[games_access] E for All and GDC booths

[d. michelle hinn]

Hi all,

Ok some really bad news...

I admit I have NEVER but together a booth for an expo as large as E 
for All. Because I'm not a marketing person (although I tend to play 
one with the SIG) I have just learned that I have to pay up to a 
thousand dollars for carpet, tables, electricity (that whole exact 
number of things that need to be plugged in, union money, etc). Wow.

Yeah. Crap. Nice thing to learn with a week to go. There are two 
unions that a required to (1) put the carpet, tables etc in our booth 
and (2) actually set up and plug in our stuff IF it takes more than 
one person 30 minutes to set up the whole booth. Yeah...and I heard 
from a friend who used to exhibit at E3 that the unions will watch 
people like hawks.. I realize that we have a number of people showing 
up at staggered times (ie, not everyone will be there on the 
Wednesday we set up and some set up will occur later). I'm hoping 
that late set up of some things can be done quickly and less 
intrusively so we don't occur more cost.

If anyone going to the show can help out with the cost (and I'm about 
to learn the total damage), please, please do so. I'll obviously just 
need to eat the cost (thank you nearly maxed out credit card) at this 
point but any/all donations and/or ideas for post-show sponsorship is 
GREATLY appreciated. If you have ideas for last minute fund 
raising...please let me know with exact details and contact info 
(please don't just tell me to ask disability organizations -- exact 
contact info is what I need at this point).

More bad news...the GDC booth...

There was some major miscommunication -- IGDA is NOT covering the 
cost of the booth (they will cover the cost of fliers for both shows) 
and I'm waiting to find out the total for a 100 square foot booth 
(same size as E for All) -- CMP is going to give us a significant 
discount but I just don't know what this entails. Because we are 
finding this out now, we have time to beg for a few hundred here and 
there (for any tech we show that is earning revenue, as much as 
possible is appreciated). I realize that none of us are making big 
money if we are making any money. So the bulk of the fund raising is 
going to have to come elsewhere. And I'm ok with that. But the same 
weird rules for E for All (carpet, drapes for the tables, the cost of 
the tables, etc is also going to be tacked on.

Yes...I found this out AFTER the GDC proposal deadline and we didn't 
have a main GDC arcade (we're trying for an indie games one now but 
that won't get the people that don't show up until Wednesday. I 
really want this booth to work out. And we have time to raise some 
cash because we have a few months to do so. So if we can come close 
to cost, that will be better than nothing.

Welcome to the big leagues. Sure, the booth is a significant boost 
and we can get more press attention and dev and gamer attention (all 
are important in spreading the word). For E for All I have (believe 
it or not) sent over 700 press release style emails to raise press 
awareness) -- can you believe my contact list is that big now??? I 
didn't realize how hard I have worked to get these until I put it 
into excel.

So thoughts? Ideas?

Michelle