GrandCon Gaming Convention has come and gone, and Table Top Makers was there to promote and sell amazing hardwood products. Here’s an account of how the event went.
September 2nd–4th, at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the local (and not so local) world of board games and TTRPGs gathered together for a weekend of fun and excitement--GrandCon Gaming Convention! Table Top Makers was there as well. After months of preparation, we set up a booth and enjoyed meeting all kinds of people and showing off our beautiful products. We got to talk to many people about our hardwood gaming furniture and custom builds, as well as about all the various dice trays and awesome new products we unveiled at this event. We wanted to share some of the highlights of the event with you.
Five people staffed the TTM booth this year; Alan, Mark, Ian, Ronzi, and Rachel, and it felt like we needed every last one of them. Rachel dressed in a fabulous steampunk outfit on Saturday just because she could. So many people stopped at our booth to browse the merchandise we had to sell, ask questions about our hardwood tables and pricing, or wanted to talk to Alan about possible business opportunities. Our booth was a hub of activity for the entire convention.
One of our booth neighbors, House Rules, hosted games on our Rogue-style dining room table to help promote their products and gaming lounge. Meanwhile, passersby got to see one of our tables in action. Several event participants got to try new games and make new friends, all while sitting around a Table Top Makers table.
We made friends with so many people, including several of our booth neighbors. One of the best parts of GrandCon is that local businesses get the opportunity to network. We all had opportunities to talk to other business owners, make connections, and discuss how we could help promote each other’s stores and products. The amount of business-related schmoozing was at an all-time high. We’re excited about the future opportunities presented to us.
We even had a decent amount of business. We sold many of our Goblin Hive dice holders and Personal Dice Trays. Unexpectedly, a big draw at our booth was our Battleworn products, which are products we’ve made that have slight imperfections, such as dings, nicks, or wood that didn’t corporate. They still make a fully functioning product, but because of our standard of quality, we can’t sell them at full price, so we sell our Battleworn products at a discount. We may continue to sell Battleworn products in the future. Alan even talked about maybe making Battleworn mystery product boxes. Is that something you might be interested in? Let us know in the comments section.
The team had opportunities to gauge where people’s interests were in terms of our products, and we may develop new lines of cool new gaming-related stuff based on what we learned. GrandCon always provides us with new ways to grow and improve. As a result, we have some great ideas for future products that we hope people will love.
But the best news that came out of GrandCon 2022 was that for the first time since Table Top Makers started attending, we sold a table at the con. In years past, we’ve received a lot of orders from our exposure at GrandCon, but we’ve never had someone put a down payment on a table at the con. So it was an exciting moment for all of us. We wanted to start dancing for joy, but we restrained ourselves and acted professionally. But we did celebrate when the convention was over.
GrandCon 2022 was a massive success for Table Top Makers. Between sales, new friends made, and great business opportunities, this was our best year yet. Alan, Mark, and Ian will be busy filling orders for a long time. We’re already excited for 2023!
If you were at GrandCon, did you stop by our booth and say hello? Feel free to tell us who you are in the comment section below.