You hit the nail on the head with your comments about ChiTag. I would like to add that this is an incredible venue to reach “influencers.” As many of us in marketing know, “influencers” are a group of people who spread the word about great products. At breakfast on Saturday morning, I met a woman at ChiTag whose hobby is being a “game ambassador.” Note this is not her job and she does not get paid… she runs a game club for 120 people in the Minneapolis area. They get together once a month to play games. In addition, she and a couple of friends created a game program for their local Boys & Girls Club. Through her game club, she lines up volunteers to work at the Boys & Girls Club weekly and play games with the kids. This is someone who promotes our industry’s products for FREE and she could be reaching thousands of people for us. She was just one of thousands who attended ChiTag! I wonder who else was out there? As you pointed out, there is more than selling product at a show like this. It is a great opportunity for unknown inventors to learn about the industry. It’s also a great place to sample your product, so when people are ready to buy for the holidays they are looking for your product online, in the mass market or at independent retailers. It will be interesting for those who exhibited at ChiTag to see if they have any sales increase in the Chicago area over the next two months. I will continue to support ChiTag and I think it would be great if even more of the toy industry would as well.

I'd like to echo Richard's sentiments - from a slightly different perspective. I am one of those smaller companies who exhibited at the show (and, for point of reference, I believe may be the company referenced in his article who sold six cases of product). I had thought about attending CHITAG since Mary Cousins first told me about it 4 or 5 years ago. This year everything just came together to allow it, especially in light of the expanded offerings the show provided in 2007. I knew, going into it, that the show would be an investment for my company, so I had set several goals for the show that would ultimately be the criteria for success. Least among them were actual sales. My first goal was to test what I already suspected, that there was a market for my hobby-game products in the larger mainstream community. The games, built with 'Dungeons and Dragons' styled hobby gamers in mind, are at their core, fun for a much broader target but a hard sell for the more mainstream specialty and chain retail buyers. Happily, even the games that I felt might be polarizing sold pretty well. Lower numbers than we were used to at hobby game consumer shows - but strong enough that we covered more than half our expenses. Which, I understand, was a significant landmark for most at the show. I had hoped too that some of those buyers might be in attendence and notice the draw our products had. This associated goal was not realized but I was happy with how the products performed none the less. My Primary Goal, however, was to take advantage of the show as a venue to network within the industry. This year, Mary had created a board of industry professionals, each with a unique and important perspective and a wealth of information to impart. Moreover, she provided the opportunity to speak one on one with members of the board. As an inventor, this was an incredible and rare opportunity. And one I did not feel I could pass up. And, indeed, the aspect of the show that was the most rewarding. Knowing that Mike and Dave, the Inventor Relations guys from Hasbro and Mattel respectively, would be among those we could speak with, we prepared two products to present for licensing consideration. While Dave was unavoidably called away last minute (hope all is well), our meeting with Mike went as best as we could have possibly hoped for. Both our concepts were enthusiastically received and made the first step of what we know is a very long and near impossible journey. But admittedly, leagues ahead of where we were just weeks prior. This type of opportunity is as rare as they come and well worth the price of admission. But, lest anyone forget, the other exhibitors have as much to offer as the panel. We met folks from Fundex Games and found we were mutual fans of one another. I had a great conversation over dinner with a number of panel members including the owner of Zobmondo, which was more than just plain fun to get to know them, but was an invaluable source of information about the inner workings of the industry. I even got the name of a great lawyer for toy and game licensing down the road. And the panel discussions were of the highest quality as well. Fun, informative and led by professionals who were passionate about what they do - and compassionate with regard to the audience who came to hear them speak. In summation, Richard was dead on. CHITAG offers far more than a venue to sell product and it is up to each attendee to find the real value in the investment you make. That holds true for the smallest of inventors and companies to the biggest kids on the block. Thanks Mary. We'll be back. Curt Covert Smirk and Dagger Games

Just wanted to say thank you to Mary Couzin and her staff and to let them know how beneficial Chitag was to helping us better understand the gaming industry. My husband and I were very impressed with the Ask the Expert Panel as well as the various seminars. The Ask the Expert individuals we spoke with not only provided us with constructive feedback, they helped us to understand how we can better improve our current board game. The seminars we attended, such as the Inventor's Forum and the Retailer's Round Table, helped us to understand the inner workings of the game and toy industry, thus helping us to improve our current business plan. Thank you for providing a forum that allows the average game inventor direct access to gaming industry decision makers. My husband and I both agree that becoming a member of Discover Games was a great investment! Phyllis Mohrman Idyllworks, LLC

Richard, thank you for your suggestions. We have been working to incorporate them. We will have 2 days before the Fair for Inventors and Start-ups packed with topics and the opportunity to meet face-to-face top industry executives from here and overseas. This is an outgrowth of our very successful mini-forums this past year. We will have a seminar to show exhibitors how to effectively use the show and create buzz. We have always provided exhibitors with media opportunities and contacts before and during the show and will do so once again and on a bigger scale. One of the many new events we are planning this year is an Inventor Celebration Dinner to honor and recognize our industry inventors. In addition to our exhibitors and industry, we are inviting the public and media to attend. We believe that making our inventors our celebrities as they are in other industries such as film, literary, music and fashion, we can compete better with the public’s many entertainment choices. Chi-Tag is the ideal vehicle for such a dinner and promotion to the public. Regarding the Fair itself, we are moving the Fair back to Navy Pier and working with the City of Chicago on a number of promotions and ideas, including promotion with the Festival of Lights Parade which brings over 1 million people to the City looking for activities to keep them busy downtown. The weekend of November 21st looks to be the ‘Perfect Storm’ of entertainment and fun as well as an opportunity for us to show the public how excited we are about our industry and what we have to offer.

Richard, your Chitag suggestions and observations are right on. We have only missed one Chitag event. (for medical reasons). Last year, we did not even take product to sell. We demo'd our games and simply provided "where to buy" brochures and took two prototypes to test. It was amazing how so many attendees enjoyed helping us out when I asked for their feedback on the new games. One consumer suggested a scoring method by how confident they were about their answer on a scale of 1-5 to advance on the board. Loved it. Chitag is always great fun and a learning opportunity.

As a past exhibitor at Chi-Tag, I have not only had a booth, but also brought my bigger than life giant board and team building games for special showing to entertain the public. We found it very enjoyable to see the public participating in many team building games that they would normally not be exposed to. We were very successful in our outreach to both sell games and recieve marketing exposure. I met many managers and executives while entertaining their children who expressed further interest in utilizing out games to create a learning environment at their organizations.