Preparation for Spiel 2009

The last few weeks we received positive reactions from the jury members of the International Gamers Awards and we decided to send out games to all the 19 jury members, hope for a nomination and go to Spiel!

W. Eric Martin, reviewer and editor from the excellent website Boardgamenews.com made a positive review called Day & Night "an excellent first design" and referred to Day & Night again this month;

Many other BGN columnists will write about the latest alea game, the latest Rio Grande release, and so forth, so why not shine a light on smaller publishers? The results aren’t uniformly (or even mostly) good, but you do discover little known games like Day & Night that would otherwise be overlooked and it feels good to share such finds with others.
Taken from the article "W. Eric Martin: Reviews Under Review"

Dutch reviewer Ronald Hoekstra from the very nice and personal website Spelmagazijn.nl, the first reviewer to see Day & Night back in the days that we over used our printer several times a week to make new prototypes, thinks Day & Night stands a fairly big chance on being nominated because there were not many eligible two-player boardgames this year. Day & Night was one of the December tips from 2008 on his website;

This game stands out for it's beautiful illustrations, but shows to be very fun to play also!

Taken and translated from the dutch article "December tips 2008"

There is also a small report from Corrie at Ducosim 2009 where she mentions Day & Night on the Spelmagazijn website. And she, "liked it a lot"!

Herb Levy, the force behind the international gaming network Gamers Alliance, says "So far, reaction has been very good".

With all these postive reactions and the new boost in promotion we decided to go to Spiel in Essen, Germany in October (we're still waiting for a final confirmation for the mini booth we ordered in Hall 9 (a corner booth with 2 open sides!!), but everything should be fine). We asked everyone we know with experience in the business for advice because it's going to be the first time we're attending Spiel (we didn't even go as visitors yet) and it's going to be quite the investment. Especially on how to promote the booth, and if it is wise to 'share a booth' for bigger traffic and lower costs.

Advice for Spiel from people in the business

Keith Blume is one of the partners of FRED Distribution (we publish under the Eagle Games and Gryphon Games banners) and was very kind to send us an email with great advice;

I believe there are two fronts to pursue that I think would benefit you in getting good exposure for your game.

• One is to get review copies to reviewers who do detailed reviews on Boardgamegeek (look for gold reviewers) and other websites/trade publications in the Netherlands (I believe your base of operations?) and Germany.
• As to the booth, this is a balancing act. There are some companies that like to set up together at shows. Generally this is to jointly get a larger booth that is in a higher traffic area, but I do not see this happen too often. I believe it is hall 4 that has a lot of the new publishers and I think it does make sense to try and be in the hall that is know for having new publishers because you will fit the demographic of the hall. If you have friends at some other publishing houses, I would approach them about going in together on a booth, but I would not recommend getting a booth with someone to whom you are not familiar. I think Essen is stressful enough, so you do not want to take a chance on setting up with someone whose company you do not enjoy.

A lot of thanks to excellent board game designer Richard Breese (Aladdin's Dragons, the 'Key' series of games and more) gave us very helpful information;

• You are unlikely to attract any distributors without taking the initiative. You will need to contact them. If you do this beforehand you may be able to make an appointment to see them at the show.
• Try to include German rules for the game as well as English.
• The 4 day attendance is around 100,000. As a new attendee, if you have a good (family/gamers), well produced, original game you will likely sell between 200 to 300 copies. With a 'buzz' a few more. With any of those ingredients missing, or a trivia or abstract game, then probably less.
• There are several hundred exhibitors so you will not stand out. Best to have a largebanner for the back wall. You pay 160 Euro to hire these walls! But at this stage (booking in May) you are unlikely to be able to hire a prime spot and will end upon one of the more distant halls. But that is not all bad as that is where the other small companies are and some of these have interesting games and you will make some new friends.
• Do not invest more than you are prepared to lose.

Many thanks to everyone that gave us good advice.

PS: Today I updated the design of my blog with a very fast and simple design. It will have to do for now, hope you like it!

Elf Fantasy Fair; A disappointment

Remember I was looking forward very much to the biggest fantasy event of Europe; the Elf Fantasy Fair? Unfortunately it turned out to be a big disappointment... Maybe that's why it took me a long time to post something...

After our demonstration in the American Book Center, I kept in contact with a manager that was very eager to help us get a spot on the EFF. We didn't go to the EFF for Day & Night before because the prices for stands are exceptionally high and this target audience doesn't really buy products (after the high ticket cost and travel expenses). We tried for a free spot, close to the ABC stand, where we could give demonstrations to visitors and redirect them to the ABC, so we could mainly promote. This didn't work out, but the organization was willing to sell a discount booth in the art section.

We decided to just try it, since it has so many visitors and Day & Night is, of course, interesting for the fantasy audience. I was a bit worried though, if game enthusiasts would go to an art tent. The organization ensured me that the main route would go through the tent and we could promote Day & Night on their website. So we prepared everything; we made a selection for the art we would bring and we bought 2 nice little tables for demonstrations (I figured that most people wouldn't really want to try and play the game, because they're not on a gaming event so 2 tables was enough).

Some days passed and still no Day & Night on the website. I began to worry more; would my main target audience, game enthusiasts, go into an art tent - especially if there was no announcement or any mention in the program?? I decided to sent the organization an example message that they could place on the website, to save them some time. But days passed, and all the calling and emailing didn't work. On the day of the event, Day & Night was still not to be found anywhere on the website and we were completely dependent on the visitors that would pass by our booth... It's not nice to start a big 2 day event disappointed. Unfortunately, this disappointment continued to grow through out the day... The main route was next to the tent; and not through... Barely 5 % of the people that passed the tent, passed our stand. But... As the only 'game' stand on the fair, how many people would visit our stand if it was announced on the website?

In the end, Sebastiaan and our help on sunday Alexander (thanks so much!), and I decided to enjoy the sunny days with actually playing the game ourselves. Against Sebastiaan, I won two times with Day, one time with Night and Sebastiaan won two times with Night and one time with Day. And we did enjoy ourselves a lot!

In the end we didn't even sell 10 games and we decided to pay half the bill (after a big discussion the organization agreed..) and... To never go to the Elf Fantasy Fair again.