GDD 013 : PAX East And Kickstarter, Lessons Learned - a podcast by Brian McRae and Ike Herman: Indie Game Developers, Designers, Podcasters

Brian shares 15 tips from his experiences at PAX East 2104, the Indie Megabooth, and launching a Kickstarter campaign.

Source is live and doing great on Kickstarter! So far it's 16% funded after about 6 days. The game received an awesome response at PAX and now just waiting and hoping to reach 100% funding by May 11th. Source Kickstarter 

PAX East 2014 - IndieMEGABOOTHBrian gives an inside, behind the scenes, detailed recap of what it was like showing his game at PAX East this past weekend April 11-13.  He includes his struggles with starting a Kickstarter campaign at the same time, working through computer glitches, and updating the build while in Boston to make the demo of the game go much smoother. So sit back and get ready to hear about the drama of being in the IndieMEGABOOTH.
Getting PreparedFirst step was to submit an application with a video, a write-up and screenshots to the IndieMEGABOOTH. Then around January we received the email that we were accepted! After that it, there was paperwork to fill out and hats off to the MEGABOOTH for making it really easy to fill out the scary paperwork that PAX was requiring.  Next came ordering the prints and the buttons. All this was a good month to month and a half of intense deadlines while also putting together a Kickstarter campaign at the same time.

The biggest reason why Brian and Anna decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign at the same time as PAX was to have a clear call to action with the audience. They didn't want Source to become forgotten among the craziness of PAX. Of coarse, nothing can go as planned so the Kickstarter launch had some set backs.  Just when Brian though he could hit the green button to make the campaign live, he gets an email saying it will take another 3-5 days for verification. This is Thursday night, PAX starts in the morning! So, naturally he was really upset then wrote tech support a sob story email and by the end of PAX on Friday, the Kickstarter campaign was live. Can you sense the drama yet?
Expo TipsHere are some useful tips Brian came up with to help your Expo experience go more smoothly. He elaborates on them in more detail, but here are the bullet points of each tip.

Stick to one game  - we showed Source and Gates of Osiris, but really only focused on SourceBring your own hardware - this will prevent computer issues and crashes
When you arrive at your booth, Don't wait - seek people out or you might never get what your equipment or devices that you need for your booth
Have a Call to ActionWhen launching a Kickstarter campaign, go through all the verification one month before you want to launch - this will eliminate stress and worry if more verification is needed
Have a quick pitch readyWear neon orange shirts with your logo - this helps identifies who to talk to about the game
Engage with people coming to the booth, interact with fans and treat them like goldThe Build of the game should be tailored to put action up front - important to get people in the meat of the game quickly
Make sure you have ability to make last second adjustments to the BuildHave a bunch of hot key on the keyboard - reset, kill, etc.
Have back-ups of your BuildIf you have a network game, be prepared to handle network problems unless you can get a direct connection
Make the game the large banner going across your booth - it prevents confusionA side tip not mentioned on the podcast is to have hand sanitizer at the booth - people really appreciate this and it's good for you to have too

The CostBrian gives a breakdown of the costs to consider:

The 10 x 10 space with the base package includes 1 TV, 1 Computer, a table with 2 chairs, base carpeting with no padding and a wastebasket - $1750Prints - 2 7-foot tall banners - $125 each
Prints - 10 x 3 Logo Banner - $250Buttons - 1,000 - $250
Travel - including hotel, airfare and a rental car - $2,000Grand total - about $5,000 with food, etc.

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