Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Convention Updates - Part 1 ... Origins

So I figured this is time enough to sit down and give an update of Origins and Dexcon. Two of my most favourite conventions in the Con Season.

Origins

Out of all the BIG cons that take place in the Summer months, Origins has to be my most favourite out of them all. Columbus isn't what you'd consider the most interesting of places though I can't really make that call since all I've seen has been the inside of the convention centre and some awesome places I'll get into in a second. The hotel we stayed at is the one I usually stay at when I go to Origins and it's far enough away that walking is out of the question, but close enough that the drive over is a sneeze.

Event 1: The Booth
The first thing that happened this year at Origins which was different from previous years is that we got a booth. We finally shelled out for it and it was fine, until we were told that we weren't going to have the usual accoutrement that a booth had.

For those of you who don't know what a standard booth comes with, let me give you a list. The first thing a 10x10' (3x3m for the imperially challenged) booth gives you is a single 5' (1.5m) table and a couple of chair. Because we had picked up half a booth from Key 20, there was no table and no chairs. I had not brought a table and some chairs.

This left us in a bit of a predicament.

Thankfully, we were able to find some fold up chairs, a card table and some fabric to use as a table cloth at the last minute before we showed up. We shared a booth with the awesome folks at Arc Dream Publishing, and generally had a good time. Rachel and Shane are phenominal people

Booth lesson number 1: Black is the new Black
We were there, and the Firestorm Ink colours are Orange, Black and White. We focused more on the black and white and realized that we were in full camo gear for a geek convention. When we do this again, focus on the orange and not the black. EVERYBODY was wearing black. Seriously.

We didn't run much because I had missed the deadline but because of that we spent a lot of time hanging out with the people over at Slug Fest Games and trying to get some work done on our games. I think that may be the thing for Origins, but we'll have to see. You totally can't knock a really good event to get people to buy your stuff. It's what we ran CyberGen on for a while .... though I guess that's not the best of examples.

Soon I'll have the update for Dex Con, or Convention Update Part 2.


Firestorm Ink's Fan Box