Impressions?

Dead of Night got the hell demo'ed out of it by me and Ron. Sales were good. It seemed to not shift on the last day and I'm not sure why. Mind you the last day was pretty much frothing people grabbing books before they split out of Indy rather than asking for demoes. Perhaps its small footprint hurt it there, but its size helped it in general I think.

Jason Morningstar was putting over Contenders and I gave it and Covenant as much push as I could when people were at the stands looking for those games.

a|state was getting a lot of love from guys I talked to. Len Balsera of Evil Hat was frothing about it, turns out he's a fan from a|state lite in 2002. Sales were small as it has been out so long, and Malc didn't have it on the PC booth.

Cold City started out strong and then went quiet, but it hit target on IPR I think. Companion did OK, and if Play Collective sales are added I think it did great. The Dossier seemed to be the big money maker of the CGS products, but I was given 2 out of 10 to bring home.

Covenant and Mob Justice sold less than the other books. In Covenant's case this was understandable in that it was a second-year game and I think games like Conspiracy of Shadows sold similar numbers. Mob Justice was frustrating in many ways and Iain has started a thread on that. Maybe it was the year of the Faery rather than the year of the Mobster?

Swansong did only a couple of sales, but it had a low awareness level with the boothers. Rob Donoghue asked about it at breakdown on day 1 as it was the one game he knew nothing about. I gave him the pitch and he managed to get a few sales over the con on it (one to himself perhaps?).

Anyway, my initial thoughts can wait from Malc's feedback on how his booth experience went.

Overall the atmosphere at the con was good, but there did seem to be a holding pattern amongst the big publishers at the con (well, with D&D4e being a big questionmark that is understandable).

The diaspora booths were well-linked by the Indie Passport and as long as that happens next year then it should be OK.

The Play Collective was directly opposite the IPR/Forge booth. So, when you read their numbers you may want to bear that in mind. I think their numbers would have been lower if they'd been elsewhere. It certainly made it convenient to send credit card sales to the IPR booth since it was nearby.

The question for the folks from the UK will be whether to:
* buy into the Forge booth and get yourself known with a low-risk high-reward buy-in;
* form a booth solely of UK designers;
* match up a booth of UK and US designers where the fit is natural;
* match up a booth of UK and US designers for necessity;
* form individual booth-matchups based on a mixture of previous cooperatives and similarity in outlook/design;
* someone does the senior sponsor at the Forge shtick.

I was approached by two groups of people about what I was doing next year. The answer was: I don't know, but I will be there. Both of the options seemed like a good fit for me and had slightly different approaches.

Malc will have the low-down on dealing with the practicalities of a booth in the US when you are in the UK. Certainly it helped that he was out there before the con and a lot of the physical side of the book (racks, posters, etc.) were done in the US.

Anyway, it was an upbeat con.

Oh, yeah, costs.

Luke Crane says that the Burning Dead booth cost $2100 or thereabouts to set up. There's a post on the Forge about it.

For me, being second (and final) year on the Forge was: $200 buy-in and $60 for my badge.

First year guys paid $100 buy-in and $60 for a badge.

I sold 28 books, which is $420 (gross). Last year I sold 37 for $518 (gross).

I think IPR take 10% from Forge booth people and I also pay shipping of the books from the warehouse to the con and back. So you can see it's not a loss.

Bear in mind that I have one of the better selling books at the booth. This year I was tied 13th, and last year it was ~15th or so.

Gregor, I'm guessing, then, that you made a significant loss on the convention, factoring in cost of flights and accommodation?

So, essentially, a UK designer wouldn't fly to Gen Con for profit: you'd do it because you wanted to do it and you were prepared to spend a bit of money on it?

Not trying to awkward, just thinking about whether I'll go next year.

Graham

...yes, as a whole GenCon is going to cost a lot from the UK.

My flights were about £600, which is $1200 off the bat.

Hotel was about $400 for five nights (it was about $800 total split between Malcolm and me), though we went for a better hotel than others might be comfortable with.

So, just getting to GenCon and staying there costs money: $1600, say.

And normal con entry is about $65 if you pre-book, or $80 if you buy at the con.

So, if you have a game and you are willing to work at the con selling that game for half a day then you can cover your con entry costs and make enough for a nice meal each day. It also will translate into sales throughout the year if your game is good enough.

Stepping up to buying a running a larger booth is a bigger committment and you could end up risking say $500 as a buy-in.

I know one UK publisher spent ~$12k getting a booth and paying for their staff's flights and accom for GenCon. They firmly believe they'll get that back in business from the con. I think, in their case, they may be right. But for a small Indie Publisher that is a huge risk.

...if you had a desire to go to GenCon next year then I would say you should seriously consider it. You will have a great time and meet many people there. There's something about meeting people in the flesh that online doesn't quite do.

And if you have a game then I'd suggest that you should consider being on the Forge booth. It is a great experience and it wouldn't lose you money.

Perhaps there will be a UK booth next year, but my gut tells me the costs are not small and the risk is high.

Chris Loizou used to go to Gen Con with his Cursed Empire game every year. He didn't/couldn't go this year for a variety of "real life" reasons.

He says he's never failed to at least break even from it in direct sales alone. It's worth pointing out though that he has an entire 10-15 book game line and his core rules/setting book alone has a price tag in excess of £30. I don't think there are any staff on his booth except for him and Karen, and I have a feeling he gets cheaper-than-normal flights and possibly hotels.

Now for him there's a very different ratio of Staff/product. 2 staff, 15 (ish) products. If us lot were to go mob handed next year, we'd be looking at, what, 10 people sharing a booth? That'd bring the cost-per-person down to a managable (ish) sum, but that's still 10 lots of flights from the UK and 10 lots of hotels and that's REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE overall.

I dunno, I'd dearly love to go to GenCon at least once before it disappears, but I'm not sure if the whole cost/fun ratio makes it worth pimping my game (assuming I have one at some point).

...my feeling is that we can spin a thread off from this in a few weeks' (months'?) time about what we as a group want to do at GenCon 2008.

But first let's get the feedback from GenCon 2007.

Malc is travelling today to Seattle I think, so maybe he'll cathc on to this soon.

Andy, Joe, Matt, Iain: you had books at the IPR/Forge booth but no actual presence. How did that work for you?

..can be made cheaper. I stayed at the Travelodge South this year and it was $80 a night for a twinned double room with fridge, A/C, microwave, shower/bath etc and a continental breakfast (although there is a Denny's next door that virtually gives away the food!) Add in a $20 cab fare each day (so $40 a day) and that was $600 between two people, or around £150 for accommodation and transport in. OK, it's not the Hyatt and it takes a little planning, but it slices the costs a little.

Flights I'm at a loss for - I've spoken to a travel agent customer of mine to see whether he could swing me a cheaper deal and he was stunned that I managed to get flights for £500. They were marginally less the week after, around £470 but in the end you start playing Russian Roulette with some of those flights out to Chicago etc.

I'm adamant I want to go out again next year in one form or another but I think it would have to be with a bit more eye to the budget than I did this year (which was pretty much an orgy of book buying and gorgeous steaks)

Neil

...John Wilson's flights from London-Chicago-Indy were about £400-500 booked a couple of weeks before the con. He had to add on to that flights from Edinburgh to London though.

But it shows it is possible to get flights at that price. Downside? Why so cheap, so late? Because he was staying pretty much an extra week in the Chicago area and wasn't doing the there-and-back in a six-day span that I did.

Oh, and I just made my flights home (despite a lightning strike between Indy and Chicago), while Brian Nisbet was delayed a full day by the storms, just as Rob Donoghue called it.

The Days Inn is cheap and near the con, I figure that would have halved our accom. costs. But the University Place rooms were spacious, comfy and very relaxing.

I sold 5 copies of Covenant without being there, because IPR was. IPR is a great deal, from this point of view.

Which is actually pretty good, as last year I sold 20 by demoing the hell out of it.

Hotels and Flights can be done cheap, but it seems to be luck of the draw. Indy suffers from being a pain to get to (you always go via somewhere else).

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I had a similar split as Matt selling only 6 versus 20 when I was actually there. Now that may be for reasons other than my lack of presence as we are discussing over in the publishing forum.

I am definetley looking to go next year maybe on the Forge booth, maybe with other people. Hopefully I will make some connections over the year that will allow me to do that.

To all those swithering, it is a fantastic experience and a lot of fun. I thoroughly recommend it.

I think costs of a CE booth are probably going to be prohibitive not to mention logistically tricky.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

Thanks for the thoughts and reports, guys. Interesting stuff.

Would it be worth your while renting an apartment or block booking hotel rooms?

Joe.

Well, Malc went for the more comfy hotel as he is on a world tour and this was going to be his one decent bed for some time -- so in some ways it was an exception (and a great choice).

We could have had a hotel room for 5 nights for ~$400. Given that you easily have two in that room, three without much trouble, and four at a push, you can see that accom. can be OK if you shop around and can put up with the lower end of the market.

In fact, our room at University Place could easily have slept 4. Two big double beds and lots of floor space. That would have dropped the cost to $200 each for the whole 5 nights, which is pretty good.

Renting apartments is more expensive and using GenCon to book hotel rooms is the way of madness from hearing everyone's trauma doing it.

Well this year Indy GenCon cost me nothing and Contenders sold 10 copies. Swansong sold 2 copies. Not really surprising, since Contenders has at least five times the buzz Swansong does.

Although I did respond to Fred's request for pitches on the IPR forums with a pitch and breakdown. Maybe I should get it up here too.

It was cool that Jason and Gregor could promote Contenders, I think that was the big benefit from going last year - people know the game.

I can't go next year either as I'll be on my honeymoon!

+++
JoE
+++

Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

Ah, so that's what you spend your profits on, Joe. Weddings, huh?

...are out for comparison.

They did 265 over 11 ashcans, which is pretty wild. That's an average of 24 each!

Now, most of the ashcans were $10 or so (Acts of Evil was $13), but the games looked most of the way there. There were other ashcans available off-booth too: Vincent Baker's Poison'd was $9, Emily Care Boss's Sign in Stranger was maybe $10 (?) and she had Heart of the Rose as a free give-away, all at the Play Collective booth for instance.

Just pulled this from theRPGsite boards, posted by Bill from HinterWelt Enterprises about their GenCon experience and learning points. They're another small press organisation although without the forge/diaspora connections and I thought it might make interesting reading for comparison.

HinterWelt @ GenCon

We weren't there, but we did buy in to the booth, which sounds a bit counter intuitive at first until you realise that that buy in meant Gregor and Ron demoed Dead of Night as though it was one of their own.

Buy in was $100, I sold 11 copies at $20 each, which makes for about $100 profit after IPR costs I'd say that was worth it, although I'm unsure how much buzz was generated beyond that - I haven't seen DoN mentioned in any of the after-show discussion.

I'd really like to go next year, but am well aware it would have to be as a holiday, not as a profit making venture. I think you go for the experience, not to make money - those flights kill any chance for that. How Chris Loizou manages it I don't know.

My gut instinct is the best thing to do first time over is to join in with the Forge booth - it seems like quite an experience in its own right, which you might miss out on if we went straight in with our own booth.

Yeah, it's a great experience. It was really cool last year to meet folks I'd been chatting to online since 2000.

I think if you go in with more of a plan than I did you can really build some buzz too. One good game ran at Games on Demand or the Embassy Suites will kickstart your marketing.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Interesting post by Abyssal Maw over on theRPGsite about how his group do GenCon Indy for (comparatively) peanuts for anyone interested:

$5/day parking!

I'm now in Seattle and have cauht up with myself a bit, now having time to respond to some posts, emails and do a much needed washing of clothes!

First off, my Gen Con experience this year was great. The Play Collective booth was vibrant, fun and a great (but qualified) success. As a group, we're still discussing how it went, what issues came out of it, what worked/did not work, etc.

Looking at costs, we're still tallying up the final numbers, but they look to be slightly higher than those put forward by Luke. Perhaps we spent a little more on booth dressing and so forth (eg: about $300 on a huge and very impressive banner). However, those costs will now be ameliorated over future conventions and should pretty much be considered a big, one off expense. We now have tables, shelving, banner, posters, etc for next year.

If the Collective Endeavour decided to do a booth, then we would effectively be starting from Yesr Zero in terms of booth points, dressing materials, etc. The Play Collective was great in that the physical materiels could be transported with us in the van to the con. Not see easy when flying transatlantic.

My suggestion? I think that a first time booth solely for us would:

a) Be expensive (but not prohibitively)
b) Be logistically awkward in terms of materiels (leaving much to last minute chance, I feel)
c) Be marginal in terms of breaking even (going by the sales figures from this year)

So, I feel that the best course of action next year would be a UK presence spread out amongst a number of booths: Forge/IPR, A N Other Indie Collective Booth, The Play Collective (although I don't wish to speak for my fellow Collectivists at this point, re: expanding the booth. This is something we are discussing) or some other venue.

This would have the great advantage of spreading us over many, well trafficked booths, allow us to spread the word about each others game and give mutual support to UK publishers and, of course, all the other indie publishers.

The question of Gen Con next year is actually something that needs to be thrashed out sooner, rather than later.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

How would you feel about a special Get-It-Stamped-By-All-The-UK-Designers passport?

Or some similar UK cross-promotional idea.

Graham

CE might find it a bit expensive getting a booth but therre are UK games companies that might like to come in with you on one, Pelgrane Press for example or Cubicle 7. It mightt be worth considering.

I hung around the IPR/PC booths at close of play on the first 3 days and the mood was good, except Saturday seemed a bit subdued.

I've heard that said a fair bit about saturday - was it just the Forge booth that was quiet, or was the whole con quieter then?

The whole con seemed to have a quieter Saturday than everyone (I spoke to) expected. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of trade, or that it could be called a slump or anything.

It's just that it normally peaks markedly on Saturday and it didn't seem to do that this year.

Also, Keith Senkowski was asking when 6B would be out. He had the art prominently displayed on his booth and people were asking about it a bit.

Yes, Saturday was expected to be 'the big day' and it wasn't. As Gregor noted, there was no peak on the Saturday. Everyone seemed to be suffering from this, so I don't think it was just a malaise affecting the small press booths. The best day for the Play Collective was, in fact, the Thursday. Admittedly, from a CGS point of view, this is because we burned through 7 copies of the Dossier at $40 each. Which was nice.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

When I've resolved my issues with narrative rights! It's been rattling about in my head a bit today, so I'll post about it in the next couple of days.