ICON 23 (2004) Report

[Luke]

ICON is a venerable con staged out in Stony Brook, Long Island -- about 90 minutes from Manhattan, but rather easy to get to by public transportation. We drove, which was harrowing, but we had tons of stuff -- enough for two cars.

The con itself takes place in the sports arena and adjunct buildings of the Stony Brook college campus. It's rather spread out -- you have to walk five minutes to another building to get from the dealers' room to the gaming area.

RPG gaming is also shoved in the arse of the con, in the back corner of the student union and the self-same basement. Not prime exposure. But, truth be told, ICON is a sci-fi/fantasy con more than anything else. It seems that the con focuses much more on its media and science guests and events rather than anything else. Though the dealers' room was farking massive -- half as big as GenCon's. Try to say that about your local con.

Admission for the con was expensive -- nearly $30 for a single day, $42 for the weekend. Considering that most folks were there to get things signed and check out the dealers' room, I felt this was a bit much.

On my end, I've recently become friends with James Carpio, aka Dregg, who happens to be the Gaming Guests coordinator for ICON. Using his magic powers he hooked us up. Us? Yes, us. Nearly all of the cons I attend now, I attend with aaron and spencer of NerdNYC. As at Ubercon, we had a demo table in the gaming area, and a dealer's table in the vendor hall -- these were gratis from Dregg.

Even better, half of the Burning Wheel crew now helps out at the Nerd table. Dro and Pete help sell t-shirts, push Burning Wheel, and even push a variety of independent and small press games that I haul with me to cons.

We were all very worried about whether our demo table/dealer's table gestalt was going to pay off this time around. The rooms were so far apart, and so hard to get to individually, that we feared interested gamers would not be able to make the connection between the two points.

This was somewhat true. We didn't have the demo to dealer energy we had at Ubercon. But even so, the con was so big -- must have been 5000 people there easily -- and we ran so many demos, we topped our last con with a whopping 23 sets sold. Second only to GenCon in sales.

Aaron and company also sold a veritable ton of t-shirts. Their best con to date.

The other hurdle for us at the demo table to overcome, was the utter lack of demo track schedules in con literature. Three companies and dozens of demos simply listed as "Demo Track". Ugh.

Still, we managed to pull through. The Burning Wheel table was busy the whole weekend. In fact, Saturday night I ran my biggest rpg event ever in the form of a stunning 17 person Poisonous Ambition. And I cautiously say it was a success -- most of the participants did seem to enjoy themselves.

Aside from my own game stuff, I met some nice people. The folks at Slugest games and Silven Crossroads were cool as beans. Speaking of beans, I got to chat with the folks from Dilly Green Bean who were a dead funny crowd. And lastly, but not leastly, got to sit on a panel and hear a success story from the white-hot Privateer Press. So nice to hear of a small company that has so many orders that they can't fill them!

Once again, Jared and I sat on a couple of panels and raised cane. Jared's a complete rabble-rouser and I adore him for it. He makes me look sweet and innocent (i'm not; i'm rooting for him). Though they were fun, the panels could have been MUCH better moderated to provide a better experience for the panel members and attendees.

All in all, it was a great con. Yes it was disorganized, but with so much going on, that's to be expected. And I barely noticed the disorganization myself.

Thank you all for coming out and supporting my game. You know who you are, and you rock my fucking world.

-Luke

PS: The other game sales info: Jared sold about 8 copies of his various games. We sold 2 copies of Sorcerer, 2 of Sword, 2 of Sex, 1 of Soul. 2 copies of Universalis and 1 copy of kill puppies. That's pretty fucking rockin', too, if you ask me.

[Valamir]

Damn.  
Luke, if I had half your energy...

You rock dude.


Note to indie publishers, if you can get to a con where Luke is at, do it.  And then spend a couple of hours watching him work sales and demos.  he's a machine.

[urbwar]

Luke,

It was a pleasure getting to play Poisonous Ambition with you again. That 17 player game was insane!

My only regret is that I didn't know the nerdnyc table had copies of Sex & Sorcery. When we went by there on Sunday, all we saw was the core book and Soul. Thor and I both were looking for Sex & Sorcery too! Did you only have two copies there, or were there more? If there were more, you really need to tell the Nerd guys to keep a copy out. We didn't bother to ask because we were in a hurry, and the damn dealer's room was freaking hot for some reason.

oh well. Next time, I want to try The Gift, since your description of it in a post regarding Grief on the BW forums got me intrigued. I've done Orcs, I've done Trolls. Now I need to see what those heavy metal singing elves can do!

[drozdal]

Thor and I both were looking for Sex & Sorcery too! Did you only have two copies there, or were there more? If there were more, you really need to tell the Nerd guys to keep a copy out.

Sorry urbwar that's all my fault :), because I was in charge of it. It will be handled better next time - promise.

We didn't bother to ask because we were in a hurry

You should :)

Drozdal

PS. Valamir - I've sold one copy of Universalis to a lady who's uncle has same name as you do. [That was of course the main reason why she bought the game :) ]

[urbwar]

Sorry urbwar that's all my fault :), because I was in charge of it. It will be handled better next time - promise.

No need to apologize. I figured either you didn't have any (as was the case at Ubercon), or that if you had, you sold them all. I know Luke only brings a few copies, and being Sunday, it was likely they had sold out. I'll just try again at Recess, since I'm in no rush to pick it up :-)

You should :)

Drozdal

well, as I said, we were in a hurry, and there were like 5 or 6 people at the table, so you guys were busy also. Since we had to get back to the Student Union, as well as eat, we didn't really have time to wait :-(