I’m excited to be visiting Gen Con for the first time next week, and with it a chance to meet many of you again (and some of you for the first time). With this visit comes an opportunity for me to bring additional awareness to active projects, excitement for upcoming projects, and recognition to those of you who have struggled to produce a successful campaign and are releasing your products soon.

I believe strongly in crowdfunding and I’m excited when I find creative ways to help folks, that’s one of the primary reasons I built Kicktraq. So, while I’m at Gen Con, I’m planning a Gen Con consumer contest to do just that – get the word out & make it stick. I would like to help promote your projects and I’m happy to put in the legwork to make it happen.

(Or, if you’ve ever wondered how you could help Kicktraq & other potential projects in the future out, here’s your chance!)

I’ve put this page together to further help explain the concepts and goals around the contest and hopefully share my passion to help you all to continue to be successful.

Contest Concept & Goals:

The concept is to raise awareness of Kickstarter and the creative organizations using the platform as a viable and trusted source by showing potential backers & customers that there have been many well-produced games funded through Kickstarter, some they might not even realize, and others that will be available soon. The core premise is to encourage individual visitors at Gen Con to remember key details of the companies releasing games on Kickstarter – meaning you – and to remember details about the individual projects you have worked so hard on and are proud of.

The Method:

The method is simple. I’ll be bringing lots of buttons with me to Gen Con that look like this:

click for larger image

Here’s a little more detail:

At your booth, when you have an opportunity to share with a potential backer or future customer information about your Kickstarter project, all you have to do is offer them a button and share with them “… and there’s a guy from Kicktraq who is walking around on the floor looking for people wearing this button. He might stop you and ask you about our project. If you can remember that <your project name> was done by us, <company name>, you can win a prize! Also, if you can remember that <your project name> is/was/will be <insert interesting factoid>, you can have a chance to win two prizes instead of one!”

Fictional example (don’t hate me for using Monopoly): “All you have to do is remember that Monopoly was a project from Parker Brothers.  Also, if you can remember that there are over two thousand versions of Monopoly, you can have a chance to win two prizes instead of one!”

Additionally, when someone walks by your booth that you haven’t spoken with and you see them with this button, you have the perfect opportunity to draw them to your booth because for each new <project+company> and <project+factoid> they remember, they have even more potential to win and more flexibility to win the prize of their choosing. It’s as easy as “Hey Kicktraq’er, want another factoid about our project to increase your chances to win today?”

Not only are these individuals being educated about Kickstarter, but they have a vested interest in wanting to hear about your project and remembering specific details!

Lastly, because not all potential customers/backers will  have an opportunity to visit Gen Con and I want to give those of you who participate as much exposure as possible, I’ll be extending an external “grand prize” opportunity to one or two of those individuals who didn’t make it to Gen Con, through the Kicktraq website. Once I return from Gen Con, I’ll write a summary post about my experiences and include information about the contest including pictures taken at the Con and the trivia blurb provided about your project/product. Not to mention that all of my twitter followers and site visitors not a Gen Con can follow along on my twitter feed.

Grand Prize contestants after the Con will have a chance to submit their information via a form on the Kicktraq site. I will then select one at random to be contacted and have a similar question/answer session with them (only with more more questions since it’s a bit of an open-book test) over the phone/skype to see if they win one of the prize bundles. I’ll be posting this phone call online, which will draw additional traffic to the contest page containing all the participating vendors and their product & trivia information. The number of Grand Prize winners will be determined by the number of Grand Prize bundles I have to work with.

The Madness:

You’re probably wondering what specifically Kicktraq will be doing during the contest. Well, let me tell you! I will arrive at Gen Con Thursday night and be strolling the halls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This includes the vendor halls and game rooms. During this time, I will be tweeting about companies/projects/products participating in the #kicktraqn contest along with their booth numbers so folks can find you to find out more about your project so they can win more prizes. I’ll tweet about the time of the next opportunity to win, and if I don’t find someone in my immediate vicinity, I’ll locate a participating booth and tweet a “hint picture” where folks can find me to play. The first one to arrive gets to play for a chance to win. If they don’t win, the chance goes to the next person, and so on.

I’ll ask prize contestants 3 questions, each for a chance to win an additional pick from the bag of random prizes. Answering the questions correctly will get them more chances to choose the prize they want and the opportunity to win additional prizes.

The process continues every so often during the contest period each day as long as I have prizes left to give away.

If we receive any large/significant prize(s), I will add a Q4 where I rapid-fire off project names or company names and see how many the person can respond with the corresponding name. The highest score for the convention wins the big prize, and if necessary (as long as it’s not a 300lb statue or something), I’ll be happy to pay to ship it to the winner.

I know you all will be very busy during the convention, but if you’d like, I’d be happy to go back to the prize booth(s) with the winner and take a photo with them and their prize by your booth to include in the tweet about the winner. The winning contestants, their prize (with attribution), and their photo (if applicable) will be included on the contest summary page.

Prizes will remain in participant booths until awarded. Once awarded, you take the card listing their prize and your booth from the contestant, and rip it in half so it can’t be inadvertently reused.

If you don’t have a booth or just have small items and swag to give away, I’m happy to carry it with me if that’s easier for you.

The Cost:

You knew this was coming, but it’s not painful. I promise.

Kicktraq has already invested in producing the buttons and created the prize cards for use during the contest. I’ve also invested in a small collection of duplicate board/card/dice game purchases from various Kickstarter campaigns I’ve backed over the past year that will be included in the prize pool as well as a small supply of Kicktraq apparel; however, the existing pool of prizes won’t be enough to sustain the contest over all 3 days.

A quick estimation of how many folks I will talk to, assuming I select people randomly every 15 minutes on Friday & Saturday from 12pm – 6pm, and Sunday from 12pm-4pm: That’s just 64 people to find prizes for. The most any on person can win is 2 prizes, so that’s 128 total prizes for the whole weekend. I have around 25 I’m including myself, so I need to find at least 100 prizes total to run the contest all 3 days.

Any prizes you are able to provide to supplement the prize pool will be most helpful. It can be copies of games, expansions, bonus packs, art prints, apparel – anything you’re willing to part with that will help entice potential backers to participate. The more prizes you’re able to provide, the more exposure I can offer when discussing the booth that the prize came from.

If you’re only able to provide a small number of prizes, or only have higher-cost items available, I’m happy to work with you to acquire additional prizes at cost so we have enough to fill as much of the weekend as possible and you’re not struggling with the loss of the potential product available for purchase on the floor. If this is your first project, or your project isn’t available for purchase yet – let me know. We might be able to work it out where we can purchase a 3rd party product and have the prize be sponsored by you so you can still participate.

Again, providing prizes is as flexible as you’d like it to be. I’m going to be bringing tags to fill out so if something happens and your prize pool changes between now and then, we’ve got you covered. The cards will look like this, and simply fold over at the dashed line to fit in the bag but still be easily chosen:

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We simply fill them out, and drop them in the bag, and they’re ready to go. Easy as that.

What does Kicktraq get:

I won’t mislead you to think I’m doing this completely out of charity. Having people walking around with Kicktraq buttons is a pretty cool thing and asking you to help me make that a reality is huge, but I believe in the concept enough to pay for most of the components for the contest, along with seeding the prize pool with products I’ve already acquired from my own out-of-pocket Kickstarter purchases. Obviously I’ll be receiving brand exposure and an increase in traffic to my website on conclusion of the convention from both new backers and “non-Gen Con” prize winner(s).

Other than that, I’m not getting much beyond the opportunity to meet you all in person, further the concept of crowdfunding with potential new backers, and – my passion – have another chance to help your projects along!

How do I participate:

Easy.

First, be sure before even going down this path that you are (a) A company who has a successfully funded project (b) A company who has an active project on Kickstarter, or (c) A company with a future Kickstarter project you are promoting during Gen Con. If you meet these criteria, keep on reading.

Next, send me the following information via the contact form (or my direct email if you already have it) using the template below. Again, the prizes can be anything you feel comfortable giving away. This includes anything from games, to apparel, to custom dice, to stationary. Don’t be afraid to be creative! Just have it be something you’d want your name attached to, because we’re writing about every vendor who participates to maximize your exposure.

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Company Name:
Booth Number:
Project to promote:
Is this project active on Kickstarter during Gen Con:
Fun Factoid about project:

Prizes I can provide provide:

(if your project is active or isn’t yet available)
Do you need to sponsor a product that is not your own:

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Thank you so much, and I look forward to working with every single on of you!