John Jelley of Pyrimid Comics & Games in Sierra Vista, Arizona attended GAMA Trade Show last week (see “Mixed Signals at GTS”) and found that the reduced number of presentations made it hard to figure out what each publisher had to offer:

This year's GAMA was a breath of fresh air and also a great bit of confusion all mixed together.

I have been attending the GAMA show now for seven years and this, by far, was the weirdest one yet.  The exhibitors were great, but without the presentations at the meals it was difficult to understand just what they had to offer.  This was a major problem for me because I had to stop by each booth and get someone to talk to (not always an easy thing) who knew the product lines and get the feel of what they had to offer.  Bandai did a great job with this, and their presentation at the sponsored meal was the reason that I sought them out and have decided to carry their new Dragonball game. Prior to this I was not even planning on talking to them.

The manufactures need to know that the sponsored events (with or without meals) are important.  Upper Deck's World of Warcraft presentation was great, but they seemed to have very little information on any of their other products.  And this year’s Wizards of the Coast carnival event was nothing more than making retailers jump through hoops for prizes.  I personally would have preferred sitting through a well prepared presentation rather than getting 30 seconds of face time, then never seeing the brand managers during the rest of the show.  The carnival event was a bit of fun but was pretty much worthless for information and presentation of new products.

The seminars were great as always, but this year seemed to have a major problem with scheduling: many were stacked too close to allow for feedback and discussion time, and for several that were rescheduled, word wasn't received until just hours before the event.  A solution for this would have been to send out more e-mails prior to the convention with the schedule changes in and to have a handout each morning on the convention floor with the changes.  A central announcement board would have been nice.

The biggest problem I had was that I did not have the time to do everything I wanted to do at the convention. With some of the seminars scheduled during exhibit hall hours and the sheer numbers of exhibitors, it left me about two minutes for each booth.  This is why I feel the presentations at the meals are so important; they allowed retailers to manage their time better, and rather than having to talk to each retailer individually they could give us the presentation all at once, and those who needed more information could seek out the brand managers.

For small game manufactures and people trying to break into the market, the central area and the “play the creators” events are great ways to move your products on a one-on-one basis, but please make signs for your product so we know that you are trying to sell something and not just playing the games you received on the exhibit hall floor.

Overall I would give the following last comments: the GAMA staff was great, and I will be there next year.

Exhibitors, please use the meals to the advantage you have done in past years. During meals we are your captive audience; if you feed us, most of us will really listen to what you have to say, even if we do not act like it.