The wide open road

Down here in Australia we also travel enormous distances to go to shows.

Being a trader and manufacturer of GZG products I suppose I go out of
the
way to visit shows more than most since it is how I earn my living.

Cancon is probably one of the best attended shows in Australia and as
Simon
says it is attended by well under a thousand people. But I willingly
travel
7 hours to get there.
In comparison  our local show in Melbourne takes 40 minutes to drive to
and
the furthest show I attend is in Brisbane a drive of 24 hours split over
two days.

Having driven in both the States and the UK I can say that our roads
here
are much better and faster than in either, a 12 hour journey feels like
a
four hour one in the UK, and with speed limits on the open highway of
100
or 110 Kph you travel a much further distance than in the US in a
similar
time period.

Just my two bobs worth and if anyone is thinking of visiting Australia
let
us know if you want to play an intercontinental FT!

>Interested in coming to Canberra in Australia?  Our club runs a
>convention called CANCON over the Australia Day Weekend (24-26
January).
>We get about 650 people, two hundred of those are wargamers , 350 are
>roleplayers and the rest are magic and board gamers.  Full Thrust runs
>plus hopefully Dirtside and Star Grunt demos.
>
>Simon LeRay-Meyer
>CANCON Dealer Co-Ordinator
>
>		-----Original Message-----
>		From:	Ground Zero Games [SMTP:jon@gzero.dungeon.com]
>		Sent:	Friday, 6 February 1998 7:42
>		To:	FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
>		Subject:	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)
>
>
>
>
>Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\RE Worried about GenCon."
>