A few weeks ago, we exhibited at Emerald City Comicon. Typically when we attend conventions, we try to create some spectacle that captures peopleās attention and sells games. Like the time we brought a marching band to PAX Australia.
At ECCC, we set up a āPay What You Wantā booth and encouraged people to give us any amount of money in exchange for our games. We put games on a table, set up some signs, stood off to the side, and waited to see what would happen.
We brought 2000 games. Before the convention began, we took bets on what would happen:
Tom thought weād sell out in a few hours.
Alex thought weād run out on the of the second day of the con.
Trin thought that we would not run out of games because we are no longer cool or relevant.
Jenn got a fever and didnāt know what was happening.
The doors opened, and attendees swarmed the booth. Within five minutes attendees realized they could just take games and walk away. A small group grabbed armfuls of free games and left, but most people paid something. Within an hour, the booth looked like this:
We ran out of games in 51 minutes.and made $8042.48, or 18.7% of the gamesā retail value. In other words, we lost $685.44 per minute.
Attendees put lots of other stuff in the payment box too.
Some things you put in our box:
Five Canadian Dollars ($3.72 USD)
Eighty Philippine Pesos ($1.59 USD)
One Chinese Yuan ($0.14 USD)
One Cubone Pokemon Card, XY Breakthrough (Avg price - $0.68 USD)
One Magic: The Gathering Eternal Masters booster pack wrapperĀ (No Value)
One handwritten āAny Pizza Freeā and āTwisted Flicks + KPCā Coupon from a Papa Murphyās in Kirkland, WA (Estimated Value $25.00 USD)
One $1 Bill folded into a bowtie ($1.00 USD)
One āFeelTheBurn.orgā $1 bill. ($1.00 USD)
Two halves of a $1 bill ($1.00 USD )
Once we sold out, we had to figure out what to do with our booth space.Ā
On Saturday, we gave our space to artists who werenāt able to get a table at the con. People showed up to exhibitĀ cosplay horns, board games, recycled journals, and comic art.
On the last day of the con, we set up a station for mailing letters to representatives.
We provided pens, paper, postage, envelopes, writing tips, and the address of every US Senator.Ā
Over 200 letters were written by con attendees, including the most bad ass Imperator Furiosa cosplayer weāve ever seen.
Weāre still waiting on Immortan Trumpās response.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
