Next Year's Booth: Storm this Brain

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

The chairs are the real bite for the furniture cost, not the tables, so that is an excellent suggestion, Danielle. I think some details might have to get worked out, but the basic idea is sound.

Booth policy decision: the shelves work very well for their purpose and will remain. I have yet to see any objections or comments that can't be translated into "a ton of people want to see the games." That is good news, not a problem that has to be solved.

Best,
Ron

[Michael S. Miller]

Booth policy decision: the shelves work very well for their purpose and will remain. I have yet to see any objections or comments that can't be translated into "a ton of people want to see the games." That is good news, not a problem that has to be solved.

I'm all for that, but the one long tabletop on the side was barely being used ... it only held up Ralph's little signs and some business cards. Perhaps a small-ish tabletop rack could be used to supplement the big shelves. This could be another advantage of the buy-in tiers. Something like primary sponsors get shelf space on the big shelves AND the tabletop rack through the whole con. Mid-tier folks can rotate through an open spot on the tabletop rack in addition to presence on the big shelves, and $100 folks are relegated to just the big shelves through the whole con.

[Christopher Weeks]

I was thinking about one of Ken's suggestions and figured this might be helpful in the future:

You can rent a 5x5 closet, ten feet high for $25 per month at:

Shurgard Storage
933 N Illinois St, Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 974-0905

which is almost exactly one mile north of the convention center.

You can have 30" diameter cafe tables, 42" off the ground for $73 (or 29" high for a similar price) each and metal folding chairs for $10 from

You can also get 30x60" tables (I couldn't find four-foot tables as per Ron's specification here) for $86 each.

http://www.wholesalefoldingtablesandchairs.com

So the initial investment on two long and six tables and 20 chairs would be $610 with $300 (or maybe less if paying for a year at a time, I should have asked) per year to store them.

Does this seem like an unreasonable option for cost savings?

You'd still need to get a 10x20 carpet seam-stitched and delivered once (or maybe go with multiple 10x10 squares so you can grown and shrink modularly) and you'd want table cloths and skirts.  But this is a start and it really does sound like a viable option.  The storage cost might be cut down too, but convincing another repeat exhibitor to do the same thing and share.

Chris

[Valamir]

Hey Chris, some good initial leg work there, thanks.

I would like to remind folks about this thread, however.

This is not the first time that alternative furniture arrangements for cost savings has come up.  It was discussed by lots of people at some length this year prior to Ron's above final call.

Unfortuneatly when it came time to do the actual work to make it happen...nothing, which is the main reason why we missed the prereg deadline for furniture this year.


Ron already does a metric buttload of stuff to make GenCon happen, so if some alternative furniture arrangement is to be had for next year...someone (read: "Not Ron") reliable will need to step up and take ownership of it.  AND get it done far enough in advance that come registration time for 2005 there's no doubt that its all taken care of.

The cynic in me isn't holding my breath.

[rickr]

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.

Gah! The practice of color-coding your staff is typically used as a corporate team-building excercise to create a sense of corporate identity, and it seems to me that that's antithetical to the whole Forge vibe.
Also, the "power color" shtick gets old quickly, especially if it's being used too conspicuously.

As a gamer (and a customer at your booth this year), I'd really rather not see a bunch of salespeople waiting to try to sell me something when I walk up to the Forge booth. I much prefer dealing with (and will more likely trust) someone who seems to be my peer (or even better, someone who seems to know more than I do), rather than a "Forge Team Member" who's dressed the same as the other people in the booth.

[Keith Senkowski]

Hi,

I too am opposed to uniforms just because I have my own cool shirts for my game/company.  Buttons would be good, but then again I think we should all wear the trey kool kpfs stickers.

About chairs, how about this for a possible solution.  Those of us that have folding chairs in our possession (particularly those of us in the tri-state area) bring our own.  I'm a new home owner so I have recently gotten shit like that and can easily bring them down next year.  I also now have access to folding tables (cart table type).  That is one easy way to cut down on costs on furniture...

I like the idea of splitting demos out.  Short ones at the booth, some scheduled and some not.  Long ones in another location, all scheduled.

I also think that smaller racks, maybe the turning ones might be a better idea than the big wooden one.  Space is always going to be an issue with the booth since we as a collective can't really afford a huge booth.

That is all for now...

Keith

[Jasper the Mimbo]

Clarifications:

The hats/shirts/uniforms/whatever-
I didn't mean everybody! hell that's just rediculous. I ment the actual on duty staff. I.E. the cashier and the stock boy/girl that is usually behind the desk to answer questions. Other than that maybe having one person on the floor acting in an official capacity as sales rep. Buttons are a great idea! Let's take it up a step, "Ask me about My Life With Master" isn't enough. "Ask me about My Life With Master Demo's" would be more effective. The buttons should only be given to the people directly involved with the game. I.E. The writer/owner and the buy demo-ing the product. The "fan's selling to fans" image is a great tool and we should keep it. Giving out too many buttons or hats will reduce thier effectiveness.
The power color thing wasn't really angled to be "corperate gimick" I was using that as an example of it's use by proven effective money makers. The important thing is that it be eye catching, hence the bright colors.

These two things in conjunction would be great to set up an easily identifieable sales tier.
- A couple people with hats handling the buisness end. (handling money, restocking shelves)
- People with buttons representing the games from a demo-er or answer guy stance (if you're representing multipule games, just wear more buttons. Buttons are cool.)
- Spectacle personell drawing a crowd. It works. Even if it's distasteful to some, it's appealing to more, and even the ones who find it distastefull will still come for a closer look, at which point we've got them too. One or two is all we need.
- Everyone else. The "Covert Ops" Apparently just a bunch of enthusiastic fans talking up the games, dressed like everyone else, creating the "fans selling to fans" atmosphere.

Sounds to me like a preaty damn effective sales stratagy. Comments?

[LordSmerf]

One reason i like buttons (and especially like having them for sale) is that customers unaffiliated with the Forge could buy one (for a dollar or something) and wear it around the Con providing free advertising.  Heck, maybe they could even be manufactured cheaply enough to give them away with the purchase of the game.  In addition, if anyone can buy a button they are not "official" marks of staff-hood or whatever.

Thomas

[btrc]

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.

I like it too. But it might work better if it could be configured as a zig-zag rather than a triangle, with all the games facing the same way. Could this be done with a strategic hinge change?

Greg
BTRC

[nerdnyc]

PS I would love to add another company into our mix like NerdNYC or Key20 -- another entity to share a bigger space with, not a primary sponsor of the Forge, per se.

I was talking to Luke about this and now I've read the big thread. Here's what I think.

Get the 4 booth and I'll take a corner, leaving you with 3 booths. I know and sell many of your games when I team up with Luke, so I can even help out. Plus, my shirts are super cool and I'll have other indie games to sell anyway.


This is what I think would be your mazimized layout.

- The demo areas would be for standing players and a bar stool riding GM. Fast demos are the key. Give the kids the selling point of the game, have the roll some dice(or not if that's your game) and show them to the register. Not quick and mean, but you don't need a mini adventure to sell someone your game.

- The "money" spot is where one game demo can be featured every hour. Don't announce when people are doing special demos. They can always demo the games, if space permits. This area will be able to focus players who might get overloaded with info. The primaries can get first pick of spots or more time - whatever you feel is appropriate.

- Seperate the sales area so I (the gamer that knows what he wants) doesn't have to wade through indie fanboys to get to the goods. Nothing should ever get inbetween a customer and the register.

- Booth monkeys at the corners (but legally inside the booth) can direct people towards demos and sales. These people can wear vest, fez, coveralls, whatever, but make them obvious.

- Big tall banners that give shape to the booth, rather than decorate the back wall. Making these out of PVC is pretty easy, but if you get to tall they'll sway if knocked into. This might be a place to spend a little dough on the nice ones.

- Storage in the back, so you don't have to run to a hotel or keep your sales area cluttered. Keep it covered with black tablecloths.

-------------------

Seriously, I went to the booth to buy a couple games but didn't want to fight my way in. There were way to many people there. I hate choas. I said I was going to go back on Sunday and never got around to it.

I'm going to bed. (I can't believe I made a booth mock-up at 1:30AM on a Friday night.)

[Calder_Johnson]

Hey, folkes.  More info here in this thread than I can even hope to process at the moment, let alone respond to.  But I'll try for a few things anyway.

-Vertical booth space.  I've gotta throw my support behind not only reconfiguring the booth internally at the ground level, but also building up.  There were all kinds of cool posters and banners at the booth, but they were often hidden by people and/or shelves.  Some sturdy PVC framework and those posters would be up about 5-10 feet.  Which I think would not only increase the eye-candy ratio of the booth up close (I work as a repairman for a local chain of movie theaters, and I've had the chance to see just how much thought goes into making sure no matter where a customer is looking, they're seeing something shiny), but also make the booth more noticeable on the Exhibit Hall skyline.  Our near neighbors, the boffer arms dealers, had a tall banner crowning their booth, and I specifically remember several times people would ask me where the boffers were being sold, and I could point them directly to it, even if I was on the far side of the hall.  

-Shorten the L-table arrangement lengthwise.  It'll still make a small, but easily identifiable sales area, and free up back wall space around the product shelves, which is one place that it wouldn't be a good idea to have overwhelming congestion.

-I have to agree with some other things that have been said about booth uniforms.  Creating a sea of people wearing the same thing would be a bad idea.  But I do think it's not a bad idea to encourage people to wear something affiliating them with some specific game at the Forge booth, especially if an effort is made to ensure that that clothing is colorful and distinct from the others.  People could still be identified as help staff on close examination, they would be moving billboards for whatever game they were representing, and the lively, motley atmosphere of the booth would be preserved.

-This ties in with a few other recent posts.  I think it's definetely a good idea to establish warm ties between the booth and it's neighbors either by advanced design, or by just walking up and starting a conversation with the next-door booth.  I do believe that spectacle and the carnival atmosphere can create beneficial crowd congestion for a entire section of the Exhibit Hall, but it'd be nice to be in congenial cooperation with all of the nearby booths on that point.  I really had fun being the guy-in-jumpsuit-being-whacked-and-people-wonder-why, but at the same time, I would hate to think that anyone would consider me an obstacle to enjoying the con fully.  To finish up this thought.  I saw the relationship between the Forge booth and the Battlestations booth as a perfect example of this kind of camraderie, and I think it would be a highly fascinating experience to have an entire 'district' of booths that all functioned on that level.

Sheesh.  More I'd like to write about, but I'm gonna have to actually get dressed at some point.  There's a few of my cents, anyway.  Later.

[ffilz]

Very interesting discussion. One thing I really want to compliment you folks on is the friendly atmosphere and the cross selling. Your booth has made sales to me both this year and last that I might not have otherwise made (I used to be a "buy every RPG" sort of person, but I can't afford that any more).

This year, I dropped by on Sunday to do demos, and here's one place you failed a bit. I came in because Chris Weeks suggested I do a Universalis demo. Whoever greeted me asked what I was interested in and I told him it had been recommended I try Universalis. He asked what I was looking for in games, where I mentioned I liked a tactical combat system. He immediately suggested I check out The Ring of Steel, which I did, with demo.

The TROS demo was excellent. It was a great demo which quickly demonstrated two of the key differentiators of TROS (the combat system and Spiritual Attributes). Discussion of the system after that covered the general idea of sorcery (including it's own tie in to SAs). A sale was made.

But I left the booth without doing a Universalis demo. I did wander by a few minutes later and watched part of a Universalis demo, and I did buy Universalis from another vendor. But I wish I had done the demo. Now I could have been more assertive, but I think it would have been better to have made sure I did a Universalis demo also.

Here's a thought to perhaps help with that. WOTC has this nice card where you check off all the demos you do, they give you a prize for doing all of them - something you probably can't afford to do, so instead - have a card with all the games offered, and use a highlighter to mark the games the person might be interested in, and escort them to their first demo. Then when they finish that one, escort them to the next demo.

Another thing - if you can at all find a way to take plastic, checks, or even PayPal, that would really help. In today's society, I just don't carry much cash with me. If I had been sold on much more of the product, I would not have been able to buy it all. I realize plastic is expensive, but there's got to be some way to make it reasonable, and worth it to get some sales. Last year, I was able to manage a check payment (and I hope that worked out ok), and that might be an alternative (of course you folks can't afford the risk of a bad check for a couple hundred bucks).

But overall, the booth was great. The energy was great. The knowledge of the games was great.

Frank

[Andy Kitkowski]

Here's a thought to perhaps help with that. WOTC has this nice card where you check off all the demos you do, they give you a prize for doing all of them - something you probably can't afford to do, so instead - have a card with all the games offered, and use a highlighter to mark the games the person might be interested in, and escort them to their first demo. Then when they finish that one, escort them to the next demo.

I'd like to respond to this, because I had the exact same thought as I was running a demo and watching people stand around with a copy of Kill Puppies looking for an open table to run it (there wasn't) and a GM to run it for them (the few that were comfy with it weren't in the booth then).

I totally understand the sentiment there, but it just won't work. We cannot afford the tables or the training it would take to make it possible for every person who was interested in a demo to even demo just two other games. Too many people came through. Too few tables in use, even without the TROS "2-table demos". On top of that, we'd have to keep the designers in the Forge booth from 10-6 running nonstop demos for their games, and the booth monkeys around to run demos for them when they need a break (meaning training them to the level of total familiarity with games that came off the printer in the 2 weeks before the con).

It just wouldn't work.  

I'm really sorry you didn't get a chance to demo Universalis (in fact, IIRC, it was I who might have been the one trying to find an open place/person to run Uni for you).  Heck, I wanted to get in on a demo, too (I wanted to see what a "solid" game of Uni would be like), but couldn't because of time... and I was rooming with the designer! I also didn't get a chance to play a full game of Conspiracy of Shadows, Trollbabe or Burning Wheel, games that I had sworn to myself that I would play. And this is coming from a guy who was also hanging out with the designers all night after the dealer hall was closed.

There's just not enough time or (especially) space to run games for everyone that wants one, that's the honest and hard truth.  We can only make do with what we got.

However, I think in the future, having the designers schedule and run Solid, GenCon Guide-Listed, RPG Room Gaming Events of their games - at least 2 or 3 - over the space of the convention would help enormously. Luke did it, and damn if the pictures taken at his events (see them at http://www.robo-christ.com/gallery in "Droz' Pics") don't show a table full of people looking up to him, with faces like, "Fuck, this game rocks!!! And Eench Allah I will buy it!!!". We could even draft up a flyer for the booth listing when and where the "Forge Game Events" were being held. And, of course, when those gaming events aren't going down, they can still run the quick demos in the dealer's hall.

Everyone cannot be helped, of course. There's just not enough space.  In fact, I think that visitors who try to demo in more than two events are probably asking too much of us (because they'd have looked around during the demo to see that others want a demo, too, but there's not enough tables), just in the way that the guys sitting there playing Fable or Mechwarrior for 2 hours straight at the X-Box demo area were basically, deliberately or not, biting their thumbs at the other people who wanted to play.

But scheduling GenCon events for their games, even just extended 2-hour games (not the full 4 hour), may help a little more next year.

-Andy

EDIT: MORE:

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.

Interesting idea-  How about, if we end up making "Booth Flyers" next year (NOT to hand out to random folks :)  ), that we list the price on the flyer as well?  Maybe it will save some folks some time. Maybe,

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.

This absolutely could not be helped. I constantly looked for ways we could maximize our space this year in between events, and while I tidied up a little, without constructing anything new with wood and steel, or getting more booth space, there was little that could have been done here. We could have removed a demo table, but that would have been shooting ourselves in the foot. We could have gotten rid of one of the tables, but then the games that weren't on the Forge Rack wouldn't have had any display time.  

Next year, we can try to think of new ways to make space- Use that tricky third dimension to our advantage (thanks Calder, Jasper, for the ideas), use stools, or get more booth space and 1-2 more sponsors/buy-ins.

Ron: See if you can call any of them Scandanavian gaming gorup guys. Maybe they can bring some of their Government Gaming Funds over to subsidize the Forge booth area, making it bigger.  They might be able to pull it if they can get a few Scands to come to GenCon, and use the word "Internationalization" a lot. For real.

Any other ideas to get money to expand the Forge Booth by using government money?

-Andy

[ffilz]

I'm not suggesting that everyone try and demo every game. My suggestion was to have someone spend a minute or two with a customer to find out one or two, perhaps three, games they were very interested in. Also, my demo ended up being with another booth monkey as the 2nd player because there wasn't another customer, so there was some wasted bandwidth.

I know it's tough, but the Forge games tend to be radical departures from standard games, so a demo is far more important to get the word out. Remember, a successefull demo is probably more than one sale (the player goes home and tells his friends about the game).

The idea of two or four hour game slots is cool, but I think you do actually get more bang for the buck with a bunch of 10-20 minute demos.

Of course building up more dedicated fans to run demos is something that will help. Obviously the brand new game will have a harder time of it, but some of the games have been around for a while, and probably have plenty of good fans.

Frank

[Gordon C. Landis]

Furniture.  I have an opinion:  tall cafe-style tables and barstool-type seating is the right way to go.  It minimizes space use and creates the right "feel" for the booth.  As we get closer to GenCon '05, I'm willing to put my energy/time/money/effort into helping make this real, if conditions are such that it still makes sense (same style booth, etc.).  At the moment that's an empty promise, I know, but this really feels like the right way to go to me.  So maybe I'll get a chance to back up those words, but if not, my opinion is known.

I was willing and eager (well, a bit less eager since my own game didn't quite get ready for the con) to personally run more demos in the booth this year, but it didn't happen - we had a lot of folks there, and when customers who wanted demos showed up (which was often, but not always), the tables filled very quickly.  This is pretty much just a good thing, but maybe we could improve with a bit of organization along the whiteboard/"scheduled demo" lines.

It seemed to me that standing at a corner of the booth, "Demo Starting" sign in one hand, actual copy of a game in the other, both hands held high, with a smile on your face and a "wanna demo?" for anyone who makes direct eye contact (and you should be seeking out direct eye contact!), was surprisingly effective - if you're doing ALL of the above.  Even leaving out the actual game in the other hand decreased the amount of eye-contact I got a LOT - and you don't want to know what happened when I stopped smiling.  If there is an empty table, someone should be doing this ALL THE TIME.  Now, your arms (and facial muscles, if you're like me :-) get tired after a bit, and this isn't SO effective that you're guaranteed to fill a demo-table before said tiredness strikes, so we'd have to rotate folks.  But really, anytime there's an empty table, something at at LEAST this level of effort should be happening to fill it.

I'd also like to find a way to make 1-2+ hour demos practical somehow.  Ron feels strongly (and accurately, best as I can tell) that short demos are the key to strong sales at the booth, but it seems to me that something a little more meaty is better at delivering a real feel of what is cool/different/engaging about a game.

There's a few thoughts,

Gordon