Forge Booth 2003

[Mike Holmes]

What's the furniture situation like? Has anyone talked to the decorator?

http://www.geofern.com/exhibitor%20service.htm#custom

They seem to have some options that look cool. Is it possible to get the stools and tall tables? Or are furniture options beyond the standard Con stuff too expensive or simply unavailable?

Mike

[rpghost]

Is it possible to get the stools and tall tables? Or are furniture options beyond the standard Con stuff too expensive or simply unavailable?

From what I remember they are a total rip off... bring your own! They wanted like $50 a chair and $100 a table or something really anoying like that.

Oh, and for all of you, you're all welcome to display your products at our RPGMall/RPGObjects booth if you are selling with us.

James

[Matt Wilson]

From what I remember they are a total rip off... bring your own! They wanted like $50 a chair and $100 a table or something really anoying like that.

At every trade show I've done, the on-site furniture and everything else is atrociously expensive. It's like buying dinner at a baseball game.

What's included with the basic booth package? Do we get a skirted table and some chairs? Typically, more of the "Basic model" stuff is only slightly atrocious in cost. But anything comfortable is going to be expensive.

-Matt, who once stood in line for 2 hours to get booth furniture because the losers at the show misplaced the order.

[Mike Holmes]

The basic stuff looks, well, pretty basic. Not too far from what we had last year (chairs that I fear will collapse beneath my weight, for example). This is what I think the largest problem will be with making the booth "cozy" to play in.

My research confirms what's been said, however; captive market, sky high prices. You can actually buy the furniture for the same amount or less, if you're willing to move it on your own. Yikes.

That said, I'm looking into some other options. Is anyone else working on this? Or have a better idea?

BTW, anyone have something large and sectional that they could bring for "cubbies"? That was a great idea, I thought. In fact if we could get something more like lockers, that would be great. Anyone? Is this still something we're interested in?

An idea I had was for everyone who comes to bring a houseplant like a fern or philadendron. Does that make sense? Give the place a warm feel?

The more it looks like a professional place, like a place to relax, the better response I think we'll get (anyone on the same visualization pattern as me?).

Any thought as to the potentiallity of doing too well, BTW? What happens if everyone in the world wants in? How do we handle overflow?

Just more random thoughts as they occur to me. :-)

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

You could maybe get chairs a step up from the default from some kind of rental place in town - the places that rent for things like weddings and so on. Convention centers often have sinister drayage/unloading rates, though, so it still might not be worth it. That is, the people at the rental agency might have to hand the stacks of chairs over to the people at the center, who then charge a kidney per hundredweight to wheel them over to the booth. It varies from convention to convention. The people at the rental place would have an idea of what's involved.

Convention center prices are carefully calculated, I think, to make you wonder if the extra effort is worth it.

[Jeffrey Miller]

Convention center prices are carefully calculated, I think, to make you wonder if the extra effort is worth it.

You know what's really embarrasing?  I'm a card-carrying member of the union that is responsable for those rates.. *sigh*

-j-

[Mike Holmes]

Can we just haul them in by hand? Or would that be violating some rule? I mean, we all bring in our own product and such in boxes, could we each just carry a chair or two in from outside the morning it starts? It so happens that I'm staying with a friend who lives in Indy, so some of the logistics aren't as difficult as they sound. I could accept delivery there, and arrange for transport to the Con.

That said, even though much less expensive, it's still going to be at least $10 a chair for anything decent. So I'm not sure that this is going to happen anyhow. How many chairs are we going to need? What's the layout look like so far?

Mike

[rpghost]

You should be able to bring your own stuff and set it up. Shouldn't be a problem. Where they have problems is they want a union person to hook up your electrical and such... But we always bring a few extra chairs when we exhibit. Even extra tables.

Problem is, I live in the Milwaukee area and now it's not going to be there so now I have to worry about how I'm going to get everything there in one trip.

As for your overflow problem, you should setup a schedule for people to cover the booths. Nothing worse then 10+ people blocking the way for customers to actually see your products!

James

[Jake Norwood]

I'd like to add that stools make more sense then chairs for lots of reasons, if we can find them as cheaply.

Jake

[Nathan]

Wow. Finances are looking possible for a trip to Gencon this year. In any event, I would like to offer some help....

You mention the 11" x 14" posters. (Just to clarify -- inches right?) I can print them on my printer for free here - 2-3 copies each on glossy or cardstock paper (whichever you wanted). Just send me the PDF, Pagemaker, or Quark file. That will cut down on some costs. I can't print banners -- but if you want catalogs printed, I could do some of those -- granted if they aren't crazy complicated. I could see a nice little 2-sided one page catalog (or even half a page) with links to supporting games/sites, etc... Oh and -- color too.

(On a side note: Does anyone have any hotel room space? I would be willing to pay my part and sleep on the floor.)

To solve the coffee dilemma, we need to find perhaps a battery powered coffee machine or something. You still have to consider water and the actual coffee.... But, you could buy a few gallon jugs of water each day, have backup batteries, and get a couple of different kinds of decent coffee... I dunno... Has anyone heard of a battery powered coffee machine? I mean, heck, enough people go camping that such a thing has to exist...

Thanks,
Nathan

[Mike Holmes]

You should be able to bring your own stuff and set it up. Shouldn't be a problem. Where they have problems is they want a union person to hook up your electrical and such... But we always bring a few extra chairs when we exhibit. Even extra tables.

Cool, that's what I needed to know. How do you bring the stuff in, through the loading entrances, or some other way?

Problem is, I live in the Milwaukee area and now it's not going to be there so now I have to worry about how I'm going to get everything there in one trip.

The idea I had would be to rent the chairs from some place in Indianapolis, and have them delivered to a friend of mine who lives there. Then we'd bring em on over when it was time. This way you avoid renting from the convention rental people and all those associated costs. The problem in terms of cost and transport is that I think we need a lot of chairs.

How many tables are we doing this year?

As for your overflow problem, you should setup a schedule for people to cover the booths. Nothing worse then 10+ people blocking the way for customers to actually see your products!

I hadn't thought of the problem of overstaffing, but I'm not sure that this will affect how we operate. We need to have about ten people at a time to make the booth work right (rememeber lot's of demos all the time). I was more worried about too many people wanting to get in to play. Seems shame to just have to turn them away.

Nathan, Ron has his usual deal going for hotel room space. If it's not in this thread, check the older one. I think the problem with the coffee thing is that you need to have a liscence or something to server stuff, and/or, just the cost of handing out that much free coffee. So it's not the equipment, it's other logistics, if IIUC.

Mike

[Paul's Girl]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions, but I think we need to think about what is really important. The booth will be about 20' long and 10' deep and we can't expect to fill it with stuff and then have an open floorplan for all the people who are going to be around to talk about and play games. Right now the layout will have one table middle back, two on each side toward the back, a new display centrally at the front and a row of three tables angeled for either side of the display. If one setup dosen't work, we can always change it at the end of the day. I'll ask Paul Czege to put the proposed layouts on his website and we'll get a link for people to see. Please know that this will NOT be to scale.

If rental of tables and chairs becomes cheaper than using the conference centers equipment, then it would be a good idea. If someone would like to inquire into that and report the findings, please do but soon.  I don't think anyone should buy them, that is way too much of a financial committment for one use.  This coffee idea maybe a little over our heads as well. Not only do we have to supply the water, coffee and the machines, we'll have to get sugar, cups (with lids?), napkins, stirs, and creamer.  I'm leery about the possiblity of spills or running out of supplies. Let's try to stay focused, we need to get the necessary things completed first. We don't even know if we can give out coffee.

Nathan, thanks for offering to print the 11" by 14" signs, that would be great! I expect only one for each game that is for sale. Speaking of which, lets start a count of everyone who is selling a game, if you are going to be there or not. Either post here or send me a private message. I would like to see one large sign for every game for sale and we'll also have a list of free games as well. Again I'll ask Paul to post the example that I have created on his website.

-Danielle

[Nathan]

Per 11" x 14" signs:

Just so you know -- I don't have any 11 x 14" paper on hand. I do have 11" x 17" paper on hand (glossy) -- would it be easier to make it tabloid size or does the 14" fit the booth size? If so, how hard is it to get 11 x 14" paper?

Thanks,
Nathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

We have to stick with the convention center's furniture provider. We won't be bringing in any sort of chairs or anything else of our own.

Best,
Ron

[Paul's Girl]

Nathan,

yeah 11 by 17, my wrong. thanks

Paul put the following on his website:

Sign- to get the basic idea.
http://www.halfmeme.com/poster.jpg

Booth layouts- still working on this, not to scale
http://www.halfmeme.com/boothdesign1.jpg
http://www.halfmeme.com/boothdesign2.jpg