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@show activities (best/suggestions?)
My company is in the process of planning PAX EAST 2013 and I would like to get suggestions on what the PAX community would like to @ show. In the past, we have done a cosplay contest, karaoke contest and a Gangnam Style dancing contest + scavenger hunts, 8 on 8 tournaments.
I'd like the contest to be:
- legal
- not overly immoral
- unique
- interesting
- rewardable
Similarly, I would like to get your feedback on what swag you've seen/desire.
Input accepted and appreciated but I want to try to make your PAX experience great.
I'd like the contest to be:
- legal
- not overly immoral
- unique
- interesting
- rewardable
Similarly, I would like to get your feedback on what swag you've seen/desire.
Input accepted and appreciated but I want to try to make your PAX experience great.
zerzhul on
0
Posts
For instance, I was thinking about an eating contest, which openly has very little to do with gaming hw.
I'd totally participate in an eating contest. I think like a wheel of goodies is a good idea from past conventions that I've been to.
XBL/PSN: MiFengXia Twitter: @MiFengXia 3DS: 2423-3603-7854 Steam: Kythos
It doesn't have to be anything that dramatic. My college has a food relay segment for one of our Greek community events. Our last one consisted of students eating a small dollop of mayonnaise, some Sour Patch Kids, canned tuna (well in a bag since opening the can took too long), and a slice of bread. None of those things need to be hot or preserved for long amounts of time, except for maybe the mayonnaise, so you can have stuff like that on hand. Eating a slice of bread quickly is rather challenging even though it doesn't sound like it.
XBL/PSN: MiFengXia Twitter: @MiFengXia 3DS: 2423-3603-7854 Steam: Kythos
And I'm right there with the whole "shout to get a shirt" thing. As a veteran of the last three PAX Easts, it's getting a bit tedious, especially on Sundays (shout for shirt! shout for raffle! shout for EVERY GODLESS THING IN THE BUILDING!).
I like more attention on BYOC - I feel that area gets neglected sometimes. Maybe sponsor a quick pick-up round of something for a prize? The enthusiast crowd is right there, it seems like a great opportunity.
Maybe host a beginner's talk for first-time system builders/overclockers?
Also - silly dance contests, most creative use/display of the Corsair logo, trivia contest, so on. Hell, wave a giant Corsair pirate flag while doing everything.
btw - how do you like your K90?
///and you'd better get the Time off and travel arrangements. Pax isn't too far away.
The K90 is a solid keyboard. I love it. Some of the keycaps are showing a tiny bit of wear, but considering how often I'm using it, I doubt anything would really last that long (nothing has thus far, and I've used dozens over the years). I also have the K60 at home on my gaming rig - you guys are on the right track with these. Moar custom keycaps!
</fanboy>
As for ideas, this may have been you guys, and if not, this is a complete ripoff of another company's idea, but I went to a con a few years back that had a whole bunch of old, (hopefully) dead desktops lined up, and you had to try to put RAM into each one in a short amount of time, one right after the other. The point was to feature how good and easy to install the company's RAM was, which seemed to work, it drew a pretty large crowd. If you did it, you got some small prize....I believe it was a very small memory stick, on a string, with the company logo on it, which people then wore around their necks as a badge of honor for winning for the rest of the con, thus providing more publicity. This who didn't win....I want to say maybe they got a pin or sticker something? It was something else to wear around the con and free publicity.
I think I will maim anyone playing the tune now....I was thinking Boston...New Kids on the Block but I'm guessing most don't even know that this was the Boston Boy band of the 80's.
We might have been the ram contest before and we've also done speed building contests.
Keep the suggestions coming.
Malfeis - are you getting a lot of wear? if so, shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do when we come out in March
Question(s):
- is free stuff a good idea?
- should this we do a random peruse around the BYOC area or should we setup a Twitter feed so attendees can flag their table/seat?
additional ideas re: events you'd like to see? again no farm animals, nothing illegal and nothing involved with getting me or my team fired.
Another idea my friends and I were talking about, maybe not feasible, would be a one-off PAX East custom case? Maybe take a standard model Corsair supplies and either pimp it out with some sort of one-off PAX-related paint job and do a raffle (with ways to earn extra entries), or take attendee input at the booth/BYOC/whatever, maybe as a contest ("best design by vote gets made"). This way you could have several events to gather a crowd each time (submission, voting, announcement events).
I've seen everything from "who can eat a raw onion the fastest," to "if you shave your head, you get x," to pole dancing (with a friend as the "pole") - all of these drew a huge crowd (the "reality TV" factor, probably).
@stankwong - I'm the BYOC/PC Security Manager for East 2013. This sounds like a pretty cool idea! See PM.
@s7arbuck - Flagging this for you. Possible BYOC activity.
EDIT: Also.. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my K90 Vengeance Keyboard. LOVE IT!
Vapok
Edit: Afterwards you could do something cinematic like ceremoniously smashing the keyboard with a hammer after freezing it with liquid Nitrogen.
@NewspaperCrane. - like the idea. Keep 'em coming. The "pathetic KB" idea is a good one - I/we may not be able to destroy it for safety reasons. Remember one of my guidelines is to not get Fired. Being sued for a plastic piece of shrapnel in an attendees eye might be bad for my career growth.
I initially thought about Bacon or Donut eating contest (the latter because I saw the guy on Duck Dynasty eat 46 donuts) but I can't have throw up or someone dying in the booth. Outside the booth ok but inside can't
Here are the other random thoughts.
Streak the booth and get X.
Take a picture of things you love about PAX East with Corsair (logo, product) and Tag @Corsair on FB and win <untold riches>
Scavenger hunt
hmmm gotta run to a meeting. Keep it up, definitely going to go with some of the ideas shared here.
I would definitely second the "please don't blast annoying music constantly" request. I avoided booths at PAX and actually avoided products from specific PC product/peripheral companies I won't name (not Corsair, don't worry) because of how much their booth nonsense annoyed me while waiting in long lines next to it, specifically one right next to the Bethesda booth in 2011 East. It also sucks to work at a booth where you are going to listen to or have to participate in the same annoying stuff for 20-30 hours straight over the course of a weekend. I used to do 7-10 day trade shows a few times a year (plus shorter shows a handful of times) and any time you can get even a slight annoyance out of the booth it makes a world of difference. It is better for the people working the booth and anyone around it for extended periods, so please consider your booth workers before deciding anything. Happy booth workers give a far better representation and experience of the company than those that are worn down, frustrated, or annoyed (believe me on that one).
Another thing to think about is that not everyone is up for having to do something crazy in public for a shot at a prize and while it is nice to draw a crowd it will limit the people you are actually giving out anything to towards the extremely extroverted end of the attendees, which is not a significant portion of any population and may not correlate to your target at all. Whenever I was in a booth and had giveaways I wasn't making it a giant element of the booth. If someone came up and actually posed a good question and was interested in the product, or was already a customer stopping by to relate an experience they were much more likely to walk away with something in their hand than someone who was just looking to come by and do something dumb for a prize and had no interest in anything else I was doing/selling. That way you are actually rewarding your interested potential or existing customer-base and not just anyone who is willing to make a spectacle of themselves in public. It is definitely nice to have a draw of a giveaway to gain foot traffic but if that draw is clogging your booth with people who just want the free thing and don't care about the product then you could be missing interactions with people who are prospective or current clients who would be better served with more attention.
EDIT:
After typing that out I realized and reading the post I don't have a lot of good suggestions as to what to try do, just a lot of experience on what I hated having to do or what I thought didn't work and maybe what to avoid. I guess my main suggestion is to try to focus more on rewarding people with present customer relationships and having quality interaction with those who may be future customers than stacking numbers in your booth. A giant crowd doesn't always translate into better results.
That said, there are things that have been done in the BYOC before. For those that aren't aware, there is a BYOC Contest Coordinator (erhum @s7arbuck) that plans activities for BYOC attendees during the duration of PAX. In the past, these activities have included everything from a keyboard smash contest, hard drive shuffleboard, oldest PC, and other stuff. I remember PAX East 2011, I created a scavenger hunt that apparently was the bane of BYOC attendees that night.. Haha...
Having said that, we are going to be very sensitive to loud noises this year. There will be a few promotions going on in PC Freeplay which may or may not be mic'ed and/or bullhorned. There will be a stage where we will have various activities going on, including the broadcast of main theater content. (Audio for the broadcasts will be done over a Ventrillo server).
What we won't have, is a loud EXPO hall (with the only insulation being pipe and drape barrier). I think the worst noise levels will just be people noise in a concrete floor area.
That being said, I think BYOC is going to be a fun gig this year!
Vapok
The first PAX East featured a low-key Intel rep walking around handing out barcoded prize cards (business cards) everywhere in the convention center (sometimes announced on Twitter, sometimes much more discreet). If he spotted you wearing an Intel badge (or, in many cases, DOZENS), he quietly handed you the card, which you redeemed back at the booth. The barcode determined what prize you would receive (shirts, mugs, hats, games, processors...). Of course, that led to a sea of Intel badges (one guy made a armor-esque suit out of them by Sunday), but it was a good promo idea that made people ask what the hubbub was without generating a lot of booth noise.
Two years ago, Nvidia did something similar with a rep "in disguise" (read: a knit beanie) handing out prizes to people wearing their logo (shirt, badge, whatever). A picture of the winner was then tweeted to the public. Anything that gets people on the expo floor asking "hey, where'd you get that?" usually goes viral.
Along those lines, maybe do a kind of AR game using twitter where attendees need to find the hidden Corsair rep. Get a ticket/stamp/whathaveyou from them and bring it back to the booth, repeat as necessary.
ROFL!
You know........ There is a rule about cosplay.. and that you can pretty much get away with anything in the name of cosplay at PAX.....
Just sayin'!
hahahaha...
Vapok
/// we are talking about the "agent in disguise" + the implementation. Do you guys think buttons, bandana buffs or other forms of Corsair-ification is warranted.
At PAX East 2010, (at the Hynes) there was an amazing girl running around in almost nothing as a Witch from Left for Dead...
Vapok
Maawdawg - You are correct. My intent is to have fun activities that have interest but isn't blaring club music throughout isn't part of that scenario. My intent is also not to get the craziest thing in the world to happen either...I'm looking for something that is fun, engaging and different. I can recycle ideas that have been done before but the reality is that no one wants that, it doesn't help with your experience and isn't something memorable. We had an idea at lunch that I may be going with but keep ideas coming.
would like to hear more about the scavenger hunt that was mentioned. Positive/negative? how was it structured? what kind of prize made it appealing to participate?
Maawdawg - You are correct. My intent is to have fun activities that have interest but isn't blaring club music throughout isn't part of that scenario. My intent is also not to get the craziest thing in the world to happen either...I'm looking for something that is fun, engaging and different. I can recycle ideas that have been done before but the reality is that no one wants that, it doesn't help with your experience and isn't something memorable. We had an idea at lunch that I may be going with but keep ideas coming.
would like to hear more about the scavenger hunt that was mentioned. Positive/negative? how was it structured? what kind of prize made it appealing to participate?
I'm willing to buy a few dozen donuts and a pound of bacon and eat them at the booth if it makes you feel better. Y'know, for support or something. Because I care.
EDIT: Here it is: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/jury-rules-radio-station-jennifer-strange-water-drinking/story?id=8970712
Vapok
...and I was thinking powdered donuts.
A great bar trick... Try to eat 6 Saltine Crackers in 2 minutes. No water or drinking allowed during the two minutes.
It's extremely difficult.
Vapok