It’s right around spring break for the local school districts, which means the Game Manufacturers’ Association (GAMA) hosts the first of their two major annual conventions, the GAMA Expo (formerly the Trade Show). The Expo is business-facing and attendance is limited to organization membership, which includes publishers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and as of recently, media workers and content creators, which is probably how I’ll attend in 2025 for my victory tour. The second annual convention, June’s Origins Game Fair, is player-facing and is a big gamer party much like Gen Con or Essen Spiel. For that matter, GAMA hosts industry meetings and panels at both Gen Con and Essen Spiel.
GAMA has come a long way in a very short time. When I first started attending ten years ago, the Trade Show was an annual fixture at Bally’s in Las Vegas. Alas, the organization was losing money and had a difficult convention hosting contract, and on top of that, Bally’s was not among the more enjoyable hotels on the strip to stay at. Thank goodness we had the Paris right there through the connection tunnel. But in any case I don’t blame GAMA one bit for moving the show to Reno from 2018-2022, and then to Louisville since, even though Reno is an icy tomb in March, and Louisville is noticeably not West Coast.
But man, let me tell you, when you’ve just endured a Game Store Winter and the sun is starting to come out again, not many options hit the spot as perfectly as a spectacular spring jaunt to Vegas (during March Madness, no less). We got to tour local cool stores like Little Shop of Magic, Wii Play Games, and Darkside. We got to see the KISS Museum Mini Golf Course at the Rio and then go ziplining. We took a time warp at the Pinball Hall of Fame. For those who imbibe, there was of course always the option to get hammered and hit the tables. But for my excursion group, the “challenge” in those initial Trade Show years was to do a bunch of that fun stuff and still hit a retailer seminar in every single presentation slot For The Learnings(Tm), a publisher presentation in every slot to guarantee the merchandise shipment, both days of the exhibition floor, and as many Trade Show ancillary events as possible.
When I attended 2018’s Trade Show in Reno, which, fun fact, is farther west than Los Angeles, I was expecting to end up with scads of extra time because I figured to hit all the essential GAMA event offerings and then, well, not be in Vegas, so the rest of it wouldn’t be available. And while Reno is surely the Bowling Capital of the World, and doubtless has other recreational spots on deck, I didn’t have anything on my radar for that. And I am surely a degenerate gambler, but not enough to want to sit at a slot machine or whatever. I prefer a sportsbook and a bankroll, and hopefully usually for it to be football season.
A very cool thing ended up happening in Reno, though, which is that all that spare time I expected to have, got filled up with networking and recreational time with my friends and peers in the business. And there’s something really great about being able to decompress and commiserate with someone who understands your struggle on a deep and personal firsthand level. This is a key part of the value that’s pretty hard to convey as an enticement to attend. Until you’ve done it, you don’t realize how much you kind of needed it.
I got to do the Expo again in 2019, and also presented my last seminar, Hybrid Theory: Video Games, about adding the category to stores and some of the deeper mechanics on how it’s done. Maybe I will apply to present in 2025, I don’t know. I suppose the entire experience of selling my store would probably be pretty relevant / interesting / well-attended by the seminar audience. Even store owners who aren’t currently building their exit-the-scene line of play are likely to want to dip their fingers in that water and get a sense of what it would take to do it. “I don’t want to retire or sell out,” people say, and I believe them, but sometimes other life circumstances happen, from the opportune to the unfortunate. “My spouse just got an amazing job offer but we have to relocate across the country,” or alternatively, “My spouse just got a leukemia diagnosis and now I’m going to be their caregiver full-time.” I absolutely do not wish the difficult scenarios on any of you. And if life forces such a scenario upon you, I hope you’ve been getting good guidance in advance.
Anyway to all of you partying it up conducting business this week in Louisville at the GAMA Expo, I wish you good times and good travels. For those of you who have never been to a GAMA event, and who work in the hobby/comic/video/game industry, I hope you’ll take the time to do some diligence and look into it, because the odds are very good that it will be beneficial to you in multiple ways. Have a great week!