Geek Village November 17, 2024
Sunday, November 17, 2024, we were at the first edition of Geek Village. After many preparations, we were looking forward to being at this event. For our shop, this was the first time to be at a big event. But we had not set our expectations too high, as the event was only organized for the first time.
Our adventure began as early as Saturday with loading the rented van. It required some puzzle work here and there,
but we finally got everything in nicely. Once fully loaded it was time to head for Genk. A smooth ride with not too many traffic jams 🙂. Before we drove to Thor Park, we made a small stop for our overnight stop.
For the night we chose a B&B La Miniera, 5 min from Thor Park. Ideal, couldn’t have been better. We were warmly welcomed by Eveline and Geert.
After a pleasant introduction to the hosts and tour of the B&B, we continued our trip to Thor park.
When we arrived at the Thor Park, it was searching for where to go. Once we found the sign-in place, the organizers kindly helped us find our place on the plans. Then they walked with us to show us exactly where this was. Arriving at the location, we were already trying to imagine what the booth would be like. On paper is different than in real life 🙂.
Next step, loading all the material to build the booth, out of the van. This was still an undertaking. Since we were on the second floor with the booth, it was a long walk and a lot of waiting for the elevator. For a booth like ours with a lot of equipment, this was not really efficient. Anyway, once everything was upstairs, the construction could begin.
Without even building our booth in advance, it went very smoothly. The racks are super convenient to put together. The tables folded open smoothly and about an hour later we had a booth. 🥳
Now that the booth was there, it was time to unload the boxes of games. Again, quite an undertaking and something that grabbed us a lot of time. Filling the booth was for the morning.
From all that effort, we got hungry and to satisfy it we stopped by Qubbe Qebab. Nice interior, friendly person who took our order and super tasty food. After dinner, it was time to hit the bed.
Tired but content from the build-up, we arrived at B&B La Miniera. There another nightcap awaited us, a delicious limoncello . 🙂. Watched some more TV and set the alarm (5:15 am) before we went to dreamland.
After snoring, we found ourselves back in Thor Park at 6:10 a.m.
Next step, filling the shelves with the games. That was something we hadn’t really thought about. Anyway, we did it box by box and the final result can be seen we think. 😀 It did take a bit more time than we thought. Especially putting up the price tags. Moving the empty boxes to the van also took a lot of time because of the distance and the elevator. But we were ready in time for the event.
The final result can be seen and we are super proud of it! (Looked better than on paper 😅)
In between stuffing, Eveline from B&B La Miniera brought us breakfast. We greatly appreciated this and made sure we still had something to eat during the day. 🙏
At 9 am the doors opened for the early birds and at 10 am for the rest. But we ourselves did not see any early birds flying by. 🤔 And this was the less pleasant experience of this adventure. Only late in the day did mouthfuls of people start passing by the shop. At one point we began to wonder if there were any people at this event.
After speaking to a number of visitors, it appeared that there was no indication on the first floor that there were 2 more floors of exhibitors. This was very unfortunate. 😞 In addition, we saw another minus point throughout the day. Our booth was located in a small hall, but the people in the hallway just passed the doors without entering.
Another exhibitor who were right across from us dismantled their booth before noon and then moved to a much smaller place on the first floor. This caused people to think that the space where we were standing was empty. For us, of course, it was not an option to move, given the quantity of our booth.
But we still took 2 actions to get the attention of the attendees who did find their way up. The first thing we did was to move our banners more outward. In addition, we turned our opposite neighbor’s empty tables into game tables. People could play some games at these tables. This brought a little more attention to the people who came upstairs anyway.
If there were 3000 people at this event, we saw maybe 400, if that many. As of 4 p.m. somewhere, we didn’t really see any more people and around 5:30 p.m. we decided to pack up.
Again, we lost a lot of time because of the elevator to get all our boxes upstairs and back down. To start loading earlier, we were still the last exhibitor to drive away around 10 p.m. We hadn’t set our expectations too high, but we didn’t think it was going to be that low.
Before we effectively drove home, we did stop at Qubb Qebab (was really good food 😉). We were finally in our bed by 1:30 am. 😴
In a nutshell, it was a positive experience to build and fill our booth for the very first time. The regret was that not all visitors found us. We therefore encourage the organization to continue doing so. But keep in mind the feedback you received for the next edition.
We would like to come back, if you would like to do the same. 🙂. Then we will book our bed again at B&B La Miniera and we will eat again at Qubb Qebab 🙂.
Team Gerbs Board Games!
