How to Give a Great Demo
We just got back from a pretty incredible Gen Con, we sold out of our physical copies of Nut Hunt on Friday (only two days into the con!!) and had a great time growing our fan base and taking late pledges for Sigil.
We had a couple of big personalities working our booth, and it was interesting to see how each person’s pitch / teach varied, but how they were all successful. These are some tips I picked up from watching our team.
Selling out our last copy of Nut Hunt at the con
Before we get into it, keep in mind that these are tips for pitching to consumers, a pitch to a publisher or even distributor will hit a lot of the same notes, but might have a different focus.
The Hook
Every good pitch begins with a hook. We’re lucky (by design) in that our games are beautiful with some impactful table presence. But, you need a good hook to convert idle interest into a real connection.
Hooks don’t have to be anything crazy and can be as simple as “Can I tell you about Sigil?” or “Do you want to learn about Nut Hunt?”. Some of my favorites from our demo-ers were.
“Have you heard about Nut Hunt… would you like to?”
“This is Nut Hunt, the premier squirrel placement game of the year.”
“I want you to imagine if Gandalf invented GO.”
The point of the hook is to get people engaged to learn more about your game. Once their engaged your goal is to show off the game so that it can sell itself.
Having pretty games helps catch con-goers’ eyes
Abridge your Teach
Every gamer has their preferences (see our awesome article on psychographics). My goal in a demo is to show potential customers what our games are like, and if that looks awesome to them and fits the kinds of game that they and their play group like – then to offer them a product that they will love.
We’re fortunate (by design) in that our games are pretty easy to teach from a rules complexity perspective (preferring deeper strategy over rules complexity). This means that we can fit an abridged teach of either game in under five minutes – giving con goers a full overview of the gameplay that they can expect.
If your game is more complicated then you’ll need to figure out how to distil the gameplay into a digestible couple of minute overview.
Get Them Hands On
Games are tactile, and whenever possible, I like to let people get hands on in the teach.
Maybe that’s rolling a dice, making a choice between which nuts to forage, or where to place a stone in Sigil. Letting people play a bit of the game during the teach – can help it resonate with them and put them in the mindset of playing.
“To start your turn, I’m going to have you go ahead and roll the fox die…”
When working in an interactive moment, make sure that it is either a simple choice or action. Your demoees (if that isn’t a word, it should be), won’t have an in depth knowledge of the game or a grasp on the strategy. The point is to engage them, not swamp them.
Keep it Fun
This is maybe my most important rule for pulling off a good demo. Board games are at the end of the day about fun, and so your teach should be fun. You don’t have to be super serious, you don’t need to go into excruciating detail on how a turn is structured, you just need to be engaging, fun, and give a good sense of what the game is.
“If you liked it you should’ve put a nest on it.”
I’m fortunate with everyone working our booth in that they were high energy through the tail end of long days. Mostly, because they’re our friends and have a lot of emotional buy-in to our success.
Chelsea being a rockstar
Go With the Flow
No two demos are going to be the same, so it’s important to make sure everyone knows your games inside and out, and to stay flexible in a teach.
Some gamers like to skip around and ask a bunch of questions, some gamers are hands on with components, some are content to let you monologue.
And all those approaches are ok.
Converting a Sale
The ultimate goal of demoing at a convention is to show off your games and get them into the hands of people who will love and play them.
This means that you need a call to action to convert those would be fans into consumers. At Gen Con we ran a special price on Nut Hunt (since we didn’t have to pay for shipping). This was a strong incentive to buy the game now, rather than wait and mull it over, and maybe let it slip their mind on their flight home.
Sigil was a harder sale since we don’t have physical copies to sell (we wrapped up the Kickstarter in June and were taking late pledges at the con).
What I found worked for Sigil was to be frank about where in the process we were, and to appeal to consumers who the game really clicked with.
This is roughly the closing script I settled on by the end of the weekend.
“Sigil is our second game. It’s not even out yet. For context, we Kickstarted Nut Hunt last June and delivered it over two months ahead of schedule in January. We Kickstarted Sigil this June, and like Nut Hunt are targeting a March delivery. We can’t promise it will be early because obviously some things are out of our hands, but from our perspective we are on schedule.
“So, what we’re asking people to do today is to go on our website and join the mailing list, and you’ll get notified when we open it up to late pledges next month.
“And, what’s been pretty incredible is that a lot of people know they want the game today. They either demo it or sit down and play it. And, this is one of those games where if this is in your genre – if you like GO, Hive, Onitama – if this is your kind of game, then once you play this you’ll love it.
“If you know already that you want the game, then what we can do today is ring you up and charge you for the base game, and we’ll get your email and when we open up the pledge manager next month you’ll already be in there with all of the Kickstarter backers and have access to the add-ons and all the Kickstarter components.
I think the script I settled on did a couple of things really well.
It gave context around where we are in the process and set expectations.
It didn’t pressure people to buy now – but gave them a few ways to engage with us.
It normalized late pledging in person at the convention.
People like being part of a crowd, and by highlighting that a lot of people were taking the late pledge in person option, I normalized for our con goers that it was a good route to go.
Stay Hydrated
Cons are long, you’ll be talking a lot and your voice will start to go. So, stay hydrated. Take breaks when you need them. Treat yourself well and you’ll keep up that energy to have a successful con full of memorable demos with amazing people.
What are your favorite demo experiences?
