It came up in chat, and lots of ideas were fired around. I thought we could do with nailing some of those down and voting on them.
How can we use gaming conventions to advertise RPG.SE?
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3\$\begingroup\$ convince CHAOS to go and hand out swag for us! \$\endgroup\$– DForck42Commented Jan 9, 2012 at 21:56
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1\$\begingroup\$ @DForck42 That's exactly the idea I had for CHAOS, but that's just not in the cards right now. We CAN, however, try to get stickers/shirts/etc made up for RPG to wear/use/hand out at conventions. You are James Bond, and we are Q. We have the devices, you have the presence. \$\endgroup\$– Brett White StaffCommented Feb 2, 2012 at 19:41
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5 Answers
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- Get a representative or a team dedicated for the convention.
- Contact the con staff
- Buy some advertisement to get their attention
- Show up at the Con, occupy a table, or just roam around with a laptop
- Get folks to post questions, dare them to "Stump the Stack"
- Either sign them up with their own ID if there is time
- Or use the submitter's account
- Give the person a business card prefilled with "Check for your answers later at https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/" and fill in the question # afterwards
For bonus points, use a special tag for the con and get the community organized to answer those questions to earn something special. Something like, every approved answer or significantly upvoted answer gets you a lottery ticket to a giveaway with a decent prize.
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\$\begingroup\$ there is anonymous posting ... \$\endgroup\$– C. Ross ModCommented Jan 9, 2012 at 20:30
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\$\begingroup\$ @C.Ross I dunno how helpful that would be, would they come back? Pat, how do we do part one? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 9, 2012 at 21:42
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1\$\begingroup\$ @pure - All you need is one dedicated volunteer and a con they are going to anyways with enough notice to give SE some time to mull it over and commit to the fundage required. \$\endgroup\$– Pat Ludwig ModCommented Jan 9, 2012 at 22:18
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\$\begingroup\$ @PatLudwig do we want to re-awaken this thread? Perhaps with a time on it, and make it specific that we're looking for volunteers? meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1060/… \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 9, 2012 at 23:22
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\$\begingroup\$ @pure - let this thread run for a bit. There's only so much meta activity to be had at any moment. If this idea proves popular, then perhaps we move forward with it. \$\endgroup\$– Pat Ludwig ModCommented Jan 10, 2012 at 1:06
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2\$\begingroup\$ @Pure If there's a specific convention in mind, it's a lot easier for us to consider funding and the like if it gets its own question dedicated to proposing that exact visit. Burying it in an old thread as an answer makes it less likely to get as much good attention. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 2:14
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\$\begingroup\$ I nominate we look into Gencon rates for advertisements. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 13, 2012 at 19:44
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If there is a way to get funding from a community manager to help us get RPG.SE business cards into goodie bags or a small square in a con program booklet, we need to find a way to get in them ASAP! Dragoncon, Origins, Gencon, and others. Unfortunately I don't know where to begin such an investigation.
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To go with my swag idea, I would totally rock some d6's with rpg.stackexchange.com as a url on it.
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\$\begingroup\$ I don't think that would fit, but it's a good idea. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 21:07
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1\$\begingroup\$ @pureferret make somethign big enough and you can fit anything on it \$\endgroup\$– DForck42Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 21:09
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\$\begingroup\$ But not everyone likes giant dice. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 21:33
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2\$\begingroup\$ Not to mention that giant dice aren't exactly cheap either. ;) But perhaps normal d6 with "RPG.SE" as the "6" in combination with a flyer or something like that? Hmmm... a quick check showed me that searching for "rpg.se" doesn't exactly land Role-playing Games as the top hit. :/ \$\endgroup\$– user2862Commented Jan 12, 2012 at 22:16
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2\$\begingroup\$ @Pureferret Chessex makes custom dice to spec. chessex.com/Dice/Custom_Dice_Home.htm \$\endgroup\$– JadascCommented Jan 12, 2012 at 23:16
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2\$\begingroup\$ @arotter I imagine that'll change when we're out of beta. \$\endgroup\$– JadascCommented Jan 12, 2012 at 23:16
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To amplify my conversation with @Cross in chat, I think that aspiring to a booth at Gencon would be a fantastic way to raise awareness, but it's a non-trivial undertaking.
If we wanted to do this, we'd probably want to partner with other stack sites and aim for large sci-fi and computer gaming conventions as well. This will expand the resources we could devote and the potential audiences.
The key is to practice and form a good, coherent, team in local conventions before tackling the big named conventions. Having been an exhibitor at gencon, it is not for the unwary and costs real money (the general deal is that the exhibitor pays for food, lodging and the booth, while the volunteers ... volunteer their time.)
Forming regional teams could work, starting at small city-cons and lodging in each others homes and working from there. You'd want to have them run seminars and activities to draw people to the site outside of the convention, and give them roughly half the time to enjoy themselves (while wearing appropriate swag).
Still, this is something that costs real money, but is one of the main forms of advertisements for RPGs, something that we could jump on to.
answered Feb 7, 2012 at 19:00
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Mainly, we need a way to figure out what RPG.SE'ers are going to a con, and from there to get them swag and posters and whatnot.
This isn't as easy as one would hope because it's hard to communicate to the whole SE. Creating a meta post saying "going to a con?" will be seen by the usual 6 characters and will drop off the front page even of meta. We could pin a question but that question would get junky fast. Perhaps a Q with a stated protocol of "go to the chat and say "I'm going to con X" and we'll get you stuff."
