The Gen Con Cut Off!

Today, the first day of spring, is the cut off for event submission for Gen Con. In the past, I was always excited by getting the WEGS schedule submitted early. This year, I waited until the last possible moment. Priorities have changed since we now run a booth there, and we pour all our energy into our convention floor demos. Last year we ran 10 events and had a total of 63 players jump into the fray; we also ran two after-hours games for inner circle 'shogs and 'shogettes. This year, sad to say, I've submitted just 3 events (Weds, Thurs and Fri, 9pm - midnite) and left Saturday night open for another invite only event (probably WEGS Sucks!).



Here's the three events:

• The Tale of the Trojan Pig


• Keep on the Badderlands: Minotaur Meat!


• Dwarf Walks Into A Bar

It's with regret that I've pulled Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom off the schedule; I could only run one repeat event given the abbreviated schedule, and just love running Dwarf Walks. Always have a blast with that one; never, never, never plays the same way twice!


And that's why Turdschmeer is featured in today's post!

In Store Demo: Brothers Grim, NY

On GenCon Sunday, a guy named Gil came up to the booth and introduced himself as one of the owners of Brothers Grim Games and Collectibles on Long Island, NY. He had heard about WEGS from the local NJ/NY cons and was interested in having me demo in his store. I actually heard about the store, too, from one of the Jersey Hogs who frequented their booth at Dexcon (and who told them they need to stock WEGS). Thanks, Jason! As fate would have it, I had a wedding to attend on Long Island this month and so coordinated the demo for the day after. I arrived and set-up on a huge game table in the front of the store. The store had many game tables, there was a-plenty of space to play (huge asset to the store). The back of the store was jammed with Yu-Gi-Oh players from the time I got there until I left. The game tables around me were jammed with miniature guys painting their armies and getting ready for a huge throw-down tournament in a couple of weeks. It was great to see a store jammed with gamers all day long, and to hear the banter of a bunch of folks who all are part of the store's energy. As for the demo... I ran one demo that lasted about three hours. Had a total of five players who kicked the butt of everything I threw at 'em. There was nothing I could do to get them on the run! It was hard to show them the system had some bite to it, as they all handily dispatched everything that came their way. I had a great time - just frustrating for the guy who created the game!!! Arrggghh! As I left, I promised to return with more minions...

GenCon08: Signage at Origins

This is a photo of the Origins booth, the test-run booth as it were (or was...). Not that we weren't prepared for Origins, but it was our first logistical con; we never did this before. You can prepare all you want up front, but until you hit the ground running at the actual convention site, you have no idea what to expect. Heck, yeah, we were nervous about Origins, but it was the same type of nervous actors/directors get the week before opening night. One thing you can notice between this pic and the one below is that, aside from one more Wegshog on our side of the demo table, the WEGS sign in the background is rippled. This was due to the fact that the sign was hung on hooks from the curtain rods at the back of the booth. Not the optimal way to hang a sign, but lots of folks do it. The ripple effect was remedied at GenCon as the pvc standing unit was added and fixed the problem completely. Small, but exciting, victories...

GenCon 08: Signage

Once you commit to getting a booth, you gotta get a sign that let's folks know who you are. Pre-Origins, we only had small 2x4 foot WEGS signs which would not fill the 10x10 booth area very effectively. So, $200 later, I went to print with a 4x6 banner (shown here). And once you have a banner, you have to figure out a way to hang it. Many vendors use pvc pipe for this purpose. I followed suit; it took me the better part of a weekend to cut/assemble/spray paint the frame (about $50 in materials). I designed it so it is free standing, with the use of two picnic table umbrella stands (the ones that anchor the umbrella pole under the table). Found the perfect type at Sports Authority ($15 each), but the stands are flippin' heavy! Sue topped off the whole assembly with two burning braziers (using tissue paper for the fire effect). We framed the signage with copper pots and WEGS 101 Book-n-Card combos. (Yeah, that's me and Fwill running a demo.)

GenCon 08: Pre-Ignition (Origins 08)

At the start of '08, I knew GameWick Games would have a booth at Origins (OH), and decided that that would be the test-run for the feasibility of having a GenCon (IN) booth. The reason I could wait to make my GenCon decision was that GameWick had never attended either of these cons and, as a newbie, could book my booth last minute via the entrepreneurial rates (first-timer discount). Your first time as a vendor at a con is your cheapest (that's the buy-in). The second year you're not so lucky... Booth space at Origins is about half the price of GenCon (around $500 for a 10x10 booth); the catch with Origins though, is that booths come without any dressing: you have to rent tables, chairs, electric, etc from the contracted dresser. There was a rental special: a table, two chairs and a wastebasket for $60. Electric and Internet connections are additional costs. You can see how this all adds up. Luckily, GameWick did not need either; as a small company with a single product ($25), it was pointless to worry about credit card processing and those complications. If we had more product and folks were hitting the $75+ price point, that would be a different story. Long story short, being a vendor at a con is a costly proposition. When you're a company with a single product, it's a dicey proposition: the odds of you selling enough product to cover expenses aren't good. When you're a company with a single product, it's not about that at all. It's about the presence on the floor and the demo, demo, demo.

GenCon 08: The Road To The Geekhouse

The road to GenCon began a long time prior to me packing the car the night before we took off for Indianapolis. It began seven months earlier, at the start of the year, when event submissions were due. In January 2008, I was coming up with the WEGS game schedule for GenCon. At that time I wasn't sure if GameWick Games would have its own booth, so I submitted a somewhat aggressive game schedule which factored in both me and Fwill as game masters (GMs). For the first time at GenCon, the two of us would be running games independently and at the same time. This plan allowed me to keep the number of events submitted high, while allowing some breathing room for the possibility of a booth. It was a pretty solid plan, I thought, at the time. With this task out of the way, I didn't have to think about GenCon for another couple months.

GenCon 08: Getting There, Half The Fun...

The blog journey begins...

Over the course of the next month, I'm going to recount the GameWick Games crew journey to the center of Gen Con. The whole thing was a whirlwind from the moment we backed out of our driveway and got on the road to Indianapolis. And I want to bore you all (I think there's about 8 of you regulars) with a play-by-play, day-by-day travel log. If nothing else this is my attempt to remember what worked and what didn't for us. It might also help those of you out there who are dreaming of doing Gen Con in your own way someday. As this might be some of the most dang boring stuff you'll find on the internet, I'll try to keep the post shorts and the entries easily digestable. Here we go!

The trip, one way, was 680 miles door to door; that is my front door in NJ to the Indianapolis convention center. This was the first time we have driven to Gen Con, and with gas prices as they are, it was a hefty expense (around $200). Still, that's cheaper than airfare for two people. The drive took us on a journey that we were mostly familiar with, as we had driven to the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio the month prior.

All in all, a five state passage: NJ, PA, WV, OH and IN: an 11 hour journey with beautiful, but never-changing, scenery that is broken up a bit by four tunnels in the mountain passes of PA.

Gen Con here we come!

Gen Con Aftermath!

OK... Haven't posted since the last con! That should give you a hint on how hectic things have been and Gen Con was no different. Gen Con rocked from beginning to end (and literally the dice didn't stop rolling at our WEGS booth until the "voice of god" came over the exhibit hall loudspeaker kicking out all non-vendors). Folks were still chucking dice at our table until the bitter end! I'll post stuff over the course of the next few weeks on the GenCon games/demos once I catch up... This con-hopping summer was nutz!!!