Xaxaxe wrote:The plug has been pulled on GenCon SoCal, making this a sad day for many West Coast gamers.I attended the first three of these gatherings, and I definitely had a love/hate thing going on with the SoCal event. On the one hand, I had a pretty good time on all three occasions ... on the other hand, I thought it was the most idiotically-run convention I'd ever attended.Anyway, there's both a press release and 500 paragraphs of questionable logic from Peter Adkison available for anyone interested:Press releaseYou should have emphasized the exhibit hall, Peter
When will this guy realize he was just in the right place at the right time (starting a card game right when card games became huge)
Badmike wrote:Start with NOT OVERCHARGING FOR THE EXHIBITOR'S BOOTHS YOU FUKKIN MORON.
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:Wasn't Magic the game that actually broke the genre? Seems to me that's a pretty sweet accomplishment. But with any business, it usually just hangs on for a while after it's original entrepreneurial idea becomes obsolete. WOTC is no different.
I thought there were card games already, but clearly not as organized or addicting as Magic became. I could be wrong. Regardless, one great idea (which btw has been ground into the dirt ad nauseum over the past decade) does not a business/marketing genius make. I've read enough about the esteemed Mr. Atkinson over the years to realize he's not a great leader, innovator, or futurist.
Badmike wrote:And he wonders why 4-5 Big Name companies started sharing booths to offset costs, instead of buying their own
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:I hear you. I just think the exact same thing can be said of Gygax, or the inventor of the hoola hoop for that matter. You have be from a very special breed to continually innovate and stay ahead of the pack. Heck, even Gates is milking an idea he had 25 years ago.I think there was a Boardgamegeek con here last year (which presumably had a lot of rpgers).. but I don't know how much business it did.
Tharizdun wrote:I think maybe the mistake was not putting it in LA
Xaxaxe wrote:I think you might be right. The expected synergy between the Anaheim Convention Center and Disneyland never seemed to materialize, despite the fact that the two are practically neighbors.It's interesting to note, though, that the GenCon folks had already announced a move to downtown L.A. for 2007 and beyond. Obviously, they must not have actually signed the contract, given this most recent announcement.
Badmike wrote: Start with NOT OVERCHARGING FOR THE EXHIBITOR'S BOOTHS
jgbrowning wrote:This is why we never attended. I'm not going to pay the same amount as I pay for GenCon for only 1/5 of the audience.joe b.
Unfortunately there was one blight, an early warning sign of a large problem looming on the horizon. Exhibitor participation, instead of climbing too, dropped from 106 exhibitors to 81. Apparently I wasn't the only one who lost money the previous year.In all fairness, I should point out that I priced the exhibitor booths at Gen Con So Cal somewhat aggressively (at about three-fourths the cost of the booths at Gen Con Indy, a show roughly five times the size). There were two reasons for this: first is that because I was losing money on the show anyway, I should try and make up for some of that where I could, and the exhibit hall seemed a reasonable place. Second, I really didn't want too many exhibitors at the show because the number of exhibitors has to make sense as a function of over all attendance. Its close to a zero sum game. If you have $100 to spend in the exhibit hall, the more exhibitors there are, the less revenue and foot traffic each of them will get. So it made sense to me to weed out the guys who were very price sensitive. So I wasn't too worried about the decline in exhibitor participation as the drop actually seemed to bring the exhibitor participation to a level more appropriate for where the attendee participation was at.