Event Report: Game Empire, Pasadena CA - April 29th 2007
From RabbitWiki
I was visiting friends in the LA area, and looked up their local game store, as I always love to visit our games on store shelves. Although The Trimbles often play games together as a family, and their daughter knew there was a game store around someplace, they had never actually visited any game stores in their area. Google Maps on my Treo quickly found the address of Game Empire in Pasadena, only a few short miles from their home.
We stopped in the store on Saturday afternoon, what a wonderful gaming space! We met Chuck, the owner, and one of his employees named Travis, as well as several customers who at first seemed like they might be employees, considering how helpful and friendly they were when we walked in the door. One of these customers, Neil Figuracion, has been a fan of our games for years but didn't know we had a demo program. He told me about their Sunday Night Board Gaming event he would be playing games at the next day, and went home that evening and signed up as a rabbit!
Chuck said that they sell a fair bit of Fluxx, and some Chrononauts - but our other games rarely seem to sell, even though he has stocked them occasionally. The only Looney Labs Games in stock that day were one copy each of Fluxx and Family Fluxx, and two copies of Treehouse, hanging on a hook with an old copy of Ice7. Chuck said they have never run any sort of demo event for our games in this store. I showed them all how to play Treehouse, and gave them my demo copy, and as I left Neil and Travis were opening a copy of Ice7 and looking at the rules to Tic-Tac-Doh!, the only game in that set which could be played with a single Treehouse set.
I came back the next day, and heard they had played Treehouse and Tic-Tac-Doh! all afternoon! We then proceeded to get Looney Labs Games demos going at 3 tables all night long! Several other players, besides Neil, already knew and loved our games and were very excited to playtest Zombie Fluxx with me, and are looking forward to playing more of our games in this store in the future... and I taught lots of new players Treehouse, Volcano, Chrononauts, Fluxx, and Zombie Fluxx. Bjo and her family and friends also showed up again later and learned a bunch of games. This was a VERY friendly, very accepting game store. Bjo (a 72 year old lady) felt welcome and included by the young kids teaching her new games. This is a great store!
Thanks Chuck for running such a beautiful gaming store I could drop in and promote my games in!
