Next Year's Booth: Storm this Brain

[AdAstraGames]

First:  

I like all of you.  I think you guys are doing a valuable thing for the community, and are a fascinating development fora.

Second:

Unless things change, I'm going to ask to be placed out of line of sight from you folks at future cons.

Here's the problem:

Too many people blocking off too much traffic.  I saw people walking down the transverse aisle (the one that ran across the long side of your booth, the Ad Astra side of mine...) and literally saw people stop and decide to turn the other way rather than walk through what looked like a crowded bar scene.

I had people who said "Yeah, I'd *oof* like to see more of" "Excuse, me, sorry I ran into you like that..." "Tell you what, I'll come back when it isn't so crowded..." throughout the peak times of all three days.

It got infinitely worse when Calder was getting beaten on...

Let's take a look at this from another perspective.

How Many Jobs Are There To Be Done?

I count 7.

1 person handling the cash register.  

1 person handling the "stock room"  (Hint:  Buy up a set of plastic shelving units like ours...)  Stock Room Person should also be the default guy to go to ask questions of.

1 person for each demo table (3, preferably)

1 person at each end, INSIDE YOUR BOOTH AREA, flogging games.

If you want Calder to get whacked by the Mimbo, have that done in the RPG room where the full on demos are running.  Not in the booth or aisle where it will cause people to turn the other way and leave.  (The swinging in the aisle also means an innocent bystander can get hurt, and can then sue GenCon, which means that GenCon takes an incredibly dim view of this.)

You need a rotating book rack to display products.  Greg is showing some on this thread.

You DESPERATELY need a whiteboard that shows table A, B and C with a grid showing what games are on demos, so that people can come by, see that MLWM or Sorcerer is up at 2, and come back.

If you aren't doing one of these jobs, Be Somewhere Else.  Be in the RPG room running hour long demos rather than 15 minute high concept sketches.  In the RPG room, hand out the large format exhibitor hall maps.

Yes, I know it's Your Baby on display there.   And you're worried that the boothmonkeys are doing a good job, and flogging with appropriate enthusiasm....

Trust your fellow Forgies, and leave.

When you're flogging demos, having a schedule out there that everyone can see means that your floggers only have to flog the games actually being shown.   This means your floggers can actually KNOW something about the game. They generally didn't as we watched from across the aisle.  If they can't give the high concept when someone asks the question, they're not doing you much good.

For floggers, find people who are shorter than average (Ralph's height is about the top of the scale -- Luke and Paul are about ideal) who are energetic, can say "Here, have a flyer.  It's high in fiber..." and then direct those who look at the flyer to a demo table.  Female and knowledgeable also helps, far more so than "female, dressed to draw stares, and looks like she's afraid the geekiness will stain her".

The big tall guy with the ponytail who kept making sudden gestures did you guys more harm than good.  We watched people steer as far away from him as they could rather than come within arms reach.

On your demos themselves...rehearse your demos.  Rehearse them a lot.

Your demo should end with the opportunity for the customer to ask questions.  If they don't ask questions, let them go.  If they do, you've got a sale.

Most of the demos that I saw and sat through (I saw through MLWM, TRoS, and tried to get in on Universalis and Sorcerer but was pulled away), ran too long.

Look at a screen play.  Or James Sterrett's suggestion.

Start with the action In Medias Res.  For a TRoS demo, it's on the deck of a sinking ship.  Each fighter has a reason to do what they're doing, so they have an SA firing.  You should give an objective ("I must keep this evil bastard so and so from reaching the cabin where my beloved is hiding") and set up the fight.  After the fight is lost or one, show one other skill mechanic in play, ask them what would've happened if the SA's weren't in place, and let them ask a question or two.  Once they start asking a question, shift the dialogue into closing the sale.

Entire time? 10 minutes.  If you've got an hour blocked per game, a 10 minute demo lets you run 6 demos in your time slot, and move people through the setup.  When your time slot is over, you hand the Hat of Command to the guy taking over your demo, and lead your new customers to the RPG room to show them more of their new purchase.

This has people cycling through the booth regularly without putting 18 people in it at once.  

On multiple booths...

Because of your tendency to do aisle creep, and form a wall around the forge booth, or a wall of asses in front of your neighbor's booth, I think that having two endcaps across the aisle from each other is a disaster in the making.   Do a 3 booth setup, definitely.

Furniture for next (and subsequent) years:

$900 for furniture?  I sincerely hope you got kissed afterwards, for you surely did get screwed.

A rental trailer costs $80 for the weekend or thereabouts.  You can find places like Office Max where you can buy the furniture and throw it out at the end of each show for under $400.  (Cafe tables run about $60 each, you need 3 of them.  Folding stools cost $20 each, you need 12 of them.)

Or, for another $180 you can rent a storage locker in Indianapolis and put it in storage for the times you won't need it.  If you ever decide to do a forge booth at Origins, have someone coming in from the west take it along.

The plastic shelving units from Lowe's cost $45 per set.  3 of those is a good investment.

[Valamir]

This discussion has generated some neat ideas, and advice from other experienced indie-publishers is always welcome and appreciated...but lets not lose sight of the fact that

The Forge Booth FUCKING ROCKED.  For the third year in a row.

It is now a destination booth.  People make a point to come to the Forge Booth precisely because its such a unique experience.

Take the Mini Con to the RPG Room?  Gotta say, ixnay on that idea straight off.  Its the Mini Con atmosphere that makes the Forge Booth a success.  Its the radical departure from the norm that makes people stop and wonder "what the heck is going on here".

Its the fact that our booth people aren't just sitting quietly behind a table waiting for customers to show interest that has built a following.  All of these things: the non standard booth layout, the numerous and eager booth monkeys, the hectic and slightly crazed atmosphere, and brief brushes with anarchy are all part of the Forge booth experience and all part of how a group of small independent RPG publishers can hammer $11,000+ worth of sales (on products that average $15-$20 per unit) in 4 days on products almost no one had heard of.

We moved over 700 UNITS of product...there ain't nothing broken here folks.  Room for tweaks and enhancements, always.  But the basic booth model rocks, is a proven success, and doesn't need any major revision.

Advice and suggestions are appreciated, but anything that would make the Forge booth less like the Forge booth and more like every other booth at the con...I have to say doesn't really interest me...at all.


Concerns about interfereing with other booth's business are valid and I take those quite seriously, but I think we did a pretty good job of accomodating those who raised this issue at the con.


But I'll close with these thoughts, those independent booths who are near the Forge:

1) Benefit from the additional traffic the Forge draws to the area.  And yes we are at the point where we generate traffic.


2) Benefit by making themselves and their products known to us so we can actually refer folks to their booths as well.  

I sent at least 4 people to the Ad Astra booth personally, 3 who were interested in space games and 1 who wanted cool t-shirts.    Other referals went to Delerium, and I sent at least 2 Universalis folks to the Gold Leaf booth once I learned they enjoyed playing Uni on-line.

Other booth folks did the same to various degrees.  I know I heard other booth folks talking up Delerium and Sanguine and Ad Astra.  


That's all gratis, free-of-charge, helping out our fellow indie publishers stuff that we do willingly and voluntarily.  Stuff that I feel quite strongly vastly outweighs any occasional "wall" or congested area that our enthusiastic monkeys and customers may cause from time to time.


and

3) There are plenty of booths who would benefit from learning and adapting Forge style sales tactics for themselves.  There was nothing stopping Ad Astra, or the other space ship guys, or the kung fu card guys, or the 3d wooden hex game guys, or the guys down by the GPA from joining in the party atmosphere.  From getting up out of their chairs and getting a little funky.



So heres my advice to them.

Next year, try to make your booth MORE like ours.  Not ours more like yours.

[btrc]

Thought:
Bar stool tables. Demo-ees can stand, demo-ers can sit and still be at eye height.

Greg
BTRC

[Paul Czege]

Hey James,

...on Saturday, two or three of you spent the entire time chatting while standing in a wall in front of Jeff Siadek's Battlestations booth. In his shoes, I'd have been right pissed...

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, until Jeff told me directly on Saturday that he was totally cool with the traffic congestion/slowdown along that side of his booth. He was finding it productive to rope folks in for Battlestations demos as their passing got slowed in that zone.

Paul

[JamesSterrett]

Fair enough - and thank you for asking him about it, too.  (Which I did not....  :)   )

[Jasper the Mimbo]

My parents have been making a living selling their own products (lawn ornaments and stuffed animals) at crafts festivals, Fairs and conventions for 15 years and are preaty damn successful. I asked them what they thought about the discussion and they have this advice:

Spectacle Draws Attention. Use it. Calder in his jumpsuit and me in my getup worked well.

the most valuable thing a booth can contain is Open Viewing Space: The tower blocked off everyones vision, If there had been shelves along a back wall, displays and the like, I think it would have worked better.

Easily Identifiable Sales Staff: If no one likes the shirt idea than what about hats. Forge across the front and something on the side "Booth Monkey" or the name of your company or whatever. Hats for sales staff should be in a bright color, red preferably. Corperate stratagy and research has shown that black, white and red togeather evoke a sense of competence and leadership. Walk into any corperate building 9 times in 10 the guy in the black suit with the red tie is the boss. Red is a power color. use it.

Borders: putting a frame around something makes it more apealing to the eye. this could be easily accomplished during booth construction. I mean framing the booth itself, like the prosinium arch of a theater. Arches are also useful for doing things like hanging signs on.

Friendly Exitement: I don't think we have any problem here, just including it anyway.

Corners: a booth on a corner gets more traffic than one in a middle space. Booths near food vendors also do well. Ideally, getting two booth spaces ajoining at a corner and opening that space up is the best way to economise space, increase booth traffic and promote from two directions.

That's mostly it. The construction of a booth is preaty easy. I build sets for theatre productions on limited bugets, calder does too. if someone were to get me booth measurements 3 or 4 months in advance, I could design an easy to build, cheap and asthetically pleasing structure in a week or two. All we'd need is someone to pick up hardware supplies and 5 or 6 guys that are decently technical to help set up the night before the Con. What do you guys think.

[Valamir]

I think it would be cool to have an arbor style arch opening into the magical play land of the booth...maybe even with those velvet theater ropes to either side to add some flair.


I'm not big on the uniform idea though.  I think I'd rather have customers NOT know who the sales staff is, for a couple of reasons.

1) passing traffic sees a ton of people in the booth.  If they don't know that 1/2 of them are staff they're more inclined to think "man that booth is REALLY hopping", rather than "man that booth has alot of staff".

2) I witnessed a couple of customers actually selling our games for us to other customers ("hey, I demoed that yesterday and it really rocked").  I think bluring the line between who's a customer and who's staff enhancing this effect.

3) most of the staff aren't really staff.  They're just fans of the games no different than the customers themselves.  They're fans who love the game so much they give up 1/2 their gen con experience to help out in the booth.  I think that message is lost if you put them in common garb.  Then it looks more like they're their because they have to be.

I like the idea of game designers wearing their company specific garb to aid in identification.  But I'm big in favor of the booth monkeys and assistant types being as incognito as possible.

[Nev the Deranged]

I think there are lots of great ideas and comments flying back and forth here, both from us and our neighbors at the con.

I'm seeing some kind of simple PVC or furring strip apparatus to hold banners on high making them visible from afar and freeing much of the back of the booth up for continuous shelving and demo-without-blocking-advertising space. Alternatively, A-frame style shelves could hold a lot of stuff in a smaller space. These considerations depend as much on topology as on aesthetics and "booth flow", which is something I think we lacked a bit this year.

I really dig the idea of an easel with a whiteboard to announce current demos, this would be immensely helpful from a monkey perspective, as then we could bark a specific product or set of products rather than "we'll demo anything!" which, while you'd think it would be attractive, didn't seem all that effective to me. At a con where people are already bombarded with choices, giving them our whole 20-company-strong product lineup to pick from for demos is probably a bit overwhelming. Not saying demos-on-demand are bad, but having at least a few "Now Playing!" items to bark specifically would be easier to sell, imho.

I wouldn't mind hats, but I think Ralph eloquated what I have had in the back of my mind but not brought up- The Forge booth looks like it's constantly filled with fans, which it is. Did any of us NOT buy at least one Forge product? We monkeys especially are there because we plain love this shit. The games I probably sold the most of were the ones I had just played in and could just blurt out "Dude, I just played that game, it was awesome!"- which I would have done (and have done) whether actively working the booth or not. That said, I also agree with the comments that sometimes we need to know when to get the hell out of the way and let the customers do what they're there to do.

In the end, it's a learning process for all of us, and just as I'm sure the booth has gotten progressively better every year, I'm sure it will continue to improve in the future. From all evidence we kicked a whole lot of ass in 2004, I know I had a hella great time; and I have every reason to believe that 2005 will rock even more.

[AdAstraGames]

Ralph, I will respectfully disagree with you on the "throng of fans, and booth staff".

Most of my demo minions bought something at the Forge, so did my boothmates.

Nearly every single person had the same experience -- this was the experience that I had when I tried to get Burning Wheel the first three times:

Person comes into Forge booth.

They want to buy something.

They have to fight their way through a crowd of people who A) aren't fellow customers (and are obviously not, because they're standing around having animated discussions), to B) try and find the random person in the booth who can actually C) find the product they want, and D) get to the cash register.

One hidden benefit your triangular display rack gave you was that it very clearly separated the retail side from the demo side of your booth.  There are better ways to do this, I'll grant.

Being able to CLEARLY identify who the hell is "on duty" in the booth is, from a customer's perspective, the second most difficult part of the Forge experience.  The most difficult is finding a way to move without feeling like you're a salmon swimming upstream.

(As a case in point, it took me three tries to get Burning Wheel, and I only succeeded because I handed you the $15 bucks and asked you to find Luke and buy the product from him on my behalf -- I'm grateful that you did this for me, but I'm still shaking my head that it took three tries over two days to do it.)

Scott Palter had the same experience getting Sorcerer and My Life with Master on two different trips.

James Sterrett reported the same problem getting My Life With Master.

This is why I gave the "Jobs List" earlier, with "Cashier" and "Stock Boy".  Those two jobs, at the very least, should be CLEARLY labeled.

[Michael S. Miller]

Another idea (from the wife, so it's bound to be good): We could have someone with a Polaroid ready for when the Big Names come around. Have a board (it could even be on the side of a display rack) that says: "CAUGHT SNOOPING AT THE FORGE" with pictures of Tweet, Laws, Hite, Forbeck, etc. taken at the booth.

Edited to add: Also, anyone who uses a hard-to-get randomizer (like Ales'x roulette wheel or FVLMINATA's Tali) should definitely have some to sell along with the product. FVLMINATA did much better once the Tali dice got made and sold.

[Christopher Weeks]

They have to fight their way through a crowd of people who A) aren't fellow customers (and are obviously not, because they're standing around having animated discussions), to B) try and find the random person in the booth who can actually C) find the product they want, and D) get to the cash register.

I raised pretty much the same complaints last year.  I still agree with them.  But I also think it was better this year.

I too, stopped trying to get past the monkeys on my first try and just went away.  I eventually came back and met some of you in person and spent my wad, but it wasn't terribly easy, even then.  But I just pushed through, started unloading the shelf, barged through two conversations so that I could get to all three sides, barged back through and around to the cashier.  Once there, Ralph convinced me to buy R&R so I sent him to get it for me so that I wouldn't have to.

I also asked for a price list at the cashier so that I could peruse the offerings at a safe distance and it took some work to find that there was only one copy and only for the cashier and then to get him to let me view it.  I did, and it increased my speed at the rack.  Maybe a pile of those would be a good thing for next year.  I actually asked for such things at a bunch of booths and almost no one had one.  Weird!

Maybe those of you who are comfortable in that kind of a dense crowd just don't understand that we aren't all.  Maybe if that's your situation you should consider that there are people passing on the Forge "experience" because it's just too damn much work.  A random stranger told me as much as I was walking away with my load of goodies.  I have no way of knowing what the ratio of customers who dig what you're doing to those who bail before getting to learn about your work is.  But there are at least some.  The question is, is that OK?

edit in: And it might be easy to discount the experience of Ken, or myself and think "yeah, but that's just one or two guys and we rocked ass!"  But how many people aren't here to tell you?  I understand that congressmen have some system for realizing that each letter they get represents more than the opinion of the one author.  You should be thinking of that too.

Chris

[Michael S. Miller]

More stray thoughts:

I think the Quiet Zone worked wonderfully. As the idea was born right here on the Forge, I think each and every one of us should take a moment to thank Peter Atkinson & the GenCon staff for that policy. Contact info is available at http://www.gencon.com/displayindy.aspx?file=contact-us#exhibitors

The odd idea I had: Would it be worthwhile to get a booth facing the back wall? It would cut down on casual traffic--it would seem that our exuberance does that already--but it would allow more open space right across the aisle for in-depth explanation of the game, etc. without blocking other booths.

[LordSmerf]

On the subject of being able to identify the right people for whatever game you want info on...  how about buttons?  Everyone likes buttons!  Someone produce maybe 10 or so for each game (or more for more popular stuff) and then sell them for like a dollar or fifty cents or whatever.  Monkeys get first shot at them, and can then wear them around the Con.  Stuff like "Ask me about My Life With Master" in bold colors.  That way if someone walks into the booth knowing exacly what they want to see they can hunt up someone with the relevant button and pull them aside.  In addition if you are out just wandering the Con with a button, there is a chance (probably not huge, but there) that someone will just ask you about whatever the product is...

Disclaimer: i unfortunately missed GenCon this year and have not attended in the past, so i do not have any first hand experience with the whole Forge Booth...

Thomas

[Valamir]

I also asked for a price list at the cashier so that I could peruse the offerings at a safe distance and it took some work to find that there was only one copy and only for the cashier and then to get him to let me view it. I did, and it increased my speed at the rack. Maybe a pile of those would be a good thing for next year. I actually asked for such things at a bunch of booths and almost no one had one. Weird!

There was a pile of them right next to the register.  Whoever was working their should have known that.

[Paul's Girl]

Ok, here's my two cents.

1- I don't think the booth needs 'babes' of either male or female persuasion, having support that knows about the games and can add a few words about it can really help to sell a game. I sold a Universalis simply because the guy was into Pulp Fiction and I knew how that game played. Having a novelty or two is fine, but we shouldn't try to think up more crazy stuff for every year. Maybe a 'Calder' could be used in TROS demos for the player to actually whack. Perhaps passersby will look at that and wonder which game it is where you could hit a guy during the demo.  And lets face it, you guys are cool and have great games, that should be enough.

2- The dry erase board is cool, but make a disclaimer that other games are available at anytime, you don't want people thinking they can only have a demo at those times. Another idea to add to a sign is a post-it note above the game that says "Sorcerer demo Saturday at 2". I noticed that some people don't really look up much and having something posted above the game they are looking at and having it personalized for that day may influence them to try the game. Also, what about scheduled demo game sign up lists? I can see bad and good issues with this, we wouldn't have 20 showing up for a demo but I bet some people don't keep schedules at the con. Just an idea.

3- L shaped booth sounds great! Imagine the area that was used this year as the demo table section, the display taking up the open corner area where people can freely walk around it and the smaller, single, side booth as the sales and storage area.  Sounds nice to me. Having the booth facing the wall would be ok, as long as one side was visible from a main walkway.  

4- I have to support the display some now. Two years ago Paul saw the need for a better display then the magazine rack that was being used at the time, and took initiative and designed and constructed it himself for the betterment of everyone at the Forge booth. It can hold a hell of a lot of stuff, which the booth definitely needs. Anything else is going to cost more than it was to make the current display and might not have the storage capacity that it provides.  And if there is booth expansion, it might not be so bad.

5- Last one. What about sponsors paying X dollars and bring one folding chair of a specific type? The cost of furniture rental goes down helping out total cost and no one person is committed to storing a boatload of chairs. I know some have to fly to the con, and that could be worked out somehow. But after the first year, the chair expense would technically be eliminated. Still have to rent tables but any money saved is good.