[GenCon 2008] Forge Booth: The rules and ways for this year - let's go!

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Well, I ran a little bit behind schedule this year. Finally - here is the thread about signing up for the Forge booth this year.

1. The only eligible people are those who did this last year for the first time, and people who are doing it for the first time now. Actually, there are a couple of exceptions due to past investments, but that's not important for this thread.

2. Here's how it works, which is how it always worked. I and a few others have already secured a booth, which will serve both as the IPR store and as a promotion site for independent publishing - specifically your games. We've already paid for it. Publishers may then sign up as exhibitors, and be members of the booth. They will pay $65 for the badge fee, which goes straight to GenCon, and $125 or $250 to us, which helps offset the price of the booth. If it's your first time, it's the lower rate, and if it's your second, it's the higher.

3. Activities at the booth are mainly based on short promotional demos, more on the CCG model (a quick taste) than the traditional con scenario played over hours. Customers basically sit down and play, and then they buy stuff. All the publishers participate as well, and in many cases, they pick up enough to be able to demonstrate one another's games. (For instance, I often spend a full day demonstrating others' games, although that's a little extreme and not expected of others.) Every publisher should spend 1/2 the working day at the booth (10 to 6 the first three days, 10 to 4 on Sunday) as well as help to set up and clean up at start and end.

4. Arrival is a big deal. It's almost impossible to coordinate it precisely, but the basic fact is that we need as many people as possible to be there Wednesday afternoon, especially toward 4-6 PM, when certain heavy and crucial materials show up (shelves, flooring). You'll be able to pick up your badges at the Exhibitor Booth in the hall, to get in. I also suggest planning to stay through Monday morning, if you can, mainly because trying to check out on Sunday and still be an effective booth member is pretty hard.

5. Please do not register for GenCon. Do not register for GenCon. Doing so will result in a huge pain in the ass for me and also make the GenCon staff impatient with our whole endeavor.

6. The only way to sign up is to pay me, using Paypal, at sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com. If you're a really really nice person, then you'll put a teeny bit extra in to help offset Paypal's fee, but most people don't do that, so you don't actually have to. You do not have to tell me here that you're signing up or otherwise formalize things at all - the money will talk just fine.

7. Please keep the number of people minimal. If you have several people in your company, consider having only one be an actual exhibitor at the booth and the others simply sign up for GenCon as attendees. Spouses and best friends should not be exhibitors. So the fee is $65 per badge you're getting (I hope only one) and then either $125 or $250 as well. So let's say you actually have three people who are really and truly all part of the publishing company and everyone will just die if they're not full exhibitors at the booth - that'd be $195 for the three badges and $125 for the first-time buy-in, for a total of $320.

8. As far as hotel rooms go, your best bet is to have your friend or spouse or whoever secure a room as a regular GenCon attendee, and stay there. There really isn't much other option.

9. The deadline for signing up is June 1.

Other stuff that goes on - well, there's a lot, not necessarily all part of the Forge booth at this time, but having originated that way, and so the booth is still a hub of social networking and setting up games for the evenings. It's kind of a like an instant-community or perhaps theater troop type experience.

Questions? Questions! I know I probably missed about 100 key points, so let me know what you need to know.

Best, Ron

edited to make it sticky, for a while
edited to make it un-sticky - it's time for new threads

[Josh Roby]

Ron, are participants limited to one product, or can they bring more than one to the Forge booth?

[iago]

Ron, are participants limited to one product, or can they bring more than one to the Forge booth?

Participants have not been limited in that fashion in past years, and IPR will have much of its catalog there besides, so I'd think you'd be fine with more than one.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Yes, let's ask questions!

• What's the word on marketing materials this year? I understand that, for the most part, marketing materials such as banners, flyers and stuff should be coordinated to advertise the booth in whole and the Forge/indie brand in general, rather than individual products. Right or wrong?
• How does the product storage system work, now? I'm in the process of asking this from IPR as well, as I understand that IPR pretty much handles this part nowadays, but others might want to know as well - there's probably not enough room for all stock on location, so should I prepare to keep a part of it in a hotel room, or is there some kind of centralized stocking arrangement?
• When and how are work schedules arranged? Will the booth operate on two shifts, or by some less formal arrangement?

[iago]

What's the word on marketing materials this year? I understand that, for the most part, marketing materials such as banners, flyers and stuff should be coordinated to advertise the booth in whole and the Forge/indie brand in general, rather than individual products. Right or wrong?

Disallowed, in past years.

How does the product storage system work, now? I'm in the process of asking this from IPR as well, as I understand that IPR pretty much handles this part nowadays, but others might want to know as well - there's probably not enough room for all stock on location, so should I prepare to keep a part of it in a hotel room, or is there some kind of centralized stocking arrangement?

Put the materials in IPR's custody before or at the beginning of the show.  We'll have in-booth (under-table) storage, as well as a truck outside that we'll regularly send "runners" to to tank-up.

When and how are work schedules arranged? Will the booth operate on two shifts, or by some less formal arrangement?

Publishers, unless enlisted well in advance by IPR, are there to demo their games.  They need to show up, and expect to spend a healthy chunk of the convention doing demos or other booth-supportive activities (like "roping" passers-by, etc). 

Lots of this gets spelled out on-the-ground at the con.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Good questions and good answers. I'll refine a couple of points.

1. The booth does not operate in shifts. Which halves of which day is interpreted by publishers on a personal basis. No signing-up is involved, and I have not yet had to address the issue of someone not doing their part (at least, not in terms of simply being present).

2. In 2006 only, new participants were limited to one game. That was an interesting idea with some merits, but overall, I decided to return to the non-limited original policy.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Oh yeah. No banners or flyers. Any general booth materials will be organized as such by people who volunteer for it, in a separate thread (start one if you want). No one should bring stuff of that kind on their own, or as a surprise.

Best, Ron

[JustinB]

Does that mean no postcards or bookmarks this year? I ask because we had that whole table of them last year.

[Ron Edwards]

Good question, Justin. Bookmarks and postcards are perfectly OK, although if we run into space limitations, then they'll be cut back in quantity on-site and be used mainly as bag-stuffers. My real concern is about stuff that's intended to be prominently displayed as furniture. We've learned the hard way that the booth does better without it.

Best, Ron

[iago]

Yeah, speaking as IPR-guy, I'd be happy to have a separate table of promotional stuff again.  It definitely was a traffic-draw of its own and may have driven some sales for the booth, but it needs to exist in a booth location that does not tangle foot traffic or visual identity with the main "sales corridor" -- which pretty much describes the setup we had in 2007; pretty ideal.

[Anna Kreider]

Is not being able to be there in time to help set up the booth a barrier to being an exhibitor? In other words, if I can't be there for booth setup due to travel restrictions, can I still be an exhibitor?

~Anna

[iago]

Is not being able to be there in time to help set up the booth a barrier to being an exhibitor? In other words, if I can't be there for booth setup due to travel restrictions, can I still be an exhibitor?

I asked a similar question last year.  I think the position is that it's appreciated if you can get there early as you can -- since there's more than just booth setup happening then, there's also orientation, etc -- but a lot of the "social" and orientation parts happen prior to the doors opening on the first exhibiting day of the convention.  Regardless, it's not a barrier so much as an inconvenience.

[rafael]

8. As far as hotel rooms go, your best bet is to have your friend or spouse or whoever secure a room as a regular GenCon attendee, and stay there. There really isn't much other option.

Dumb question, but why do we need a friend or spouse to do this? Couldn't I just register at the hotel as a normal guest?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Anna,

Fred's right. You're still eligible and we will suffer ever so slightly without you on Wednesday, but I definitely understand that not everyone can make it at the ideal time.

Hi Rafael,

Sure, you could, but not as a GenCon person and so whatever rooms they've blocked off or whatever rates are special for GenCon people, if any, wouldn't be available to you. Those might be issues for hotels close to the convention center. The difference in experience when you're staying right around the corner, as opposed to way out away somewhere, is substantial.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

I asked about the hotel stuff last week here, and did some independent digging as well. The reason to go through the Gencon system is that Gencon reserves quite a lot of the hotel capasity for themselves in advance, so they get it cheap (which is passed to con-goers) and partially prevent others from reserving rooms from those hotels. Apparently it's quite possible to get a room independently as well if you're lucky, as the hotels do not give Gencon all of their capacity - it's a bit more expensive, but there is a benefit in that you might get a room from a hotel that is already booked full in the Gencon system. Works both ways, of course, so a hotel that were booked full in their own system might still have room in the Gencon side. They're essentially two separate reservation systems with little mutual overlap.

As a data point for planning, most of the hotels in the Gencon system were full last week when we reserved our room - only two hotels, both around 7 miles from downtown, still had room. According to the Gencon website a person might still get a room from another hotel either by reserving it directly, as I mentioned above, or by going onto a Gencon organization waiting list which is used to fill cancelled reservations.

In summation: the friend/spouse system is not necessary if you don't mind paying a bit more (seemed to be around $100 savings for us in this particular case when going through the Gencon system) and are satisfied with any hotel that might still have room during that week. I would imagine that there's always some hotel in Indianapolis that has room during Gencon, it's just a question of location. As the situation stands, the benefits of going into a complex deal with some friend just for the Gencon thing might not be worth it at this late a date, as the "good hotels" are already reserved up.