Bothered by a COnvention Policy

[Henry]

Consider also that you are paying for something you are not going to get elsewhere, at the same time you are shopping: You are paying for access to a shopping choice you CANNOT find outside of a convention hall, all in one place. For something like Gencon or Origins, this is definitely the case - but may not be the case for smaller conventions. Consider, at no other place anywhere in the country are you going to find EVERYONE's wares for sale, on display, physical product that can be examined, and available immediately. You can get these products and a similar breadth of choice online, but you cannot first examine them before purchase. So in essence, you are paying the con a premium for the shopping experience itself, which cannot be duplicated in the real world - no one has that kind of shelf space or selection as an RPG store. If a person finds the premium worth it, he or she will pay it. If not, they just won't go in. Either way, due to the nature of the shopping in a convention center, the vendors often barely break even at conventions; they do it for the publicity, and the exposure to their clientele which helps them get feedback.

 

[Scribble]

Much as I stand behind the idea of supporting the con that wants to charge - even for the dealer's room, I can see where the 'no pay' crowd is coming from. I mean the very idea of 'paying to shop' must be somewhat distatseful.

Again it's not that I'm saying don't charge me I want to get into your con for free. I have no problem if you hold a con and want to charge me to use the dealer's room.

I have no problem if you hold a con and want to charge the dealer to sell his or her wares in the dealer's room.

It's the DOUBLE charge that bothers me. In my opinion it should be one or the other, not both.

Running a convention, especially for the smaller local guys, is a pretty risky proposition. You've got to book your space months in advance, attempt to sell vendor space before the con starts, and hope you get enough people to attend so that you can at least break even.

This is true for any business. Landtord/tennent FLGS included.

Having talked with people who run Australian cons before, I know that part of the reason they charge a fee for a badge in these situations is because their liability insurance doesn't cover people who aren't official attendees of the convention.

This so far has been the most convincing argument to me. The need to cover your own tail is important (especially in this country) and I can understand if this is the reasoning. I'd still personally, if organizing a con, try to keep these costs something like a dollar. A yes I paid, fee to show for the records this was an attendee, but nothing significant.

I just think it makes better business ethics to not bar potential customers from your paying clients, the dealers. Once they've charged the dealers for the use of that space, that becomes the dealers leased space.

I have no problem with the con organizers wanting to make money. It's their business venture, they should be rewarded in the outcome.

I simply believe in this case they need to choose one or the other.

 

[G.A. Donis]

My wife and I are part of a group that runs a con. **ADVERTISEMENT*** D20Con 3 next weekend, 10/9 & 10/10, in Metairie, LA **END ADVERTISEMENT** If we didn't charge people who wanted only access to the dealer room, we would need to charge more for the dealer tables which makes it less attractive for dealers to be at the con. This is our third year and we (along with our other partners) have lost money the previous years. The first year my wife and I lost over a thousand dollars on the con. The second year was better than the first but we still lost a significant amount of money. I'm not sure how we are looking for this year, but nobody is expecting to make money. Without the couple of dealer tables we have, our losses would have been more. As someone who is investing a significant amount of MY MONEY to bring gaming to others, I can't rely on what someone MIGHT do if I let them into the convention for free.

My wife and I also run a game store and we were the only dealer at a very small con this last weekend. Our sales were just enough to cover the cost of the table but we consider it worthwhile since we got our name to more people and didn't lose a lot of money. All the stock that was at the con was stock that was not at the store. I lost a couple of sales since we took stuff from the store to sell at the con. If they had charged us more, we might not have been able to afford to be at the con and then the people who attended the con for the gaming would not have had a dealer available for those emergency replacement die or card sleeves . It may not be the case everywhere, but usually game stores don't make a lot of money for their owners so their advertising budget is not very large and a couple hundred dollars is significant. Gaming is a niche market and stores, dealers and cons need to generate revenue (oh no, I'm sounding like a grown up) wherever and whenever they can.

Sorry for the long post, I just thought I'd chime in with an "insider" point of view

 

[MGibster]

Actually, that's all I ever do. I've never paid to get into any conventions in town, but I've attended several and spent my money on products sold at tables.

Of course, most of the conventions I've attended haven't been gaming cons, because they usually do charge admission.

I didn't say nobody I just said "very few." Certainly not enough to justify going through all the trouble to set up special badges for people who just want to enter the dealer's room. From the Cons perspective, the money you'd spend in the dealer's room isn't going to go toward paying for the con. They have no vested interest in allowing you free admission. Dealers understand the policy of the convention before they buy their tables so nobody is being cheated here.

Marc

 

[MGibster]

It's the DOUBLE charge that bothers me. In my opinion it should be one or the other, not both.

You're under the false impression that there is a double charge. You are only being charged to enter the convention and if all you want to do is browse the dealer's room then more power to you. The vendors are being charged for renting a specific amount of space so they can sell their wares. As I said before the dealer's room does not exist in a vacuum. It is but one of the many attractions put in place to get more people to show up. If all you want to do is come browse the dealer's room for free, quite frankly the convention organizers don't want you around. Why? Because you do nothing to help the convention make a profit or break even.

Marc

 

[RichCsigs]

I used to work retail, and as anybody who works retail can tell you getting a whole weekend off is a pain in the butt. So when the good convention around here would happen, I would just go down for whatever weekend day I had off and buy a day pass and go shop the dealer room (since there wasn't even a marginally good gaming shop around). Then one year the convention people decided that they were only going to do whole weekend passes, no single day ones. I wasn't about to do that and said to the organizer that I just wanted to shop the dealer room and was willing to pay 1/3 the weekend price to do so but they wouldn't budge. I wasn't about to pay full weekend price so my group & I left. As we were pulling out I noticed the doors on the side of the hotel that usually lead to access tunnels, so we decided to try one of those and on the first try found one that put us right across the hall from the dealer room and out of sight of the sign in area. We had a blast and made sure to tell the dealers about how the con organizers didn't want them to have our money.