Tabling

The Supplies

• We have a red tablecloth and table skirting: See Table Skirting. We always either reset the able to use our cloth or skirting, or as needed place our cloth and skirting over the existing table cover (sometimes they're stapled down). Place the tablecloth on the table, then use the appropriate clips to clip the skirting around the edge.
• Fliers
• Buttons
• Old Con Books
• Book stand
• Card stands
• Button Machine
• Table skirt clips
• Stickers

Making Buttons

We have a button machine. Make buttons!

The Spiel

As part of tabling we use a basic spiel to quickly tell people about SNAFU Con. It consists of four parts:

1. Who -- SNAFU Con, then tell them what SNAFU stands for.
2. What -- a three day convention. Depending on the audience you can say "anime convention"
3. Where -- Reno-Sparks, Nevada, because people don't know what Sparks is, but saying just Reno can get you in an argument. Talk about the venue instead if you're near enough to Sparks that everyone knows where the Nugget is.
4. When -- the next con's date.

Would you like a FREE button?

The buttons are free; the fliers are also free if you can believe that...

We are SNAFU Con: Sierra Nevada Anime Fans Unite. We're a three-day anime convention in the Reno/Sparks area of Nevada, October six through eight.

We run 55 hours of continuous programming, which means we don't sleep and you don't have to. But if you are partial to sleeping we're in a hotel-casino, so you can run right up to your hotel room and right back down to the Con floor without ever leaving the building.

Our room rates are quite reasonable this year at around {amount} dollars a night, and our badge price is currently thirty-five dollars, increasing to forty in September.

Update as needed to fit current reality.

TODO: Update the spiel. We no longer have continuous programming, opting to shut down at night due to health concerns.

Getting people to take promo materials

There's actually some fun tricks you can use to get people to take fliers. If you hand someone something, they usually will take it without thinking. And often times a button or a sticker is more enticing than a flier.

• Make eye contact and smile, offer the item out to them. This not only works with people nearby, but can draw someone from across the room to the table. I have been able to successfully hand out fliers to someone walking across the room with just a smile and an outstretched hand, I just waggled the flier a little to indicate silently "here! Here take this!" The body language helps a lot.
• "Take a button", vs "would you like a free button." While it will have the opposite effect on a few people, most people will respond to the command to take a button rather than the ask if they'd like one. Asking them if they would like one will make them consider the question and give more opportunity for a "no." There are those that don't like being told what to do and would turn down the command when they might have otherwise taken one, but largely we get a better reply with "here have a free button" than "would you like a free button."
• You can stand or sit, but you will often catch people easier if you're standing. People are walking by and it puts you at eye level. But please if you're tired, do sit. You can also utilize kneeling on a chair to raise yourself to eye level while still resting your feet.
• Project your voice clearly, but only to the level required of the room. Often times we're in rooms where we need to be "barking" out to be heard, but sometimes the space is quieter. Being too loud can scare away people or prevent us from being invited back, but if the person walking by can't hear you it makes it hard to give out promo materials. (However, eye contact and body language can overcome a lot of noisy locations up until the point they want to engage with you about the con.)

Final Notes

• The marketing materials do cost money. They can have all the old con books or fliers they want, but the buttons and stickers have some tangible cost to them, so don't shove buttons at people who genuinely don't want them, and stickers people don't want may end up on items we don't want them on (like the venue wall).
• Remember that you are a representative of the convention. You will need to be friendly and upbeat, and excited about sharing information about the convention. While the table should always have someone at it, take breaks, get food, and rest. Tabling can be tiring, but rewarding.