Just to add to the Furnace wrap-up reports, I thought I'd post our usual debrief following a convention to look at what worked and what didn't.
For me Furnace was a big success - a really well run, tightly knit and highly professional convention. The convention was great and the choice of games on offer was strong. We were by no means the only people running indie or small-press games, and the whole convention was definitely slanted in favour of the smaller end of the market.
This showed when it came to selling games - lots of people were very interested in what we do. I'm sure Iain will be along in a bit with the final tallies of books sold, but we took something like £270 over the two days. When you consider there were about 60-70 attendees, that's pretty damned good. We sold something of everything that we had (sadly we didn't have any of the Cold City Companion, as I think we'd have sold plenty of those), with Mob Justice and Cold City both selling out. Testament I think to the strong performance Iain put on with his scenario. I can't comment on whether my CC game helped, as we'd sold out by the time I ran it on sunday (and I think 4 out of the 5 players owned it already).
We also made contact with another retailer - Jim at Patriot Games was very keen to get our books in his store, so we sold him a bundle of 1 of everything (except Dead of Night, which he stocks already) and gave him our details for future orders. I've offered to go and run demos in store and to provide him with things like sell sheets.
As for games, I don't think we ran any 15 minute demos in the end (people were either in games, or waiting for games) but we did 7 full games between us. Graham ran Lacuna and Fear Itself, I ran Dead of Night, Cold City and Contenders (with 2 happy endings for once!) and Iain ran two very good games of Mob Justice.
So all in all, a very good convention. I'm not sure I'd do anything differently next time, except try to get a few more games run (although not by me!).
I thought I would add my
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Tue, 23/10/2007 - 09:24.
I thought I would add my general feedback to andy's post rather than having multiple debrief posts all over the place. Seems easier.
I was a little bit concerned with Furnace being a much smaller con than I am used to attending, but those fears were quickly squashed. The convention staff where welcoming and friendly and we had a great location to set up in. The con had barely started before I sold my first Mob Justice and the weekend just got better from there.
We quickly realised that 15 minute demos were not the way to go here, so I did a practice run of my con scenario, which I was nerovous about because of the last disaster, with Andy and Matt. It went well and they gave me some extra pointers which i folded into the afternoon session.
I had lunch with Jim from patriot, who is a fantastically pleasant guy, and we chatted about expanding the hobby and the work he had been doing brining RPGs to schools and the troubles and successes he had encountered. Fascinating stuff which I will expand on more in due course.
The scheduled session of MJ was played by Neil, Steven and Gareth and it was fantastic. They really got into it, playing on their loyalties, codes and tells and creating a really intersting story. I will spin that AP of in another thread.
Evening for me was a Dead of Night game run by Mr. Kenrick which I thoroughly enjoyed. Playing a professor who becomes mentally unstable was right up my street.
The sunday was a much quieter day all round, and I spent the morning session trying to wake up and fiddling with sales sheets. None of the games on offer sounded like my cup of tea.
Afternoon was a game of Fear Itself, which I am still trying to come to a conclusion about. The game was run by Graham and I enjoyed the way he put the story across and the character I was playing, a failing comic, but the system I thought was rubbish. I need to read more about it, having bought the book, and will post back more constructive criticism when I have absorbed that.
The con finished at 6 on the sunday and the evening was more game talk with Andrew, Graham and Ruth and a superb beef stew. MMmhh, very tasty.
All in all I thought furnace was fantastic. I actually played in some games, unusual for me, and enjoyed every one. MJ sales were great and I am really looking forward to Dragonmeet on the back of some good AP and great feedback from Neil and the other players.
I have few criticisms: bar staff were a bit slow, we could have organised more stock and we should have sorted it so Andrew ran less games.
Looking forward to next year, I for one will be going back.
Cheers
Iain
Mob Justice now available!
'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.