Conventions and Events - Some Spiel Numbers

Posted by: Matt On: Oct 24th 2011 edited

So, Gregor and I went to Essen Spiel, Germany's (and Europe's) biggest game fayre. We shared a stand with Eero from Arkenstone. I figured some data might be of use to people considering going next year.

Booth buy in was 180 Euros. This would be lower if we'd had more buy ins. One major sponsor and two minor is not enough folks to run the booth and allow some gaming time. I reckon 6 would be ideal for rotating.

My sales were pretty robust:

11 copes of The Agency (plus 6 to retail).
5 copies of Covenant
0 Pulp!

Minus booth cost that gave me about 130 Euros in return. This is about enough to cover the plane ticket, but not much else...

So... Good sales, but not as good for me as 2006, but we had more local buy ins then.

Posted by: Neil Gow On: Oct 26th 2011

Was that 180E as a whole, or each?

What was the language 'barrier' like there? Despite my smattering of o-level German, thats one reason that I have always raised an eyebrow. (The other being that its in the middle of the first term of college and thus impossible to attend!)

What was the vibe like on the RPG side of things?

Posted by: Matt On: Oct 26th 2011

180 each.

Language isn't an issue. I get by on very rusty A Level German, and then I only use it as I feel guilty for speaking English so much.

Vibe wise, there's lots of people who are indie familiar or indie curious who want to pop by and chat, plus a whole hall dedicated to RPGs. It's big enough that you still get the people who haven't seen an indie sized book. Not much play other than demos though...

Posted by: Gregor Hutton On: Oct 27th 2011 edited

I left for the airport on Sunday morning so just did Thu, Fri and Sat of Spiel (Eero was selling his copies of my books on the Sunday).

14 Remember Tomorrow
7 Three Sixteen
4 Hell 4 Leather

...along with getting paid 30 EUR for 3 Remember Tomorrow and 6 Hell 4 Leather going into Eero's stock.

So after paying my cut of 180 EUR that was 150 EUR to me. That stock cost about 40 EUR to print, so a profit of 110 EUR, enough to cover the flight (and we had free accom by staying with my friend Dario near Essen).

We also got interviewed by a German podcaster (Matt's interview to follow) and it was really great to work with Eero on creating a European indie booth. His collection of books is really diverse, better than IPR at GenCon by a margin.

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Oct 30th 2011

Essen always sounds like a good, fun con. One day I'd love to go! some friends went for the board game side of things this year so I shall have to get their feedback too!

We booth shared with Eero at Games Expo and it was highly entertaining - and you're right, his selection of books is so diverse it's untrue. Loads of stuff I'd never even heard of!