Re: Worried about GenCon.

>On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, Alfredo Lorente wrote:
>
>> How many people actually go to those smaller "engagements"?	And for
>> Jon and KR at GeoHex, which are more profitable, in terms of sales
>> per people seen, instead of total volume of sales?  Or is that
>> confidential info?
>
>The smaller engagements is all we've got in the Greater Seattle area. 
The
>largest gaming con is Dragonflight, and even that generally only runs
>between 600-1000 attendees.  Then there's Enfilade put on by the NWHMGS
>which fills one ballroom plus a couple meeting rooms.	There are other
>medium sized regional conventions which I don't get to, but nothing
like
>what's available in California or the east coast.  How does Great
Britain
>and the other European nations fair?
>

Well, over here EuroGenCon is our only sizeable RPG show, but we have a
load of wargame shows of varying sizes. EGC is usually around 1500-2000
attendees, so it is still VERY small compared to US GenCon. A 10'
tradestand cost us £250 last year, but for EGC '98 it is up to £300 -
a 20%
increase, not as bad as the US one but still bad enough. This makes it
more
expensive than the biggest wargame show (Salute, a one-day show with
about
3000 people in) which costs us more like £270 for 12' of stand. At an
average, at Salute we take 50-100% more in the one day than we do over 4
days at EGC.

Our smaller shows are usually 300-500 people, but the stands tend to
only
cost £20 - £50 and we can still take a proportionate amount per head
of
customers.

EGC is held at Loughborough University campus, and uses student
accommodation for the attendees; the dealers' room is a single sports
hall,
the gaming is in other halls. Salute is held in Kensington Town Hall,
and
fills the building (two large halls and many smaller rooms), while most
provincial wargame shows tend to be in sports halls, leisure centres and
such.

Remember that the UK is small enough that we can drive to most shows on
the
day (even if it means a 4am start!), and only at a very few do we have
to
stay over the night before the show. We also tend to see a lot of the
same
regular customers at lots of the shows, as some people seem to get to
nearly everything!
When I came over for GenCon '96, the concept of everything for the trade
stand having been shipped by road days (weeks?) before, then the stand
crew
flying to the Con, seemed REALLY strange.....

Getting more back to the original topic of this thread, EGC '97 was
actually pretty good, with the WoTC presence not too overpowering (OK,
the
usual crop of Shufflers and Deckheads, but a lot of good gaming going on
as
well) - most of the traders live in the bar after the dealers' room
shuts
anyway, so it doesn't matter a lot to them... ;)
'98 will be interesting, however; I really hope it doesn't start to go
the
way that the US one is, if the rumours are right. Sadly, that seems to
be
what happens once Big Business (and thus Accountants) takes an interest
in
a "little" industry like ours..... :(

Jon (GZG)