Back From Essen

And exhausted! I slept really badly the whole time, coupled with busy and long days I'm really tired now.

Essen was really hard work, but very successful. I didn't really get to play many games (I demoed It's Alive! several times and Carpe Astra a few times), but other than that nothing at the fair. In the evenings we played a game of Dominion that lasted two hours (we were tired!) and a game of Axiom too - that was it!

First a big thank you to Dunk, Lucy and Mal who helped me man the stall for the four days of the fair, as well as setting up, tearing down and in the case of Lucy driving us to Essen. You did an awesome job guys. Also, huge thanks to Michael (Danke schoen!) for demoing the game in German for far more than the hour he promised on Saturday morning. Dean and John from Ludorum Games, who carted all my games over also deserve a shout out. I also really appreciated those of you who stopped by and mentioned you read my blog!

We shared our stand with Peter Strujif and friends of Geode games, Peter's ceaseless enthusiasm was also great - thanks!

I took (or at least Dean took for me) 840 copies of It's Alive!, the Carpe Astra prototype and a rough version of Sumeria. I returned with only four of the It's Alive! copies! Heidelberger in Germany took some, FRED in the US took loads and I sold plenty to punters too. My turnover during the four days of Essen was double that of the whole of last year, and the event was profitable for me after all the convention costs and the costs of the games are accounted for. I now have distributors in Germany, Holland, Belgium and two in the US, plus I know of shops in Estonia, Italy, Holland and Germany who took some stock.

Hopefully, I'll be able to provide a slightly more coherent review in a few days, in the meantime, I need to catch up on sleep, do the paperwork for the show and do my VAT return. Plus, I've a bunch of household stuff to do as our flat goes on the market this weekend!