We talked to GAMA Executive Director John Ward recently to ask him about the organization's shows, its finances, and its future.
How long have you been Executive Director? When did you take your new position?
I actually started full time in February of this year, so it’s been a little over six months.
How would you evaluate your experience in those six months?
I’ve been using the metaphor it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. I had about sixty days before the GAMA Trade Show and then sixty days after that before the Origins show. That first six months has been a definite learning curve.
Let’s talk about the shows because I think that’s the experience most people have with GAMA. Starting with GTS, which was down in attendance this year, what are your thoughts about next year’s show and what are you going to do to reverse that trend?
I was pretty excited that our numbers didn’t drop further than they actually did. I looked at some of the other trade shows, and they’re seeing about 20, 25% and we hit about 17% [decline]. It was better than what we had anticipated; I looked that as some good news. Also this coming year we’ve had a lot of increased interest from some of our sponsors and participants in what we’re doing at the shows. I’m looking forward to going into GTS this year with a full year of planning under my belt to actually start improving what we’re doing for our program.
You said there was increased interest from sponsors or exhibitors. What do you attribute that to?
I think we’ve been open to a lot of change and ideas. I think any time there’s a change in any organization, that provides an opportunity, and I just think that’s what people are looking for. Ideas in the past that we may have thought about and the staff has discussed, or maybe chosen a different course of action, now that we’ve got new people in place and it’s a little bit of a different team, we’ve got an opportunity to revisit some of those things.
And you’ve got dates at Bally’s next year for the GTS?
We’re still at Bally’s next year. We’re still negotiating with dates because I’m trying to see if we can move off the Easter weekend. One of the things that’s helping us right now is that a lot of conferences cancelled in Vegas this year, so they’re very appreciative of the fact that we actually came and we went through with our show. That should hopefully give us some benefit and I continue to remind them about that.
Let’s talk about Origins. What was your evaluation of how Origins went this year?
I think the show went pretty well. I talked to most of our exhibitors. The hall was very vibrant this year. We did very well in sponsorships, much more so than we did last year. Attendance was down a little bit, about 18%, but our day fare passes were up.
What was really exciting for me this year was working with our
You said the show floor was vibrant. What does that mean?
Most of the exhibitors that I spoke to said they did well at Origins this year. Financially they did well. The people that came in seemed to be very interested. We saw a lot of younger people come into the show this year. That’s new customers and new gamers and that’s what we’re really looking for.
Where do you think that the decline in attendance there came from? Was it people who were traveling, was it local, where were the losses?
I think it’s probably a combination of things. Our day passes went up by about 15, almost 16%. I think a lot of people who probably couldn’t afford to come to the show in the past just came in for the day instead of buying the four day show pass and paying for hotel expenses. So had we not had the day pass program that we started last year we probably would have lost those attendees. I think the economy’s just hitting everybody this year.
What are you looking forward to next year at Origins in terms of any changes that you’re going to make or plans that you’ve already started?
I’m very excited about what we’re doing with our open gaming space. That’s been a long tradition at Origins so people can sit down and just play pick-up games. We’re tying that into what we do with the Origins Awards and that will bring a little bit more into that open gaming hall and allow people to see the demos of new games. With the awards people are going to get an opportunity to see the best and the brightest we have in the industry, and that area is also open to the day pass people. Those folks who are not coming in to play games traditionally but are just coming in to see the art show and visit the exhibit hall will have an opportunity to see some of the best and brightest games we have released that year.
People from the outside look at GAMA and see the two shows, which are two of your primary revenue drivers, decline and they’re concerned about GAMA’s financial health. What do you say to those people?
The paradigm shift which we’re experiencing right now is just what you mentioned. We’ve been viewed as an organization that runs two shows and not necessarily as a professional trade association, and that’s really what the Board wants us to move toward.
We’ve got a lot of really pressing issues to face as an organization right now. We’ve got changes in technology that we’re dealing with, we have changes in federal legislation and regulation and we need to get ahead of that. We’ve started to put some of that on our Website now, what’s been going on with the CPSIA, so we can continue to start to move forward with that as a trade association. I’m pretty comfortable when we look at the actual core business models that those shows will be generating profits for us to support the organization. But that’s really not what we should be about.
You talked about the paradigm shift but I’m not sure that I heard the answer to the question which was, with declining revenues how can GAMA survive?
I’m not sure it’s all declining revenues. Reductions in attendance doesn’t necessarily mean reductions in revenue, or how we spend our money. We’ve got opportunities all sorts of places to look at what we’re doing with revenue streams.
One of the things that’s been really good about the Origins show this year is (we had some time to prepare) we actually had a better bottom line this year than we did last year. We had a chance to look at some of our operational costs and work with our community partners and we actually had a better profit margin this year than we did last year.
With the credit card revenues that we drive by bringing those credit card partnerships to our members, that’s a program that’s revenue positive for us. Membership drives in general are revenue positive for us. We’ve been increasing our membership at GAMA.
Although they’ve traditionally relied on those two big shots in the arm every year, that’s not necessarily how we should be structured financially to maintain the organization as viable.
So you’re really looking at diversifying the revenue sources?
Absolutely. And streamlining like everyone else is under operating costs. I don’t know a business right now that’s not looking at, “Now here’s our current operating budget. What do we really need to do, where can we cut costs, what things are going to be invisible and what things are our core functionality?”
At GAMA I believe the staff is smaller than it was a year, two years ago. How can GAMA expand the level of services it provides to its members with a smaller staff?
I think what they’ve done in the past, and again I’m speaking tongue in cheek, there’s been a lot of people that have been wearing a multitude of hats. One of the things I’ve done is bring on some part-time people. Obviously that’s not as expensive as maintaining full time staff. And we’ve got an incredible volunteer network. Our volunteers have asked to do certain tasks and step up and do some roles and we’ve taught them to do some of those things. They’ve been extremely helpful for us. I can’t say enough good things about our volunteer organization.
Any final thoughts on your first six months at GAMA?
It’s just been very, very good in my first six months. I just want to make sure the industry knows just how welcoming it’s been. It’s been a very easy transition for me, tons of support while I’ve had a whole bunch going on at the same time. I go back to that fire hose metaphor, but I really appreciate all the support of the industry right now. It’s been super.
