[GenCon 2006] "untitled"

[Thunder_God]

Also need to consider games such as "Dogs in the Vineyard". It wasn't really demoed this year, yet sold very well. Some games have enough year-long buzz that people come to the booth looking for them.

I think this also does a lot to clear demo space, both mental and physical. It also has repercussions for when/if you split the booths.

[Troy_Costisick]

guys, two short answers:

1: take it over to the other thread; this isn't remotely about untitled anymore.

2: you're talking major $$$.

-Ditto.  Jon, a 10x10 non-corner booth costs about $1000 + extra badges.  Split 4 ways, it will end up costing you close to $300 a piece once the badges are figured.  So a guy comes to GenCon with his $15 dollar game and goes along with you on this idea of splitting off and doing your own thing.  The other three guys have their own games too.  He's got to compete with three other highly motivated and excited people for the really small, cramped space to demo and pitch his game.  Trust me, you can only fit one table and maybe 2 chairs in a 10x10 booth.  And you can only really fit three people in the booth with it, so one guy is going to have to be off the clock 25% of the time at least.  So with the other 75% of the con, in a cramped space, competing with other designers he's going to have to sell at least 20 books just to break even. That doesn't include paying for hotel stay, food, and shopping.  Ooooooooor he can opt in at the Forge Booth for $100-200 bucks, have constant traffic, work practically as much as he wants, meet great friends, and get noticed and supported while making a proffit.  I mean, I don't see the incentive to breaking up the Forge Booth.  It's financial suicide.

-I guess it might be hard to understand if you've never bought and run your own booth at GenCon.  I have.  It's a real pain.  Oh, and that Entrepreneurial discount means your booth will get shoved way deep in a corner of the hall where traffic is extremely light.  So if you want to be anywhere near a high trafic area, you can forget that.  I got super super lucky back in 02.  But the other first time boothers that I talked to had horrible sales because of their location.  Anyway, I'll quit ranting and sum up.  The Forge Booth is the best deal going at GenCon period.  It's amazing to see Ron's vision mature and grow each year. 

Peace,

-Troy

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Ditto what Troy said. I did the entrepeneurial, own-booth thing last year. I did the Forge thing this year. I will be doing the Forge thing next year. Draw your own conclusions.

[David Artman]

Well, since this ain't QUITE moved to the other thread yet....

I don't think anyone is talking about splitting the booth. I understood this was about how to expand the space available to all, make its traffic flow better, and (maybe) restructure the cost responsibilities so that it's not all on a few people's heads. These ideas flowed naturally out of thinking about how to ensure every game is sufficiently represented.

The "shanty town" idea, in fact, relies upon contiguity of the space and tries to leverage the notions of "focused" sales areas with shared demo and storage space, centralized entry and register, and co-branding.

Further, there would not be much need to "plan," just to send groups of five designers off into the wild, to fend for themselves at $1000 100sq.ft. booths. :)

Back to the red tape thread...
David

[Ron Edwards]

I'd say it's about time to close this one, actually. The basic points have been made and people can spawn new threads as desired.

Best, Ron