, Allan & I who had some questions would be able to know what to do with demos, have a chance to talk about their games and so on.
QuoteWhat went wrong?
- The booth was definetly too crowded, but IMO was better than previous years in regards to the walls of people.
- The book shelf was definetly crowded and hard to get to at times, but this has been a problem for a few years now.
- I thought some games were demoed a lot more than others. Coincidentally those were the games that sold the most, so I'm not sure if the overabundance of demos was the result of greater interest or if it was the other way around. Or maybe I was just at the booth at the wrong times.
- There were quite a few games that I don't recall seeing demos for at all, like SNAP.
- Demos were too long. Quite a few times I couldn't offer customers a demo because there were no empty tables. It's great that we were so busy, but we could have run demos for a lot more people had we shortened demos (or stuck to Ron's 15 minute rule)..
QuoteWhat went right?
- Everything else. The booth environment was just awesome.
- I thought we did much better avoiding the "wall of people" problems of past years.
- I played far more demos than I had in the past and had a great time.
QuoteWhat would you like to see changed?
- Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I think a bigger booth or a separate sales booth would be a lot of help. Our biggest crowding problems revolved around the demo tables directly behind the register and book shelf
On a personal note, I'd like to appologize if I seemed a bit whiney about my crappy sales those first couple days - I was a bit frustrated. I do appreciate all the support I received, and my sales did pick up considerably on Sunday.
,Matt
This was my first year at the Forge Booth, but not my first year showing, so I felt a little...odd.
I'll take Ben's critisism- as owner/creator of Final Twilight, I really dropped the ball, especially the first couple days. First order of business should have been to say "Hey, I know I've got people coming for this, could someone sit in on some games so they know the system as well?" First day was (personally) fucked up and rather stressful, but Friday I could have/should have done something about it, and I didn't. *slaps own wrist* Goes on my notes for next year and I formally appolgize for being a pain in the posterior.
The other, I kind of have to echo Emily's remarks about being lost, especially coupled with having done this once before. I've done shows of somekind since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and am quite used to doing *something*, but space and a general lack of organization of labor prevented a good bit of that, and left me feeling a little like a deer in the headlights. I really got a "Go. Play. Learn!" vibe, which I tried to take advantage of, and tried to net a few folks for showing off my games, but which kind of fizzled.
I *did* learn one thing about myself, and that is I'm a lousy salesman, which really had a good chunk to do with my earlier failings. As some noticed Sunday, I, Nate Petersen, wasn't the Nate Petersen everyone had met earlier. My partner, DJ Miller, really covered our (Neo) ass on the sales front, and got the chance to jump in and help with some others, which was awesome.
I'll toss my hat in the ring with space as well, and voice my support for paying a little more for larger space.
Aside from that, I'll agree: The energy level was awesome, I had the opprotunity to sit in on several demos and check the games out, it rocked, and the booth as a whole rocked.
Ok, my turn.
The Ugly
• The lack of cheap/free wireless on the convention floor. Shameful in this day and age. I'm going to talk with Peter directly about this.
• Shower, shave, brush and change, gentlemen. If you're a mess, you're just distracting every one else.
• Also, if you're a zombie, just bag out. Go take a nap, take a walk, get lunch, whatever. Explain to someone that you're not up to it and take off. There were only a few zombies this year, but y'all can get underfoot.
• Shyness. Lose it. I was shy my first year, too. But it's an exercise in self-defeating behavior. You're a rock star at Gencon. Get in there and show everyone why.
• This is really ugly, but some of those games shouldn't have been on the shelves. I'd like a better vetting process or something.
The Bad
• I wish I could have made the credit cards go smoother. I invested a lot of time and money in making it happen and it all blew up in my face at the last minute. I was mortified. But, as Ralph said, it was a good experiment and next year it'll be fine. Thanks Clinton, Andy, Dro and Erin for making it work.
• If we are going to hold steady at this rate or grow further, I want more space for the booth. If Ron's planning on shrinking membership, I might consider maintaining the same space. Either way, I am prepared to spearhead the money and time needed to make this happen. I DO NOT want a geographically separate space. Come on people, that's sales suicide.
• Wednesday afternoon was a little disappointing for me. I felt like we could have used our time a lot better getting organized, acquainted and prepared. I think next year, Wednesday has to be mandatory for prep and organization time. Again, I'm happy to undertake this responsibility.
• I caught a few hard sells that made me wince. We were selling gangbusters, so I felt there was no need to demand from a customer, "Buy it!" Or to inform them that "This isn't a library." Ouch. I think the majority of our customers knew what was going on at the booth. A demo and some sales information and they are prepared to make their judgement. Or, alternatively, I would ASK a customer at the rack if they wanted a pitch. If they said No, I backed way off. But they often said yes. Try it, it works.
• Better farming from the monkeys. I think the monkeys need to be trained to survey the land a little better. If I'm running a demo, there's no need to line up three groups to play BW. Look around the booth, see who ISN'T playing and pitch their games. That way, the designer can chat until a table opens and the folks can jump in. Jasper, I didn't need ALL the DnD players. Clinton and Keith could have handled them, too.
• As Dro said, don't freaking steal each other's customers. This didn't happen to me personally, but I saw some pained expressions as it happened to other folks. Be a little compassionate here. If someone's just finished a demo, give them a few minutes to wrap up and chat with the customer. Those few moments are often crucial decision points wherein the customer is firming up his/her perception. Let the iron cool before you grab it and toss it back in the fire.
• I worship the power of Paul's rack, but I think we've outgrown it. Honestly, the long table was a waste of space. If we had a half or quarter table and a bookshelf style rack we could have made browsing easier and given ourselves another table's worth of space. Next year, I want a new display. Let's experiment and grow with our success and not become ossified with tradition.
The Good
• This was my best GenCon yet, both in terms of sales and comraderie. I was happy to have my own crew at my back, but I was happier that we were, once again, accepted into the fold and treated like peers. I really love you guys and truly feel at home among you.
• Dro.
• The quality of games and products on our shelves was stunning. I was much pleased with the diversity and utter coolness of it all. We are the cutting edge.
• Andy.
• The support I got when I asked for it. Saturday was really important to me. You see, I did very few demos last year and only did two between Thursday and Friday. So I was feeling shakey and a little undersold. But when I asked for support, you all rallied for me. It meant a lot to me. More than I can say here.
• Thor.
• Ralph and his cash register of wonders. Ralph, as I told you in person, you're a rock.
• Julie, you inadvertently get stuck being booth mom every year and you handle it with grace and aplomb.
• The sense of community, family and energy that we bring to an otherwise pretty soulless sales event. In part, our foibles create this air and it's cool. If we all had uniforms and worked like the guys at Decipher, it wouldn't be the same!
• Erin.
That's all from me. Thanks to all of you for making it another great year. I'm ready for next year!
Keith, Matt, Paul, Vincent, Greg, I hope you'll chime in when your collective head clears.
-Luke
Am Not Good
I didn't directly experience the credit card stuff, but that sounds like a contender. Let's explore serious options on that one. A small increase in the participation fee? I dunno.
Only seeing most of you once a year. WTF is up with that? Intolerable, I tell you! We need more cons in the middle.
The number of exhibitors per square foot at any given time at the booth. We'll still have that problem even if we get a bigger space. Let's find a way to keep everyone from being there at once. What happened to sneaking off to play games during the day? Damn us!
Space. The next size up is pricey, but holy crap did we really have 23 exhibitors? I think it's not out of reach if there's that many of us.
I still didn't know many of the games on the shelf very well, and didn't know some of the people selling them very well. I have some thoughts on addressing that, for the special 'solutions and suggestions' thread.
I did in fact see someone flipping through my game from across the booth, and then saw another exhibitor come up and put his game in that person's face, and watched as the customer then put my book back on the shelf. That sucked!
Display space. I don't think Paul's genius rack is big enough to comfortably hold all of our games any more.
Identifying exhibitors. I think Ralph brings this up above somewhere. It could be as easy as saying 'your $XXX fee also includes a shirt.'
I also agree with his thoughts on organizing stock better. It's an annoyance now, but it'll get worse when we grow.
Am Good
This year, as with years before, I left thinking, yay, I have new friends and better friendships! That kicks ass. That's worth paying to attend, even if I hadn't sold any books.
As Luke says, we sell some righteous shit at our booth! I don't walk around the show floor much any more, except maybe to check out the Wicked and the Dead. I'm really proud to be a part of this. I just look at the shelves and the people and think, DAMN!
Again this year, I saw Andy K talking to a Japanese customer in Japanese. Dude, you are badass.
The coolness of everyone running the cash register.
The coolness of everyone who was there without having a game to sell.
Ugly:
Polyesther and acetate are not your friend, and no matter if you showered that morning, you will stink by 5 pm. Again with the shower-deodorant-toothbrushing-*clean shirt* bit. Go for cotton or cotton-poly blends, and perhaps take a stink-check at lunch and fix as needed? The hall is a sweat-inducing place, for certain.
The rack (which I had never seen before, granted) seems to have outlived the space needs, and it's also an ovbious home job, although a great one. A good coat of neutral paint might help bring it up to the beautiful production value of the books on it and the posters/banners behind it.
(Seriously ugly; hope it's ok to say this) A couple games really needed better presentation, 'cause the games are great but they looked like rush-jobs. I know there's a hefty get-it-done-for-GenCon drive, but really, hold yourselves to your own standards, playtest and produce to that, and if that means you have to wait till next year to release the new game, bite the bullet and deal.
Bad:
The last minute credit card crap. Not anyone's fault, but fix it next year. It also would have helped to know sooner where the nearest ATM was.
On that note, not knowing where the bathrooms in the hall were until late Saturday. I walked twice as far as I needed to, and way more often than probably anyone else, because I didn't know there was a women's room in the hall.
The really tight space, combined with the "Wall." Yes, we could fill twice the space, yes, cost is an issue, yes, Luke is right about splitting the booth being a disaster. Fix by - Better vectoring of people upstairs to do longer demos/games, better self-selection of "Hey, I've been here for 4 hours, I should go mosey for awhile", and better general knowledge of games so folks felt confident both in telling/selling and demos even if the people most associated with a game were gone.
Yeah, the space between the rack and the register got really tight, and I could see it wasn't working as well as it maybe could.
The continual issue of random stuff being put on top of stock boxes and crowding the register.
ID for Exhibitors is needed; please don't make it a T-shirt. That winds up getting worn for 4 days, and totally defeats Ugly #1. Good clear graphic name tags ("Forge Exhibitor") pinned to the shirt of the day would probably work.
Not knowing the games well enough and really wanting to. This has been loudly covered by others, and I'll post more in the solutions thread.
PTA being priced at only $15!! WTF?
Meeting you all and maybe not being at GenCon again for years! Ack!
Good:
The amazing concern for each other I saw over and over. It rocked that everyone was keeping an eye on stock, so each individual designer didn't have to keep running to check. I loved watching people say "Hey, move my game to the back, 'cause this other one needs more exposure." Even the vitamin C and throat drops and water were there, although not always accessable.
The enthusiasim and commitment of the whole booth crew. That's what kept people there 8 hours a day instead of taking breaks and time away - it was such a juicy place to be, in that the energy fed us and kept us going.
Arm wrestling Dave.
I loved finding a role, a way to clearly help, by labeling stock and keeping it organised, and by knowing where all the demo materials were. This gave me a way to feel like a real contributing part of the booth, even though I didn't know all the games well, and never demoed anything.
Having the freedom to leave if I needed to. I think I only had to use the Pregnant Lady Privledge once, and that was for the sit-in after 6 pm that one day. Oh, and for having my little basket with me at all times.
The constant flow of customers. We really could have been running half again, maybe twice the tables we had.
The overall layout. Having the register outside on the end, having gorgeous posters along the back wall, having the rack where it could be watched and restocked easily.
Staffing the register with Julie and Ralph.
Selling stuff I was proud of to people who wanted it. Everyone was so HAPPY and EXCITED about the games. It really felt like part of a revolution, rather than just shilling for some company.
Watching Luke demo standing up with his arms waving.
The amazing effect of actual effective social interaction on random con-goers. Eye-contact and "Hi, how are you? What do you like to play?" made people feel like real valid people, and we actually cared more that they got what they wanted from gaming than that they walked away with a huge stack of books.
People walking away with huge stacks of books.
Watching people double-take at Jasper's eyes, then watching their jaws drop when he greeted them so openly and wasn't an 'untouchable god'.
Hanging out with tremendous people all day!!!!!!!!!!!
Joe
My best con yet. Not only did I have a great time, but sold all the copies I brought. Well all but one which I gave to Ken Hite. I guess this means I sold out. Fuck.
The were a lot of rawk'n games this year too and it looks like everyone did well. This is good.
The whole dealing with the CC transactions by the stought few was great. Andy, Julie, Ralph and Meg all deserve the double devil horns for being hard core help.
Setenza
Space. Space. Space. We need more. My proposal is to up the minimum buy in to $200 so we can get more space. Either that or some of us smaller fish band together to by a small corner and connect the two booths together in a fancy L.
Credit cards need a better solution. That was just messy and we should be better than that.
The rack needs to be replaced or modified. I kinda like the idea of it being a single wall type of thing. I'm sure some supports could be attached to the back, if ya dig me.
Tuco
No snag'n other people's sales. That is just a cocksucker move. If someone is looking at book X, don't replace it with book Y cause that is your book or a book you know more about.
I shower and you should too. Shit I even had to go buy women's deodorent cause I forgot mine one day and that was all that had left at the Westin gift store. If I must suffer this sort of humiliation it is only fair that everyone else does too.
Hard selling sucks. We are the rawk stars of game design and shouldn't be hard sell'n folks. A lot of the gamers are a skittish bunch and will duck and cover, or stand there listening to you all uncomfortable looking for a chance to cut and run.
This came up last year too. We need to be, as a collective, have a better understanding of the shit at the booth. We should all at least be able to talk up the games there, even if we don't know how to play the shit.
All I got for now
Keith
The Good
First time on the Forge booth and it was an incredibly positive experience. Met so many good people from The Forge in person.
Got lots of amazing feedback on a/state (both positive comments and constructive criticism) from Forge people and from the buying public.
Experienced some fantastic games (Dust Devils and Sweet Dreams to name but two).
Selling more copies of the game that I had expected to and having people stand up at the end of a demo and immediately walk to the cash register and buy the game.
The Bad
Although I felt my sales technique did improve markedly over the 4 days of the con, I was still slightly uncomfortable hard selling people.
The crowds. In many ways this is good, but as other have commented, the crowding at the booth did get excessive at times.
The look of a potential lost sale on the face of customers when informed of the credit card procedure. Although most seemed happy with this, I did have a couple of "Oh no!" moments.
The Ugly
Forgetting that eating and drinking might be a good idea on the Friday and doing a virtual collapse at the Embassy Suites. Mortified I was, mortified.
Cheers
Malcolm
I'm deeply conflicted. But I'm going ahead with this anyway. I think we did a seriously poor job of cross selling to games on our shelf that released at or prior to GenCon last year. It's easy to pick up a new game, show it to a customer, and say "Have you seen this?" You know they probably haven't. It's a lot harder to pick up Sorcerer and do that. (It's been out in print for five years. It had a huge influence on your gaming. It won the Diana Jones Award.) It's hard to pick up My Life with Master and do that. (It influenced your game design. It won the Diana Jones Award. It's constantly cited as the textbook narrativist game.) It's hard to pick up one of Greg Porter's games and do that. (Some of the games on the shelf have been out for fifteen years.) You personally are excited about the new stuff, because you already know the old stuff. And our culture is so totally focused on new new new. So you present the new. And it sells easily.
I'm conflicted, because sales success was not my goal when I wrote and published My Life with Master. I wrote it to show the industry the kind of game I wished they were publishing. My goal was influence, not business success. But at the same time, My Life with Master is not an over-ripe tomato on a shelf of fresher produce. I signed on as a primary booth sponsor out of the same goal, influence. I want to use my revenue from Half Meme Press to support indie designers who are just now publishing their first games. But I think my sales expectations for this GenCon were modest: ten full price copies of My Life with Master per day (that is, not counting retailer purchases). So, forty copies. This would represent fully a 50% decline from sales at GenCon 2004. And I didn't honestly think I'd come close to falling below that threshold. I don't know how many sold on Sunday, and with credit card sales these numbers may be one or two copies off, but my best estimate is that My Life with Master sold:
7 full price copies on Thursday
10 full price copies on Friday
5 full price copies on Saturday
13 full price copies on Sunday
If that's right, it represents a 57% decline in sales from GenCon last year. Was ten copies a day an unrealistic expectation? Was drawing the line at not more than 50% decline in sales unrealistic? I honestly have no way of knowing. The game sold 79 copies at GenCon in 2003, the year it was released. And 81 copies at GenCon 2004, the year it won the Diana Jones Award. But I was closing sales from demos on Sunday. So was Tony. And so was Michael S. Miller. And Sunday, when Ron called for sales attention to the game, was its best sales day. So my theory is lack of sales attention. Definitely, picking up Sorcerer, or My Life with Master, or one of Greg's games and saying, "Have you seen this?" is hard. I like Tony's suggestion on the [Dreamation '06] Lessons of GenCon (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16474.msg175126#msg175126") thread: "And, of course, when you've put My Life with Master, Burning Wheel and Dogs in the Vineyard into someone's hands, they're likely to have gotten used to trusting your judgment by the time you put your own game on top of the stack and say 'And this is mine... you totally need this too.'" My conflict is that I don't want to take demo table time away from designers who are trying to create exposure for their brand new games. Being a primary booth sponsor, to me, is about supporting these designers in their efforts to create a presence for their games and influence the hobby. My personal frustration here is only that I think My Life with Master is an awesomely fun game, with capacity for influence that got undersold this year. I like the secondary influence of supporting other designers via booth sponsorship. I guess I was just taken by surprise that it meant so much less primary influence via exposure of My Life with Master to new interest. And if I'd anticipated this, I would probably not have been a booth sponsor.
And I think Sorcerer and Greg's games were also undersold. The only cross selling I saw to Greg's stuff was to F*ck This! Infinite Armies is an incredibly innovative product (maybe the most innovative product at the whole convention) with very tight mechanics. And CORPS and EABA are among the most tightly designed games of their kind. We devoted 20% of our shelf space to BTRC product. That relatively sizable commitment of shelf space should not assuage our guilt at the utter lack of cross selling. (And I'm pointing the finger at myself here too.) Last year, Greg worked the shelf, cross selling to all of our products. This year he mostly focused on his own, and I don't blame him a bit.
(And regarding the shelf. I love it. But I won't be offended in the least if someone steps up and delivers the next generation solution. I built the three sider as an improvement over the wire comic book rack of 2002, which hid products behind each other. Next year I'd absolutely love to focus more on Half Meme Press, without the transportation logistics and hassle of the shelf.)
Paul
Hi Guys
My first post to the Forge so here we go! Firstly I would like to say the guys from the Forge basically made my Con. Talking to Luke, Jared, Alan, Matt, Ron, Vincent, and his lovely wife, Emily and everyone else, the list is so long, was amazing and the feedback and support i got regarding Mob Justice was fantastic, thank you all a thousand times and I will definetley be back next year.
Now on with a reply
Good
there was a fantastic sense of 'We're different but we don't care' around the stall and you could see people picking things up and getting pitches with looks of delight in their eyes.
People pushing other games as well as their own
The sense of team without the need for t-shirts:-)
Bad
There was a certain element of hard sell that I think was scaring off some people, a more relaxed approach may be better. It was the big corporate attitude with the small indie image that I think may have put some people off.
The credit card problem was definetley an issue, and hopefully luke can persuade them to wireless up for next year.
better racks are a must, when you go to the forge stall you sould be able to see all games on display
more room was also needed, though not to much more, to my mind the Forge booth was one of the only ones that looked like lots was going on in the whole of the con
Some knowledege of other products is good but it is unreasonable to expect everyone to push everyone elses game. A certain element of merchandising similar games together may help.
Post more later, time for food
It was a pleasure meeting you all
All the best
Iain
Good
The customers. Really. At the cash register, I interacted with fantastic people. They were thrilled to see new games, patient and good humored about the convoluted credit card process, and would generously praise the games, the booth, and the Forge. They made my work a joy.
Bad
Crowding. Mostly by stuff that did not need to be in the booth. I liked the large number of people at the booth--that is part of what gave the booth its vitality vibe. I did not like the amount of stuff (backpacks, merchandice, coats (!?), coolers, water bottles, food, etc.) that accumulated around the cash register and re-stocking table. I swear, at one point I was considering handing out a backpack with every purchase over $50.
Ugly
Cashing out. Next year, there must be greater coordination between credit card transactions and the end of the day cash register receipts. Although the end of the day cash7ing out process was no where near as horrible as the pre-cash register GenCon's, it was still no picnic. I was very nostalgic for GenCon 2004 when cashing out was near painless.
Julie
Long-time lurker; first-time poster.
I won't do a full-blown good/bad/ugly write-up, since I wasn't an official part of the Forge booth. As many of you know, I was manning my own booth (Blue Devil Games) and repping for IPR and, by extension, many Forge games. For the record, I must have sent 100 people over for demos--particularly for Capes and Mountain Witch.
I only wanted to chime in on the space issue (and am posting here as the mod indicated further posts should not be made in the thread dediated to that issue). I think it would be worthwhile to explore a larger expansion than everyone seems to be contemplating. Imagine a space as big as, say, White Wolf's--a nice, open space with lots of tables--filled with the finest in small-press rpg's. This would be feasible if even more producers are brought inside the tent: IPR (and its member companies, including myself Blue Devil Games), Wicked Dead, etc. Hell, maybe we could even get Phil (Reed) to come back to GC. I'm sure there are some who wouldn't be interested, but I've always believed it made a lot of sense for the "little" guys to leverage their numbers.
We've got a whole year to work this out for crying out loud!
Okay, I'll add one "bad." Rampant jealousy. By me. Of you. Sure, my biggest seller might be a d20 Future campaign setting, but I'm an indie game designer at heart. (Heck, I did both Game Chef and 24-hour RPG this year.) I felt a bit handcuffed by running my own booth and secretly wanted to hang out with the gang, kick back, and play some great indie games. OTOH, it was great meeting you all in the flesh.
thanks for your comments, Justin. Moving forward however, I'd like to remind everyone who's read this far that this thread is for members of the Forge booth to discuss their thoughts on what went right and what went wrong. Customer and other observational comments are welcome in this thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16478.0
thanks,
-Luke
Liked
Seeing everybody (I'm amazed that I know so many people. I couldn't go anywhere at the con without seening a familiar face) and seeing everybody get excited about their games.
Beating Greg Porter at Infinite Armies. It was a demo, so I'm sure he let me win, but still...
Closing at least one sale from every booth demo I ran. Not always on the same day, mind you.
Seeing With Great Power... on the shelf, finally!
Seeing lots of folks on Thursday take both WGP and Capes and walk them to the cash register. Who says there's Distinguished Competition?
The after-hours gaming and shop-talk. Shop-talk is VERY important. Especially the stuff we got into on Sunday.
Dislike
I did not know nearly enough about everyone else's games. I pitched very poorly this year. I only closed a handful of sales via the "walk up and chat" method. I hate the "walk up and chat" method.
The restock situation was atrocious. Not only was it difficult to find stuff, but sometimes folks just plain didn't go through the trouble. For instance, on Sunday afternoon, The Mountain Witch was on the shelf in its own spot, and the spot of two other games that had not been restocked, including WGP. Tim's box was easier to get to than mine, I guess.
Me taking too long to realize that MLwM's sales were slack. Me taking too long to realize that when a fellow publisher says "sure, I can demo my game in 15 minutes" that they might be mistaken.
Needs to change
I neither like nor am I improving at the "walk up and chat" thing. However, my demo skills are very slick. To be a productive part of the booth, I need to focus on my strengths and demo more - and more different games. Next year I vow to have a demo prepped for each and every one of the primary sponsors, and at least half of everyone else at the booth.
The stock area REALLY needs to be organized better.
My comments are pretty much the same as the above.
For The Good, I must add that out of all the sales booths at the Con, NOBODY, no matter how much they were selling, how big their company was, or how many group T-Shirts were worn, had even a fraction of the energy (and sales effort) that the Forge Booth people had. I was totally stunned, and a little disappointed, that more booths didn't act like Tunisian Carpet Merchants with their wares: Most booth folks, no matter how dressed up they were (pirates, gangsters, Pokemon, whatever), looked rather bored compared to the average Forge Booth member. The only folks that came close were the "Utili-Kilt" guys, and the "Fake Hair Extensions for Women" booth. Everyone else truly expected their wares to sell themselves.
Yeah, so next year let's manage Sales/Excitement Power... while being wary of hard selling. It's obvious that in the feedback given in the other thread that when folks say they really don't have the money to buy Game X, they are not "Lying", but rather:
A) Are not trying to offend you by saying they're not interested, or
B) Really don't have the cash. (and may or may not buy your game after the Con: For that, we should prepare more "Contact my site after the Con" business cards/forms/methodology)
I even had some Forge folks trying to hard sell me stuff that I wasn't interested in, even after buying $565 worth of stuff at the Forge booth (for myself and others). Since I'm polite (too polite to say "I'm not interested"), with most of it I waited until these Hard Sellers weren't looking, and slipped them back on the shelf. If _I_ can be bothered by Hard Selling, it's an indicator that it's a problem. Maybe next year in June/July we'll have to think of some ways to sell without hard-selling.
But again, I think that for the most part our sales tactics were sound, and our excitement was totally high, higher than any other booth I can easily recall.
One More Note: Chris AKA Bankuei is a specialist of shiatsu/accupressure. He offered to massage my feet at one point when I was laying on the ground of chez Luke, rubbing them. I didn't take him up on his offer then, primarily because I felt guilty that I didn't have anything to offer in exchange. But man, next year? I think that Chris could fund his entire trip if he just spent like 4 hours a day throughout the say selling foot/leg massages in some room for $10 a pop for 10-15 minutes.
-Andy