Well, that was an exceptionally interesting weekend. It was the first time I had been to Dragonmeet, one of the UK's 'premier' conventions and it was a decent affair. I think I missed a lot of stuff due to being trapped in the trade hall for 95% of the event, but it was clean, clear and nice in a lovely venue (Kensington Town Hall).
From a personal point of view, it was a tremendous success. Duty & Honour sold like the proverbial hot cakes, with a lot of enthusiastic people coming to the Collective Endeavour stall and chatting to me about it. That was very cool. I even met some of the great and the good of the gaming industry who were interested in it, which was also pretty damned cool. More encouragingly, there was a lot of interest in the future D&H projects I have on the horizon. The Endeavour did great business and busted the £1k sales mark for the first time I believe. The stall ran like clockwork and looked the business (a woman's touch, I believe, helped). I had a great time meeting with everyone again and I am indebted to Civi, my buddy from SQC, for letting me use his house as a crash pad and generally showing me around for the weekend - what a star.
There was one thing that was pointed out to me by Karen of House Atreides, and thats the small scale of the UKRPG community. She was mentioning a convention in Germany that attracts 120,000 roleplayers - not 'gamers' - ROLEPLAYERS. An italian one regularly gets 30,000. UK Conventions are back-slapping and high-fiving if they get 2000. There has to be something wrong there, surely?
Anyway, D&H is a sniff off 100 sales within two months of release, which I am utterly thrilled about and it has settled my mind on exactly what I am doing next!
Excellent stuff
3 comments:
"She was mentioning a convention in Germany that attracts 120,000 roleplayers - not 'gamers' - ROLEPLAYERS. An italian one regularly gets 30,000. UK Conventions are back-slapping and high-fiving if they get 2000. There has to be something wrong there, surely?"
Easyjet flies to Germany you know from Newcastle :-)
I'd be up for a quick nip across the water to the land of the decent beer makers, I love Germany.
David
Hey, I'd be up for a trip to Germany.
A
I would suggest that your contact might be a bit off with that figure. The 120,000 thing sounds like Spiel in Essen (I can't think of any other games event that get numbers like Spiel does). Roleplayers and RPGs make up a tiny part of this.
Boardgames and family games are hugely popular in Germany and Spiel attracts loads of people who are in to this. There is no RPG convention in the world that could attract those numbers with RPGs alone. From my discussions with people who have been to Essen, the RPG quotient is but a tiny, tiny fraction of the Spiel attendance.
So don't be worried about the attendance of cons in this country! We are a miniscule hobby, even when compared to boardgames. So let's not sweat it.
Cheers
Malc
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