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Looking for some suggestions

6 replies [Last post]
Wed, 08/04/2004 - 12:04
OrlandoPat
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Joined: 10/16/2008

This coming Labor Day, I'm going to be doing a "first"... I'm going to be manning the booth at a consumer-oriented con (in contrast to Toy Fair or one of the trade shows aimed at retailers).

I've been to cons before, of course, and I've been racking my brains trying to come up with some way of generating excitement at the booth.

Does anyone have any good ideas? Of course, I'll be playing games with people, but other than that?? Big candy jar? Sign the games I sell there?

To give you a frame of reference, the con is Chitag (chitag.com), a convention aimed at families - both casual gamers as well as more experienced ones.

What do you think?

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Wed, 08/04/2004 - 12:45
#1
ensor
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Joined: 08/23/2008
Looking for some suggestions

I would try to have some sort of food related to your games. Maybe M&Mish things for your Siege Stones, and ice cream bars and hot cocco for the Ice Lake?

Another thing that seems to be popular is to have oversized games; a large game of Ice Lake could be fun.

Good luck at Chitag, it looks like fun.

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Wed, 08/04/2004 - 12:46
#2
Zzzzz
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Joined: 06/20/2008
Looking for some suggestions

There is always giving something away. Maybe come up with some neat idea, guess the number of cards in a pile, number of dice in a jar. Maybe you give the person who guesses closest to the actual count a copy of each of your games.

Any type of freebee..... have something to give to each person that visits your booth. Something that will help them remember you and your games.

Besides those few simple things.... I guess you could concentrate on spending some money to create a very eye-catching, eye-candy booth display.

Not sure what your games are about, but anything flashy cant hurt.

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Wed, 08/04/2004 - 16:45
#3
OrlandoPat
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Joined: 10/16/2008
Interesting!

Candy versions of the games would probably be a huge draw...

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Tue, 02/15/2005 - 17:59
#4
HRPuffenstuf
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Joined: 12/31/1969
CHITAG-a few months late

Pat and anyone else,

How was CHITAG? Was it happening with people, media etc.?

Thanks,

HR Puff

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Wed, 02/16/2005 - 13:47
#5
Anonymous
Looking for some suggestions

And how well did you do? Did you have a successful time connecting to the consumers? Do you feel it was worthwhile and would you recommend that other game publishers attend?

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Wed, 02/16/2005 - 14:19
#6
OrlandoPat
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Joined: 10/16/2008
ChiTag was a small show, but a successful one

A lot of people at ChiTag sold a lot of games. Sadly, we weren't one of them. However, a funny thing happened at the show that made it very worthwhile. Let me explain.

First, the show is aimed at the "man off the street". Regular folks come in, browse around, play games, buy games and have a good time. It's a lot of fun. Not overwhelming traffic, but a good consistent stream.

If that was all that happened, I would have been disappointed. Sure, it was a lot of fun, but I'm just not good at selling things, and I didn't sell enough games to offset the cost of the show. I had a lot of "wow! cool!" moments and played with a lot of people, but didn't close many sales.

Here's the cool part, though. There were industry people operating in "stealth mode". They walk up, play your games, talk with you about how things are going and then move on. As they often have their families with them, they are virtually indistinguishable from regular customers.

More than one of these "stealth" operators played and enjoyed our games - and then came back to suggest future business arrangements with me. Those sorts of arrangements take a while to come to fruiition, but I'm hoping that 2005 will see that happen.

So... would I recommend it? Absolutely. Get a table (instead of a booth) and bring games to sell - but be prepared to just play games and enjoy yourself. A big reason for being there is the exposure.

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