I hope I'll be forgiven for this message being self-serving, but I think it's important that maybe we all work together (not just RPGNow vendors)... I posted this message at my private publishers forums, but welcome input and advice here as I think we could use it from the Forge who has done this sort of thing in the past...

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I think that what we need this time around is an actual SALES FORCE. Something simular to what The Forge booth does, a booth manned by several vendors all pushing everyones products (not just their own) and the concept in general. To get people to understand, to get people to try. Even run some demos at the tables.

As such, I think it best to only offer CD's with pre-burned bundles to sell to the public with an RPGNow Menu system. I'm thinking that we could create a couple d20, indie, and tile/model collections and offer them at a discount to get people to try them. Made up of mainly products of vendors willing
to help out and work the booth.

We'd get an endcap (2 booths but maybe more if there is enough support- kind of like a group registration if you plan to get a booth anyway, why not share an open space with us?) and multiple people would have to be running the booth at all times. RPGNow would sponsor it and pay for most of the marketing materials and booth decorations (and an ad in the onsite book as well as the pre-reg books).

In short, I'm trying to gauge from you (the vendors of RPGNow) what interst you have in seeing a bigger pesence of RPGNow at the show. Again, profits will probably not be the main focus and so we don't expect to turn a profit. But we will increase RPGNow's customer base and introduce people to your products.

As a vendor, would you:
1) Be at GenCon to help out?

2) Willing to put some products for FREE or discount price on a bundle CD?

3) Able to pay a small fee to help pay for the booth and ads? (Maybe $100 per vendor or something - depends on demand).

Also, if you're already going to have a booth at GenCon, I'd like to work out some cross promotions where we can get you to point people to our booth. Maybe some sort of game or maybe just a free prize CD.

Thoughts welcome. We should move on this in the next couple weeks if we're planning to attend.

James

Hi James,

Sorry about not replying to this sooner. People are just beginning to think about GenCon ... and many of us are realizing, all at once, that a certain amount of coordination and mutualism will help everyone.

I think it's great for you and RPGNow vendors to put together a more interactive, proactive booth. Here are some thoughts I have after doing this weird kind of booth for four years at GenCon, and counting.

CDs are very tricky products. I suggest that Greg Porter has taken the best approach so far, although it's a bit labor-intensive. The way he does it, the customer gets his own custom CD burned right then and there. I'm thinking that maybe at the RPGNow booth, the process could work really well if it's coordinated among several staff members. A customer could enter, look at the hard copy versions, talk to a designer or two, ask questions, maybe try a short demo ... and then sit down with the computer guy and burn a CD with exactly the games he wants on it.

You might also consider promoting a given booth atmosphere among all the vendors. I'm realizing, for instance, that the Forge booth cannot simultaneously be an active-play experiential ferment and a contemplative bookstore. Apparently some folks arrive there looking forward to the bookstore, so this year, I'm going to take steps to make it clear to them at the outset that it ain't there. Maybe if you guys (if you wanted to) present more of that sort of atmosphere, we can farm people who are looking for it at the Forge booth over to you, where they can really find it.

Or something like that. Whatever atmosphere or "feel" works best for you and the vendors. But the point is that if we know what it is, we can tell people and send them over.

Best,
Ron

THanks for the input Ron... right now through I seem to have gotten very little commitment from vendors other then tossing something on a free demo disk. But demo disks don't work- I've tried. Also many of the big publishers or top sellers of my site are not really going to gencon or have other plans already or are nervious about a pack of "wanabies" stealing customers from them.

All in all, my thoughts are mixed. I'm going to try to swing some deals with GenCon and see where it goes from there. But it's possible I may not even go... :(

Definatly working together would be the way to go.

James

Question-
How many of your vendors are also planning to exhibit with the Forge? Or hang out here often enough?
Consider:
A) Ron wants the Forge to be about the games and playing, not the bookshop browsing
B) If you're following Ron's advice, you're going for the bookshop
C) Odds are, apart, the two will be at other ends of the convention

Why seperate the market?
If space was an issue last year, and there were a lot of browsers which caused a fair amount of this, why not combine the two booths? Or at least work it out so the two are right near each other/back to back.
Want to play a game? These guys will show you! Want to buy the PDFs? We'll burn them right here! Want to check out some samples PDFs? We'll burn those right here too! The RPGNow booth would be great for the browsers, the Forge can focus on the games, and space is there to be had by all!

Makes sense to me.

Near, yes. Back to back, no.

That's an executive decision, non-negotiable.

Best,
Ron