Ron asked to that this discussion be given it's own thread, so here it is.

To my admittedly-first-time-to-GenCon eyes, space seemed to be a major issue at the booth this year. In particular, the sales racked. It was hard to get to, and the back of the rack was not looked at nearly as much as the other two sides. And I have to admit, it would be nice if the sales rack was a little bigger. I can live with cramped demo space, but the sales rack, I think, is an issue.

So I looked at '05 prices. At $4800, a full island does seem too high. And besides, I think a full island would be too much space. But I think if we can manage to get a second standard or corner booth across from an endcap, it would be ideal. The endcap could be reserved for demos, and the standard/corner for sales. It would only be $2400 + $1200 = $3600. I think that's doable, especially considering the sales we made this year.

But the major question is---Is there any way to guarrantee that we get one of the booths across the hallway from the endcap?

Howdy,

I didn't work at the Forge booth. I ran demos at the Key20 booth instead. There was just enough space for 3 players and myself most of the time, but I would have loved to be near or in the mix at the Forge.

With that said, one option may be to partner with Key20 more closely. Key20 only carries small press/independent games. They handled credit cards pretty well at Gencon. They also had a lot of ideas and resources for displaying the games they had. I think Jason V. would be open to a partnership, although a special deal might have to be arranged with some of you folks who don't distribute through them already.

For many of their publishers, Key20 took any extra/leftover stock with them, relieving the game designers the burdens of shipping it out.

There are some benefits I suppose to having Key20 on one end of the exhibit hall and the Forge on the other. We probably picked up some sales for some folks who didn't swing by the Forge. And I know we get several customers who came over after checking something out at the Forge.

But, for those of you who don't deal with Key20, a Forge-setup may still be ideal. Key20 didn't hand out money at the end of the con. Rather, I'll get another check next quarter. I suppose there would have to be some discussion about that process.

If Key20's booth was for the display and the cash register and the Forge area was just for demoing, it would be a pretty darn cool setup. A 4 booth island? That would be nice too.

wait a while on this, ok guys? We'll get to this, but let's do it in stages.

Customers, POST FEED BACK HERE

Forge Booth Members/Exhibitors and Andy POST FEEDBACK HERE

I'm going to be all Ron-like and say this thread is temporarily closed until we get things sorted out in those other threads.

-Luke
Yes, I'm a Moderator.