Table Cat Games 2024 Convention Wrap Up
One of my biggest goals for Table Cat Games was to start vending at conventions and reach beyond social media and the digital sphere/wall. I met that goal and managed to get into three conventions in 2024. And since I don’t have any plans on vending for the rest of the year, this is the year end report on them!
First of all, let’s talk about what I sell to establish a base. I only have three core products that exist as physical things right now: The Wicked Forever King Hungers, Street Wolves Jumpstart, and the Street Wolves USB Tape. Everything else that’s not sourced out are stickers and dice bags.
That’s not a lot of stuff to sell, so I’ve augmented it with things I’ve sourced like magnets, other folks games, and various things like selling used board games/ttrpgs.
With it being my first year doing conventions, I needed to make a lot of investments in stuff like table cloths, display stands, a giant ass banner, a point of sale system, and more. Could I have skimped on some of this stuff? Yep! But I was looking at it as an investment in future years, so I was willing to eat a lot of the costs now.
I’ll break down the conventions, top sellers, and why plans are for the future, but I’ll just say here that the good news is I made twenty dollars more in sales than all my convention costs, so I technically showed a profit on the con side of things.
Conventions I Vended At:
Plattecon 2024
Plattecon is a convention in Platteville, WI that’s run by the small university, UW Platteville. Overall it was a good experience for my first con. I learned a lot and got to meet a bunch of nice people.
Sales were pretty dismal though. In fact, I left on Saturday night instead of staying all three days. One more night at the hotel would have put me solidly in the red with little hope for Sunday sales.
The things that I feel held me back there were: 1. It felt much more board game focused, which normally isn’t that big of a deal, but I was really surprised by the amount of people who came to the booth and didn’t know a book can contain a game and it didn’t need a box for dice and a board. 2. And what I sell isn’t D&D. 3. It was almost all college kids with no money. I heard multiple times from people looking at the booth that they had no money. And that’s fine, I’m not judging anyone! Just not sure if it’s in the best interest of a vendor to try to sell to people who don’t have money to spend.
Biggest Sellers:
Dice
Misc (pins, magnets, etc)
I’m really glad I decided to carry dice. I sold more in dice than both my books combined. The fact I did sell a few books really made me feel good and gave me the confidence I should do more of these things.
Would I do this con again? A big maybe. I’d need to find a cheaper hotel and I would probably have to bring a lot more dice and assorted smaller priced goods to attempt to make sales. And likely I’d have to bring more 3rd party titles with me to lure people into buying books.
Fear the Con 2024
Fear the Con is a very small convention that takes place in St. Louis, MO (you can read a more focused recap here).
It was a fun time. It was mostly me hanging out in a small room talking to the few other vendors. And then in between breaks ing game slots meeting nice folks and talking to them about my games and sometimes unrelated other things.
Biggest Sellers:
Second hand games
Street Wolves USB Tape
Dice
Sales were pretty great! For there being far less people than Plattecon, I pulled in 2.5 times the sales.
One thing I did differently for Fear the Con was that I brought a lot of my used or practically brand new ttrpgs and board games I no longer wanted. And I sold a lot of them. Enough to cover a lot of the convention costs!
I also had some copies of USB tape made by that point. And the sales of that (and the hugely positive reaction to it) is what convinced me to buy enough stuff to make about 500 more of them.
I was surprised that dice did not do as well at this one, but I guess most folks already had enough dice.
Would I do this con again? Solid maybe. The big deciding factor in if I go again is if I think I can make it work financially. It’s in St. Louis and it’s a day’s drive for me, so that means getting a hotel. And hotels are expensive.
And Fear the Con has many of the people appearing year after year, if I don’t have enough new stuff for them, I may have tapped out on how many things I can sell. I feel like this would be another one where I’d have to stock more third party titles to make sales.
Awkward Nerd Book Fair 2024
Awkward Nerd Book Fair is a book fair, but more accurately a book themed convention that takes place in one day in Milwaukee, WI. Being a “book fair” there wasn’t an overwhelming amount of gamers.
Biggest Sellers:
Street Wolves USB Tape
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition
Secondhand games
Magnets
There were way more people at Awkward Nerd Book Fair than Fear the Con. However, it was much, much lower performing sales wise.
The biggest shockers here is that dice didn’t crack the top five spots! Wicked Forever King was number five with only two copies sold! That was really shocking, as at the other two cons it got so many responses from people.
For this con I brought some 3rd party titles. I didn’t think I’d sell any due to there probably not being a lot of games, but another shock was selling two copies of Savage Worlds. SWADE is about 40 bucks a pop, so you can see how small the numbers are for this list… Anyway, I also had a couple of copies of Eat the Reich and Call of Cthulhu and neither sold, even though people looked at them a lot and seemed interested.
I had less second hand games than Fear, but they still cracked #3.
I sold a lot more magnets than usual, but because the have a lower price point they weren’t ranked higher in this list.
Would I do this con again? More than likely, yes.
The thing that Awkward Nerd Book Fair has going for it was that table space was cheap, and it’s entirely local for me. I might make a lot, but it was worth it to talk to some people I know and I met cool folks for the first time. And to get the word out there about my stuff.
Biggest Sellers at All the Cons
Second hand games
Street Wolves USB Tapes
Dice
Having second hand games being my top seller at #1 is a bit of a bummer. It’s great to know I can get rid of my used games and without them I would not have broke even on convention investments/costs vs. sales. But, it’s also that’s not something I want to get into the regular business of doing. So we have to scratch that off and focus on two through five in the future.
And the usb tape is a lifesaver for me at cons. People love it and I enjoy talking to folks about it.
Tip: You Should Accept Cash and Credit
My cash and credit sales were almost even, with cash being slightly ahead. So a tip for you ttrpg vendors out there, take both if you can!
For credit I have a square reader and a tablet to act as the POS system. The tablet is a bit of an older Samsung and it works fine for what it does. If we don’t know the wifi situation, we’ll bring a hotspot with us. We get one from the library of all places. For power, I haven’t run into a problem with not having access yet, but I may buy a big ole battery to run everything.
For cash, I have a “strong box” that I keep cash in and I put it in an area where it’s fairly hidden from sight. Keeping change for it is a little bit of a PIA, but it’s worth having for the cons. Also another mini tip (take it or leave it), is we’ve priced everything either ending in .00 or .50 and include taxes in the prices. That way we don’t have to make change with dimes, nickels, and pennies.
The biggest bonus for cash is there’s no credit processing fee. For Square it’s 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, and that adds up!
Conventions I Wanted to Do
I need to take a moment and make a note that there were a few conventions that I wanted to do, but could not.
I applied to Phoenix Con in Appleton and Gamehole Con in Madison. I never heard back on my application for either of them. Gamehole stung a little, because I was really hoping to be at a big Wisconsin convention. As a native and “local” seller, I was really banking on being able to reach a lot of Savage Worlds fans that are going to it. Plus, I had some plans to share booth space with Cassi Mothwin, and that would have been fun.
I also never heard back from a third con, but I didn’t realize they were religious and even though they say they were inclusive… they probably didn’t like my vibe (or social media posts).
That brings me to another point: It’s really frustrating not hearing back from these places. A simple “we’re full up” or “no thanks” would be a lot more useful to me, a person that has to make plans and most often has to book a hotel to know for certain I won’t be going to a con.
Convention Plans for the Future
Con Plans
The next con I’m going to is in January, Midwinter Gaming Con. It looks like it’ll be larger than anything I’ve done yet, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it shakes out.
I’d like to do Gary Con in 2025, but that is too close to a major trip I’m coming back from.
I’ll apply for Game Hole Con again. And maybe Phoenix Con. Other than that I have to get to scoping out other venues.
I’m open to teaming up with someone to share table space at a big con like Gencon or Pax Unplugged. At the moment though, I have zero confidence I could cover the enormous costs of those cons by myself.
Overall though, I need to get into a bigger, more rpg focused convention.
Books and Merch
One thing that will really change the game (so to speak) is getting in the Street Wolves physical book this winter after it’s printed. I am going to bet that it’ll do pretty good, but I wonder if it’ll be able to supplant the USB tape.
And of course, I need to make more games. But my next one likely won’t be out until mid-summer or fall of 2025.
I plan on stocking more Savage Worlds titles, but I need to see a reception to them at an actual rpg convention to see how far into that I want to go.
And I am going to pick a few other games here and there that are non Savage Worlds based, just to see if I can make some sales and spread the word about other cool games.
As for merch, I think I’ll mostly stick to what I’m carrying now, with the addition of magnets and pins based on my games. I may potentially do a limited run of the Street Wolves soundtrack on tape… we’ll see about that one though…
My Salesmanship
I need to improve my salesmanship. I feel like I’m pretty good with talking to folks, but when I need to explain things, that’s when I start stumbling a bit.
I don’t feel bad about it though. There’s a reason why I’m more of a writer/designer and not performer or an actual salesperson. It sucks that you have to be a good at pitching, but I’m not beating myself up about it. I figure with more experience I’ll be able to get better at it and feel more comfortable with it.
