Robin Laws posted an interesting bit about booth management on his web site:

http://www.dyingearth.com/pagexxoctober.htm

It's worth the time to read it.

Greg
BTRC

Definetly. Twas a victim of some of just about all of these faults myself at GenCon ^_^ :P

Other cavet: Those who ARE educated on the product, don't let them wander all the time. My mistake in bringing friends; it became "Yea, we're volenteering all day at Wizards" instead of "We'll take the next shift". Make sure they know the product AND are willing to work.

And in my case, the girlfriend was one of the most knowledgeable there!

Hmmm. I'd like to think that The Forge booth does a good job on these things. We do brief, and try to get people to know about how to pitch. And most important is the "handoff" rule that says if you don't know to find somebody who does.

But, given the volunteer staff, and the chaos at the booth, I'm not sure we actually pass muster. That is, I'm sure we do a percentage of the time, but I'm just as sure that we miss a lot. Because it's hard to know all of the product there well enough to pitch well. Even when handing off, I'm not sure the destination guy does that great a job.

Where I'm fairly sure that we're doing better than most is in the department of having a reason for the game being built in the first place. That is, whether or not I know the perfect pitch for the games we have, I'm pretty sure that each one has one.

Interesting.

Mike

So I got bushwacked by Sir Robin during Origins. He came up to our booth -- Pete was on duty and I just happened to be there -- and chatted a bit. Then he slipped in his "Ok, I'm a GM, how do I get my players to play this game?"

I get this question a lot, so I fielded it as asked and gave him the standard pitch. "BW's a cold pool to dive into; it's very different from what you're used to. You have to walk in a little at a time so as not to scare your players. Start with a melee demo on a night when you're missing a player from a regular game or when you're in between games. No pressure, pregen characters..."

He looked at me askance. "No, I mean give me your pitch," he interrupted. "My pitch?" I got flustered. I was embarassed! If he wanted my pitch why didn't he ask in the first place. So I blurted, "My three word pitch: 'd6, gritty, fun.'"

He looked chagrined. I was terribly embarrassed. I felt like I had failed a test or something. Fortunately, Pete was there and somewhat saved the day. He had his smooth as buttah pitch ready and hit him with it. But we had obviously already fallen into the "aghast! the horror!" category of the ratings. Blindsided! Who would have thought Robin Laws would have come up to your booth looking for a cold pitch? I thought he just wanted to chat.

Robin's an extremely nice person and I don't have a thing in the world against him. I just wanted to give another side to his booth tour essay. It ain't as simple as it's made out!

-L

I didn't read the essay as condemning people for not being fast on their feet. If anything, it seemed to be pointing out that it is a hard problem, and that like all other hard problems it requires some preparation and forethought to solve it smoothly.

So yeah, if you hadn't been trained with a strong pitch, nobody expects that you'd be able to make one up on the spot. That's why it's so important to make sure you're trained with a strong pitch.

Sounds like a real adrenalin pumping experience, though. Not to be totally heartless, but... better you than me!