rpghost
First Post
I’m in the very early stages of thinking about running a convention in the Milwaukee area in spring of 2008.
I own Game Universe ( http://www.game-universe.com ) which is one of the last (if the last) full service RPG/CCG stores in the area. All the 20+ year old stores have closed, several newer stores have also folded. Business here pays for itself, but it's not making much in the way of profit... so even with all the closures we don't see much new business from them (which follows the 10% rule that we’ve read about). So we thought it would be good to take a role in the community to help keep and create new gamers.
We are also one of the areas largest MTG events store (Chicago and Madison having pre-releases, but no such events in Milwaukee area at all). We have a large type-1 event following. We host all the regular release events and FNM.
So, here is where we're at:
GOALS:
- Promote our store and build residual business and name recognition (is this going to happen?) – Most of the regular MTG crowd will show and some from out of town, but those out of town MTG rarely buy from our store (unless they have prize money).
- Break even or make money on the weekend (MTG plays an important part here)
- Demo games and introduce players to new games (Publisher driven mostly)
-
FACILITY CHOICES:
- We could do a local collage for very cheap (10% overall sales)
- a small hall owned by a friend (free)
- the Midwest Center (were old GenCon was) on the cheap as they had a canceled event for late March (though I expect it's still expensive for us).
- rental hall with food and ample parking available
- a few other "oddball" sites that would be free or cheap-as-free, but nothing well suited to a convention.
One day or Two days? To do a large MTG event which I know will help or fully pay for the event, we’d probably need two days. But 1 would be simpler to book and cheaper… But that means starting very early and ending very late. Thoughts?
ADMINISTATION:
- I’m considering making use of our http://www.RPGe.com website for handling of scheduling and pre-registration. It was built for online-only cons, but it can be tweeked easy to handle this. Would online and pre-registration work for a small and new convention?
- Tables and chairs are usually costly, since I’m local I might as well buy them right? We have some 8 or 10 large tables and chairs to go with them already for our instore events.
- How much should we charge the players to attend the con?
- How many people should we plan to see attend? I’m guessing around 200-300. How much space do we need for that?
- Does it make sense to do all of this "in-house" or try to get some volunteers to help out?
DEALERS:
- As we're holding this as a "store" event, I'm assuming that getting other stores involved is sort of counter-productive. As far as perception goes, might it be worthwhile to offer space to some publishers?
- Should I allow MTG singles dealers?
- What would I charge dealers for a table?
-
PROMOTION:
- I own RPGNow.com and RPGShop.com and could use those for email notices to people in the Midwest.
- I have a lot of contacts to bring in dealers and guests to the show.
- Our grand opening weekend for GU was a big success with lots of guests and some 400 people coming through our store. We have some mailing and email address lists from this.
- We’re due to run some cable TV ads in the fall, we could mention the event then.
- We don’t do much radio ads anymore as they don’t do too well, would they work better for an event like this?
- Is there some way to partner or pay for promotion in the Chicago and Madison areas? Is it worth the bother since our main goal is to improve our store’s residual business?
-
EVENTS:
- A large Type-1 MTG (with large prizes like a set of moxes). We have a following with some 40 players at $20+ entry fee paying every couple months.
- We do release events but don’ t have rights to pre-releases (though we work with Barret Moy on JSS events who gets some allocations for them).
- MTG JSS event can probably be scheduled
- Regular sealed and contracted MTG events
- RPG Games
- Board Games
- We do not sell GAW products and a GAW store opened down the road from us. They are not very nice there (they badmouth us) and I’m reluctant to invite them. Would it be worth bringing the GAW crowd even though we don’t sell their products at GU?
- Costume? Worth the bother?
- Auction? While we have a lot of old “stuff” at the store that we’d love to get rid of, maybe handing them out as door prizes is a better idea? Should we outsource this?
- RPGA / living Greyhawk
-
SUPPORT:
- Would WOTC help pay for any ads or donate prizes or such?
- We would expect a good amount of the MIDWEST publishers to be excited about attending on the cheap.
- We have a lot of egger Indie publishers at RPGNow who should help promote us.
- Local collage game clubs and boardgame groups ?
- White Wolf Camarilla
Thoughts?
James
I own Game Universe ( http://www.game-universe.com ) which is one of the last (if the last) full service RPG/CCG stores in the area. All the 20+ year old stores have closed, several newer stores have also folded. Business here pays for itself, but it's not making much in the way of profit... so even with all the closures we don't see much new business from them (which follows the 10% rule that we’ve read about). So we thought it would be good to take a role in the community to help keep and create new gamers.
We are also one of the areas largest MTG events store (Chicago and Madison having pre-releases, but no such events in Milwaukee area at all). We have a large type-1 event following. We host all the regular release events and FNM.
So, here is where we're at:
GOALS:
- Promote our store and build residual business and name recognition (is this going to happen?) – Most of the regular MTG crowd will show and some from out of town, but those out of town MTG rarely buy from our store (unless they have prize money).
- Break even or make money on the weekend (MTG plays an important part here)
- Demo games and introduce players to new games (Publisher driven mostly)
-
FACILITY CHOICES:
- We could do a local collage for very cheap (10% overall sales)
- a small hall owned by a friend (free)
- the Midwest Center (were old GenCon was) on the cheap as they had a canceled event for late March (though I expect it's still expensive for us).
- rental hall with food and ample parking available
- a few other "oddball" sites that would be free or cheap-as-free, but nothing well suited to a convention.
One day or Two days? To do a large MTG event which I know will help or fully pay for the event, we’d probably need two days. But 1 would be simpler to book and cheaper… But that means starting very early and ending very late. Thoughts?
ADMINISTATION:
- I’m considering making use of our http://www.RPGe.com website for handling of scheduling and pre-registration. It was built for online-only cons, but it can be tweeked easy to handle this. Would online and pre-registration work for a small and new convention?
- Tables and chairs are usually costly, since I’m local I might as well buy them right? We have some 8 or 10 large tables and chairs to go with them already for our instore events.
- How much should we charge the players to attend the con?
- How many people should we plan to see attend? I’m guessing around 200-300. How much space do we need for that?
- Does it make sense to do all of this "in-house" or try to get some volunteers to help out?
DEALERS:
- As we're holding this as a "store" event, I'm assuming that getting other stores involved is sort of counter-productive. As far as perception goes, might it be worthwhile to offer space to some publishers?
- Should I allow MTG singles dealers?
- What would I charge dealers for a table?
-
PROMOTION:
- I own RPGNow.com and RPGShop.com and could use those for email notices to people in the Midwest.
- I have a lot of contacts to bring in dealers and guests to the show.
- Our grand opening weekend for GU was a big success with lots of guests and some 400 people coming through our store. We have some mailing and email address lists from this.
- We’re due to run some cable TV ads in the fall, we could mention the event then.
- We don’t do much radio ads anymore as they don’t do too well, would they work better for an event like this?
- Is there some way to partner or pay for promotion in the Chicago and Madison areas? Is it worth the bother since our main goal is to improve our store’s residual business?
-
EVENTS:
- A large Type-1 MTG (with large prizes like a set of moxes). We have a following with some 40 players at $20+ entry fee paying every couple months.
- We do release events but don’ t have rights to pre-releases (though we work with Barret Moy on JSS events who gets some allocations for them).
- MTG JSS event can probably be scheduled
- Regular sealed and contracted MTG events
- RPG Games
- Board Games
- We do not sell GAW products and a GAW store opened down the road from us. They are not very nice there (they badmouth us) and I’m reluctant to invite them. Would it be worth bringing the GAW crowd even though we don’t sell their products at GU?
- Costume? Worth the bother?
- Auction? While we have a lot of old “stuff” at the store that we’d love to get rid of, maybe handing them out as door prizes is a better idea? Should we outsource this?
- RPGA / living Greyhawk
-
SUPPORT:
- Would WOTC help pay for any ads or donate prizes or such?
- We would expect a good amount of the MIDWEST publishers to be excited about attending on the cheap.
- We have a lot of egger Indie publishers at RPGNow who should help promote us.
- Local collage game clubs and boardgame groups ?
- White Wolf Camarilla
Thoughts?
James
