GenCon Booth Monkey Questions

[Ben Lehman]

Hi.

The possibility of me being at GenCon this year is increasing daily, so I thought I would ask some questions about the difference between Forge Booth Monkey attendance and Normal Gamer Guy attendance.

In particular, how are they different?

More in depth questions:
Forge Booth Monkeyness:
...requires what amount of time commitment?
...carries what responsiblities? (i.e. do I need to study how to play more games than I already know?  Do I need to pimp games for those not present?  Etc.)
...carries what particular advantages? (decoder ring?  Membership of the Inner Circle?  Autographs on books/body parts?)
...have what, if any, less priveleges than normal gamer guy status?  (attendance of special con events, playing con games, etc?)

Thanks for your response.

yrs--
--Ben

[Matt Wilson]

Forge Booth Monkeyness:
...requires what amount of time commitment?
...carries what responsiblities? (i.e. do I need to study how to play more games than I already know? Do I need to pimp games for those not present? Etc.)
...carries what particular advantages? (decoder ring? Membership of the Inner Circle? Autographs on books/body parts?)
...have what, if any, less priveleges than normal gamer guy status? (attendance of special con events, playing con games, etc?)

My opinion is that there were too many monkeys at the booth at any given time last year. If there are going to be as many or more this year, we should come up with some monkey missions to send people out on, like to drum up demo interest. We can't rely solely on Ron's crazy tribal demo dance, hypnotic as it was.

Couple quick options that come to mind:

1) Isn't there a Forge cafepress store? Can we update a t-shirt and get attendees to buy a couple for GenCon? Then anyone wearing a shirt gets sent on human-billboard commando missions.

2) print up cheap flyers that say "come play the coolest games ever made" or something like that, and have the commandos hand them out all over the place.

3) make a couple big signs that say "what are you waiting for? Come demo some games", say at 2 x 3 or something, and have a couple people parade around with them.

Once I get married and move and finish PTA, I can probably head up the printing or something. If I'm driving down this year, bringing the signs would be pretty easy. Assuming that sounds like a good idea.

[Lxndr]

In theory, GenCon has an "open gaming" area.  Perhaps some longer "demo" games could be set up there, and people pointed to the booth afterwards?

[Tav_Behemoth]

Another roving monkey-mission might be to conduct market research surveys; as a monkey this is something I'd be happy to do, and as someone who'll have a game to pimp I have some questions I'd like to add to the survey.

[daMoose_Neo]

From what I read of the GC regulations, the 'monkey missions' might be frowned upon. My understanding was product hawking/pimpage was to remain in the booths of the designated company...unless they tend to over look this for developers?

[Ben Lehman]

Hi everyone

Discussing what the Booth Monkey's ought to do is great and all, but not the reason I started this thread.  I'd like to get some answers to some simple questions before sending off money, because I don't like making commitments and then not following through on them.

Questions:

1)  What is expected of a Booth Monkey, in terms of labor and presence?
2)  In the eyes of GenCon, are we different from other con guests?  How?

If these answers can be found elsewhere on the Forge, please let me know.  I couldn't find any direct answer to these questions, only bits and pieces, and I want to make sure that I'm not missing a big chunk.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben

1) What is expected of a Booth Monkey, in terms of labor and presence?

Full answers coming soon, but in a nutshell: participate in demonstration play, be a welcomer-interacter at the periphery (very important), and get out of the way when a sales or demonstrator person moves in for the kill.

It is very likely that Booth Monkeys will be putting in a half-day each day they're there, and be exiled for the other half of the day. We had occasional too-many-Indians crunches last year.

2) In the eyes of GenCon, are we different from other con guests? How?

You're an exhibitor. That means you get into the hall early and stay after it closes, and that you will not wait in any line.

Best,
Ron

[Dav]

Excess monkeys may follow me about the halls and streets of Indy.

I always find that the Forge has a nifty booth, with this odd "organization" thing, and then a mass of flesh that seems to defy logical comprehension.  Those being tossed from monkey-duty may, at their leisure, sign-up for Dav's How-To-Wander-About-A-Con-And-Get-People-To-Hand-You-Free-Stuff.

Dav

[Jürgen Mayer]

Dav's How-To-Wander-About-A-Con-And-Get-People-To-Hand-You-Free-Stuff.

I guess I'm automatically pre-registered for this?

I think last year's overall booth monkey (is this the official term now? Indie Gaming Ninjas was way cooler) organization went pretty well - we just have to make sure that we don't have too many Indie Gaming Ninjas at the booth at any given time... there have to be enough to handle the selling and demoing but not enough to scare people away.

[Dav]

Jurgen:

You are pretty much logged as "super-high-badass excess booth monkey, with honors"... or "Kapitan uberschussiger Standaffe zahlen Ein"* if you prefer.

Woo-hoo!  I've always wanted one of those!

Dav

* the following are four umlauts stacked sideways to be used at your leisure -- ::::

[Nev the Deranged]

As someone who has made the progression, I can say that while these names are both appropriate, they represent differing levels of proficiency. In my case, I was once a Roof Monkey, but as my skill and daring have grown I have earned the title of Roof Ninja. I would assume that Booth duty would carry a similar progression of levels, from Booth Monkey for the neophytes to Booth Ninja for those who have earned the appelation.

Just my 2gp ^_^