Dragonmeet 2025
By Alex White
- 10 minutes read - 1942 wordsDragonmeet
Unlike previous years, I ran no games, played no games, bought no games, attended no seminars, browsed no stands. Well, what was I doing there then? I'm glad you asked! I was running a stand for the first time, jointly with Matt of Ursidice.
Back in the summer Matt asked on Bluesky whether anyone was interested in sharing a table with him. I'd been thinking about running a table and remembering the advice from the seminar last year about the value of running a table with someone else I thought I'd put my hand up and join him.
Dragonmeet had outgrown the Novotel in Hammersmith where it has been for about a decade, and was moving to the ExCel centre in the East of London. A much bigger venue, and with new challenges in wrangling everything for the organisers. I discovered a discord where useful information was being shared, but for this year they were not really set up for two people sharing a table which caused some regrettable friction with the organisers. As a result I didn't end up listed as one of the vendors, and my shiny icon didn't appear on the website. I think they are going to look into how they could better support that (not uncommon) scenario next year, which would be great.
Costs
| item | cost | notes |
|---|---|---|
| Stand | £105 | Shared with Matt |
| Table, chairs, one extra pass | £22.80 | Shared with Matt |
| Parking | £25 | |
Because of where we live, there was no overnight stay, so no hotel charges.
Total costs £152.8
Sales
| Product | sold | total |
|---|---|---|
| A Cool and lonely Courage | 3 | £60 |
| Love & Barbed Wire | 1 | £20 |
| Expect Three Visitors | 4 | £80 |
| Tail-End Charlie | 3 | £45 |
| Long Road Home | 1 | £25 |
| Zine Bundle* | 1 | £20 |
| Inner Circle | 0 | |
| Starguild | 0 | |
| Starguild: underbelly | 0 | |
| Starguild: Adventures | 0 |
*zine bundle was Inner Circle plus Tail End Charlie for £20
After card charges, this came to £245.63
Total profit = £92.83
So a small profit overall.
Setup
We could start set up from 2 pm on Friday so I came down by train and got there at 3 pm on Friday afternoon. I met Matt (he’d been there from two) and had already set up his stock on the table. I put up my banner, we walked around, and then went and had a bit of a drink and something to eat at the Fox pub nearby. I hadn’t realised that hi-vis vests were needed, but Matt happily had some spare.
I had planned to attend Muppetmeet but after the first session (the write up of which you can see below) I was feeling really tired and so went home.
My wife and I got up 5.30am on the Saturday morning packed the car with all my products and drove down. Took about an hour to get to Excel but fairly trouble free. Parked in the underground car park and found our way up to The Hall where we got things set up quite quickly.
The day itself
It’s a long day to be standing and talking with people, but it was much more practical with more than one person than it would be otherwise because it allowed us to take breaks, go to the loo etc.
The aisles seemed much more spacious than they had been at Novotel and although the traffic was quite slow until about 10 o’clock, it picked up quite a lot after that.
I really enjoyed being able to talk to customers about games which I had made and share my excitement about them. Some of the visitors already had one of my games and it was really nice to hear about that too. Some of them shared experiences related to Tail-End Charlie, where their grandfathers had worked on Lancaster‘s or flown in them. One person who had played the game ended up doing a deep dive into researching the planes and the aircrew who flew in them. If I’m honest that is something I really hope for in my historical games - that people might end up enthused with that part of history.
Our location was a bit out on a limb. We had an artist next to us and painting tables opposite us, so we were not really in the midst of RPG stuff. It’s difficult to tell off that impacted us at all.
At the end of the day I sliced off for a few minutes to talk to some of the other vendors whom I knew, but only a few. It would have been nice to talk more in the evening but I couldn’t hang around and other get-togethers were all happening off site.
I don’t know how general this is but we found that in the morning people came and bought. In the afternoon they came and looked and said “I’ll be back later” (but not in the cool terminator voice). I didn’t expect much but was pleased when three people did actually come back later to buy.
Gave away all thirty copies of The White Rose Society that I’d brought along. Some people knew about that bit of history, others were fascinated to hear it.
Lessons learned
- my big hardbacks didn’t sell at all. I don’t think I’ll bring them along in the future. They are probably a better bet for retailers.
- I did specific themed bundles, but only one of those was picked up. In the future I’d like to try some more generic bundles (eg 10% off if you buy two, 20% off if you buy three).
- Free stickers are a good idea and something I’ll do next year. It is a cheap way of giving engagement.
- It is good to have some things at a lower price point, to support impulse purchases. I ought to make a few little one page games, or sell ashcans (I have one ashcan on itch at the moment and I didn’t think of bringing it along)
- Solo games still have a lot of appeal, and having a clear solo mode makes any game more sellable.
- I need to have clearer pitches for each of my games! Don’t go into mechanics, but tell people where the fun is!
- More little labels explaining the games.
- I ought to have a newsletter signup QR code (and some little freebies as encouragement for doing so)
- If I’m promoting a Kickstarter I ought to think about how I can get people interested (or identify the people who are interested) and make it easy for them to follow.
Muppetmeet
A joint venture by Soulmuppet and Dragonmeet, this time it was a Friday evening event of seminars and networking for the RPG creative industry.
Marketing
By Mol of Soulmuppet
Marketing is about identifying your audience, knowing what they like and engaging with them.
It is important to build interest early. Find out where your people hang out and what they like. Ashcans can help understand what people like, what keywords are important to them.
It is also about selling yourself and building trust. Give people a way to follow you. Give them a reason to remember you and a way to follow up and follow you.
Brand Identity
Your brand is not your product. The brand is the experience someone has with your business and products.
Building trust is a big part of it. Doubt is a big reason why people don’t buy (or don’t buy from you)
Social Media
Consider where your audience is and figure out what you want to use it for. If you only post links to your products people will get tired of that. Content marketing is about stimulating interest and providing context. It helps you be seen as a person in the industry and not just trying to “shill”. This can be how-tos, or about your business process, all kinds of thing.
When you are posting, know who your audience is. Expressions like PbtA and Dice Pool mean different things to different audiences. There are some standard copywriting techniques that can be handy but not everything works for TTRPS. Don’t get stuck on a phrase you think is good if the audience doesn’t like it or get it.
Promoting your crowdfunding campaign
It is good to talk with other creatives and see what has worked for them. Be an art gallery (that benefits from being around others) rather than a hot dog stand (that guards it’s territory jealously).
Build your audience first. A day 1 push is very important .
Paid Ads
If it is your first crowdfunding campaign there are advantages to working with Backerkit. They have experience in doing ads and can pay from them out of the fulfilment at the end of the campaign. They help with ad copy and assets too.
“Projects we love” on kickstarter are not selected by some secret process. Email them! Use the link on their site and ask them to love your project. They will look at it and may give you the magic star. Don’t be afraid to ask.
Working with the creatives
It’s great if you can work with people for stretch goals. It is a good thing for everybody, but from a marketing perspective it is a boost as it means there are additional people talking about it to their own audiences.
Influencers, Actual Play, etc
There are many reasons why you might want to work with them, but research them first! It isn’t just about the number of followers they have. Smaller community niches can be better.
What are your spend goals? Some want to make it a two-way street. It can be very difficult to calculate RoI for working with content creators. Attribution of sales is tricky!
Q&A
Question - is Kickstarter oversaturated?
The best time to use kickstarter was five year ago! But today what do people want? Is it a PDF on itch? Is it an ashcan that you can build on?
Question - which ad platforms are best?
Almost certainly facebook. It reaches the people with the disposable income. Be prepared to turn off comments or manage/block them though. You might get some horrible comments!
Question - when you say “find your audience” what does that mean?
The industry is largely D&D and then everything else, and anything else in the grand scheme of things is not big at all. Find those 10 people who like what you are making and reach out to them.
Conventions can help you understand what people find interesting.
Question - How do you find your niche?
Someone was working on a letter writing game and found writing groups and pitched to them. But how do you find them, how do you pitch to them?
Improve theatre groups might be an interesting group to reach out to.
Question - how do you market a game inspired by a property you don’t have rights to?
Orbital Blues is sad space cowboys (certainly not Cowboy Bebop or Firefly, oh no!) Find out what the core of your game is. You might say ‘inspired by’ but try not to compare yourself to other things, especially other RPGs.
Question - how do you get a media list to mail?
(I think the question was misheard, as the answer didn't really match)
Don’t just send a press release to 60 people. Reach out to individuals.
Question - budgeting and approach for influencers?
It can get very expensive, especially for professional AP people. Remember they are more about marketing their own brand rather than your product.
I didn't get to any of the other talks - too tired - if I'm able to catch up on recordings I'll add them in here.