Okay ladies, last year we've been moving late. Let's not make this mistake again. Spiel Essen (18 to 21 October 2007) is one of the largest gaming fairs in the world. The role-playing hall is only a small part of it, but visitor numbers are vast. Last year, we did a joint booth with the Forge and Projekt Odyssee, a German group dedicated to the promotion of creator-owned RPGs. You can read about its success here.

I must say that it was harder than I expected, especially before and after, and that I did not put up with everything as well as I would have wanted. I'm taking the step of offering to do it again reluctantly, but I am taking it out of three reasons:

* This time, I know what's up ahead and I'm starting early. (This will fully be negated if the Fins don't show up because they did a Hercules deed in prep last time.)
* Harald Wagener, who was a booth monkey last year and is a gaming friend here in Hamburg, and also happens to be the guy publishing The Shadow of Yesterday in German, has offered his help in organizing stuff, although it won't be his privilege to be at the fair this year because it is his wedding day again.
* I am optimistic to have a book to sell myself by November!

Therefore, let’s do it. If we book early, we can get a better spot, i.e. not in the last corner of the hall. However, we can’t count on having the LodlanD demo tables mostly for ourselves this year. So, higher booth rent. There were thoughts about a “market place” with demo tables of different projects, but we’ll need to rent space for ourselves anyway. Plus, we’ll need to make up for Harald’s loss. Hopefully this time Nicolas will be able to make it, who would be a capable replacement. I guess the rest of the crew is in again if nothing unpredictable happens!

So, here’s the deal:

1) You give me a commitment. Don’t do it if you can’t stand up to it. I’ll take you in if I am convinced that we can represent your product properly. The first criterion is whether we have someone available who can demo the game. I deem three games the maximum number per booth monkey. If we have too many applicants, I’ll decide by fiat, based on:

* Who committed early.
* Whose game was already present last time.
* Whose game I think will sell well to Essen customers.

I am committing right now for BARBAREN! to demo and sell. Wow, that felt good. I think I’m going to panic now.

2) If you’re in, here’s what you need to be sure you can do in time:

* Cover your share in the budget. It was roughly 60 Euros last year, and I will make sure that it amounts to no more than 100 Euros this year, hopefully less.
* Take care that we have books to sell at the fair. Brennan Taylor handled the shipping through IPR last year for most authors. (This year, we should declare the goods’ values at a reseller price to save substantial import sales tax.) Most authors sent 10 books last year. Check out the sales numbers in the thread linked above. Keep in mind that we didn’t have a very good spot, but we did have fantastic demo material prepared by Eero and Markku. If you are thinking about a print run in Germany to save shipping expenses (which Ben and Paul did last year), I hope Harald can help you with that because I can’t.
* Provide us with demo material and some blurbs and tag lines about your games to put in our folder and on Pro-Indie.de.

3) We’ll use the budget to cover our part in the expenses of the booth while Projekt Odyssee, i.e. Nexus e.V., the mother organization, will cover their (smaller) part. The budget goes into:

* Booth rent (largest protion, probably about 1,200 Euros total).
* Booth monkey tickets (second largest portion, though more will be included in the booth rent this time).
* Demo materials, booth furniture, supplies, parking fees.

The booth monkeys cover their own travelling and lodging expenses.

4) We’ll run the booth at the fair and sell as many of the books as we can. If resellers show up, we’ll sell at a discount of your choice. (None did actually show up last time). Whatever stock is left after the battle will be offered to the booth monkeys to buy at the reseller discount or at another discount you determine. Whatever is left after that, well, we’ll figure something out. I’m having a pretty hard time getting rid of the copies of Polaris and Dawning Star I kept, though.

5) After the fair, I do the accounting. I was not quite able to keep the two weeks limit I set for myself last time, and I admit to having been a little sloppy about getting the payments out, but by now everyone has got their money and I promise I’ll do better next time. Anyhow, nothing gets lost and the accounts are absolutely transparent, so it’s in your own hands to see after your money and you are invited to kick my ass if I take too long.

Apart from that, the conditions are the same as last year. I’ll be in contact with PrO and my booth monkeys as soon as I get your feedback. The sooner we book, the better.

In signing in, please don’t forget to name the product with which you are in. I’ll assume you want your games demoed and sold. Two games means double shares. A game with supplements is only one share, since we will only run one demo.

Enough said. Who’s in?

- Frank

One correction, Frank: Leisure games bought a stack of MLwM from us/Eero at the fair. So it might be useful to direct some marketing efforts to resellers around here.

I'm in.

When's the deadline for commitments? I'm asking because I'm 500% eager to do it with my most excellent zombie game, but I'll need a bit of time to think about it, too.

Incidentally, whether we're coming to booth monkey depends largely on whether I get my game in shape to sell at the convention. The travel expenses are a bit too much without any income from the trip. Because I'm planning to release the game at Ropecon already, I should reasonably have it also for Essen, unless I fail at both, or getting the English version done proves somehow difficult.

If I'm coming: I'll take the role of coordinating the demo materials again, we have a constantly improving system and a substantial head-start already from last year. Actually, Frank: if I lose faith and bail out, keep in touch about the demo arrangements: I can still coordinate that side, if you want the help.

Also: for those who want to do small print runs in Europe for the purpose, contact me AND Harald. Printing in Germany would be sexier, but I have more certain connections, so we'll have a double coverage: if Harald gets a good and cheap German printer, great, but if not, I can do the printing for slightly higher expense and luggage bother here in Finland.

Ah, I should probably say it here as well: I'm going, and my zombie game is going with me. Additionally, I'll try to raise up some more Finnish booth monkeys, manufactured from the freshest water and purest salt in the world. But that's for another thread.

As a little motivation: Ron is in with Sorcerer. And this time hopefully the supplements will be coming along as well!

- Frank

I'm definitely hoping to be at Spiel again. I'm not yet sure whether I'll be selling games (I'm happy to booth monkey should folks need it).

Some of my friends in the Collective Endeavour have also expressed an interest, I'll point 'em to this thread.

-Matt

Why wouldn't you sell games, Matt?

I hear that Ralph Mazza and Universalis will be participating as well. Means that we'll need another five or so to make minimal quorum, I'd say.

I'm in with Polaris, plus whatever else I have published by then.

Hey, Eero, do you mind just keeping my extra copies from last year around in your closet and bringing them back this year?

yrs--
--Ben

Bully Pulpit Games is so in, Frank.  I think Grey Ranks will pique the interest of Essen attendees, and we'll have a snappy demo ready as well. 

I'm in again with Death's Door, and Blood and Bronze.  Though I've yet to figure out how the heck to demo B&B.

James

Ben: of course I'll hold onto the books. Although I make no promises of not selling them to anybody who comes along and asks nicely.

James: that's some fighting spirit, man. I'll be sure to deliver some extra attention for Death's Door, including something eye-catching to get the jaded Essenites to stop and look at the game. Perhaps I'll just have to hang myself near the booth to get some morbid atmosphere going, or something.

Anybody: if you have demo problems for Essen (or earlier, even), hesitate not to check with me. I'll be handling the demo stuff for Essen, so I'll be happy to cooperate in demo creation. Especially so if you have a game and are not sure how it should be demoed.

Okay, thanks to all who have stepped forward by now. I am afraid the echo so far is a little too weak. That goes also for the responses from my German booth monkeys. Let’s see if we can do better. My man Stefan Unger of PrO is in contact with the fair orga and would like to book the booth next week in order to secure a good spot. Now is about the time where most booths are booked, so we should get moving.

However, to step forward and do this, I need more response form both the German and the American side. Regarding the Forge, I need at the very least 7 more authors/games to commit. Stefan and I will decide next Wednesday whether to go ahead and do it or not. So if you want in on this, please check in until Tuesday, April 10th.

Come on, let’s do this.

- Frank

Hmm, rather problematic. My theory is that the Conventions forum is not the hub of contacts it used to be. In these latter days of diaspora there are plenty of Forge-aligned designers who might be interested, but have not necessarily read this thread at all. Should probably try fishing at the Story Games or some such new venue.

Discounting that, what kind of money are we talking about, exactly? In theory there is nothing stopping us from doing traditional retail arrangements to fill in the rest of the roster, but that'll just leave a higher financial risk to anybody willing to buy the books and booth shares to represent them. And recouping the share price at retail cost requires selling nearly as much, so there is some risk involved. I might be interested in some retail shares for games I know will do well, but I'd like half-price shares or something like that to balance the investment risk.

Thanks again, Frank. I'm in.

Evil Hat Productions is in, if you've got people who can represent Spirit of the Century and Don't Rest Your Head, and if IPR's doing an en masse shipment like last time. 

Given those provisions, can we get in the door?

I can at least send along PDFs of demo characters for each game, though we don't (presently) have a "structured" demo scenario for SOTC. (Given three or four demo characters -- the iconic ones from the book -- someone familiar with Spirit shouldn't have too much trouble throwing a situation at folks with just the characters.)  DRYH at least has some notes to mesh with the three sample characters in the kit.  SOTC's a strong enough seller that I'm figuring we should send along 20 (or more?) SOTC, 10 DRYH, but feel free to adjust my expectations there.

I'll try to stay abreast of developments here, but forum threads are a bad way to keep me in the loop. :) evilhat AT gmail DOT com is better.

I am unfamiliar with Evil Hat products, simply because there's so much indie nowadays that I haven't had the opportunity to look at it. From what I've heard, though, I'm sure we can handle Spirit of the Century at least. I remember reading about DRYH, too, but it's premise escapes me - it's not that jenga tower game, is it?

Anyway, the thing I do in the indie scene is representing games, so here's what I'd like to do: if I get PDFs of the product, I'll play a session or two of each to familiarize myself, and follow up with a demonstration plan, akin to what I did last year. I'll also prep the Finnish monkey in advance, so we'll have at least a couple of people on the scene who can walk the walk with the product.

For numbers, I'll say 20 of both. I can take up to a dozen copies of any quality product at retailer discount after the convention, so if you sell to retailers at all, there's little reason not to send more than that. (This assuming that your product has any chance to sell in Finland; I'll let you know after seeing the stuff if I think that it'd be a slow seller or no-seller.) Also, the booth fees will be high enough that it's better to make sure you have enough stock to make some profits as well from the enterprise.

But that's that. I'll come a-calling for sample pdfs later.

aaargh, why does Spiel 2007 cover my marriage anniversary? Because otherwise, Evilhat would be covered by now...

Well, if Nicolas Crost is in, we have at least Don't Rest Your Head covered. And, as an internet friend put it for Spirit of the Century: There is an ape on the cover! And he is flying an airplane! I must have it.

Anyhow, you might be thinking of sending only one game to minimize your financial risk. I know that Paul really profited last year from concentrating on My Life with Master (though I'd still have loved to demo Bacchanal).

- Frank

Eero's made me a fine offer to evaluate the games in PDF form and provide backing for both of 'em if needs be at Spiel Essen.  So no worries.  It's mainly a question, now, of how many copies, and we can get that settled later.

Sure! I'll figure out a way to get 1001 Nights there. I'll talk to Emily. Thanks for the invite.

I've dropped a message over on the IPR list to see if any more interest can be drummed up.

I'm in with Mortal Coil again. I'll send more this time, since it did so well last year.

I'm in again this year. I think I'll go with Passages and leave the Dawning Star stuff behind. It's much easier to demo and fits in better with the group concept.

I'm in, with carry.

Hi there!

Bad news: Harald, Gerd and Jörg of last year’s crew are definitely out, Agata is at “probably in” as is one quality replacement guy. The only “definitely in” is Dirk Ackermann, but if there should be a Burning Wheel/Burning Empires presence at the fair, I’d have to lend him to Luke because anything else would be a terrible waste.

Moreover, many of the games signed in by now are pretty much unknown even to the German Forge-O-Sphere, so in order to represent them properly, we’d face a lot of work up ahead even with the mighty Finnish warriors of indie gaming backing us up. At the moment, I don’t see this coming together, or in order to come together require an effort on my part beyond what I’m willing to put up. On this basis I can’t give a go for booking the booth.

And as I have to arrange something for BARBAREN! now, I’ll be checking in with another booth. Knowing the people of Vortex/Sighpress and also Red Brick, I’m pretty confident to find an arrangement.

So, I am sorry to announce that the Forge Booth Essen 07 is not going to happen. Thank you anyway for your commitment and trust. Thanks especially to Eero, whose enthusiasm and competence remain unmatched.

Best, Frank

Thanks for the effort all the same, Frank.  Please don't let this be a signal to stop trying to organize a German presence for us in years to come.  Here's to Spiel Essen 08!

Ack!  Sorry to hear that, Frank...  Good luck with Barbaren!