Show Considerations

Start now on your Origins 2006 experience, I hope you have already started working on your convention promotions! If you didn’t, it’s never late - but it’s getting close! Start thinking about how to make your booth visible and your product memorable before, during, and after Origins.

It’s time now to set your goals for Origins 2006. Have you set a sales goal? Do you have a goal for number of demos that you want to perform? How about number of face-to-face contacts completed? Leads generated? Get together with your booth staff and discuss with them the goals upon which you have decided. Motivate them and share your vision for the show!

Do you have signage for your events? Make some good-looking color signs with your company and game names on them. Remember to leave room for your booth number, too! Put one your signs on the table at all of your events. Make some that some are small for table standees too.

Pencils, Pens and Rulers make better giveaways than business cards to gamers, and they can be imprinted for a modest amount. Decks of cards can be imprinted by Kardwell International. Many other promotional items including specially printed dice are available from Pegasus Publishing. I suggest a tape measure if you publish a miniatures game, a magnifying ruler if your game has an appeal to an older demographic, a wrist band or slap-band for younger appeal, and a custom cardstock life counter if you have a CCG audience.

All your staff or volunteers can wear embroidered shirts or polos, available from Pegasus or  Off World Designs. 

Have a supplement writing contest. Promote the contest on the Web (we'll include it on our site too), and have people either mail the supplements in to you, then announce the winner at your booth at Origins, or have the writers turn them in on Thursday at the con, and announce the winner(s) on Sunday. The winner gets a prize, and MAY get published.

Do in-booth demos. If you do, we list you on our "in-booth demos at Origins" page, providing more free advertising.

Put on your Web site that you're coming to Origins, and list the events that you're running. Getting your fans to come see you and participate in your events will help build the community around your brands.

Release a product at Origins. If you do, we list you on our "products being released at Origins" page

Print a ribbon to add to the bottom of the Show badge announcing “Best Resource Manager of Catan,” or whatever is appropriate to your game. Then give them to everyone. These can be purchased from your local trophy shop, or ordered on the web at MarcroMeetings, or some similar supplier.

Create a button with a catchy slogan that’s appropriate to your game. Have an attractive booth staff member pin them on passersby. Be ready to have other staff engage those who are ushered into the booth by this appeal.

Give prizes at your events, but require them to go to your booth to get the prize. Take pictures of your event winners at the booth, and then post the photos on your website after the show. Email them their picture as well as a notice that they can see it on your site, and to share this site with all their friends! You can bet they will!

Put a cardstock coupon in the Origins Give-away bag ($500) that is redeemable for a t-shirt (with your logo on it naturally) for the first 300 people to visit your booth and make a $20 minimum purchase. T-shirts can be inexpensively produced by Off World Designs, or the other two promotional apparel companies mentioned previously. Often our attendees will wear a t-shirt later in the weekend that they receive on Thursday, if it’s cool. You’ll create plenty of impressions for the rest of the show! Take pictures of these folks, too, and follow through as above.

Accept all credit and debit cards, as well as Paypal. If you have a laptop and a phone line at your booth, there’s little obstacle to accepting all cards and Paypal. Be sure you have signage that alerts customers to this option.

Accept the Origins Minted Generic Coins as cash. Their face value is $1.50 and GAMA will redeem them for this value. The convenience to the customer more than makes up for the trouble. Similarly, signage indicating your willingness to accept these is essential.

At many car shows, each attendee receives a key. If your key turns in a car’s ignition on the show floor, you win that car. This could be repeated for our clientele with a treasure chest. If your key opens the treasure chest, you win a prize package from that manufacturer’s booth. A flyer, with the key attached, can be stuffed into our Origins Giveaway bags for $500. For a good example of this idea, look at the kits and lock/keys combinations at JewelPro. Don’t everyone go making the keys; try a variation. Here’s just one idea:

The same contest can work with a jigsaw puzzle at your booth with one piece missing. Go to the thrift store and buy twenty puzzles and throw the one missing piece in with them. Distribute these pieces one each in the show bags taped to a flyer. The missing piece wins the grand prize.

Post an Origins recap on your website, with plenty of pictures. Remember to post your event winner’s photos as well!

How well did you do on your goals? It’s a time for a little assessment and post-show planning for next year’s success!

I hope these ideas will spark some creative thinking on your part, to create that high-energy "buzz" surrounding your events and products!