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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tf360" data-source="post: 2016820" data-attributes="member: 2105">Conventions that are worth attending are few and far between, especially without a brand new product. First off, nearly every convention has at least one or two retailers that are selling bins of backlist RPG material for as much 75% off the cover price. I ran a booth at a con a few years back where one of the gaming manufacturers was sandwiched between two local retailers that were selling his products for 1/2 the cover price. Needless to say, it was a very poor con for that individual. So if you set up a booth at a con, you now have to compete against one or more retailers that may be selling your product at a fraction of its cover. It's not difficult to figure out where the consumer is going to spend his money. You can offer some perks that he can't, i.e. signed copies but that only goes so far when someone's strapped for cash and looking for a bargain.In addition to the competition from a discount retailer, you're also competing against other industries in a dealer room, i.e. minis, comics, ccg's, video games, anime, dice, art, clothing, medieval weapons etc. etc. Remember RPG's are only part of the convention's experience. To add to this, many of the RPG players are attending the con for RPGA events and benefits so if you're selling a 3rd party product that can't be used in an RPGA event you might as well be selling used tissues. Now throw in your overhead. There's travel to the con, shipping fees, booth fees, sales tax, food, drinks and a hotel room if you have to stay overnight. If you're running a one man booth which is a pretty tall order, you're probably looking at a $300-$500 expenditure for a 3-day show. At a con like GenCon with 25,000+ attendees, it's worth it. At a local con with 1,000 attendees, many of whom are there for something other than rpg's, well you get the gist.</blockquote>

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