OWJones 1,981 Posted October 15, 2012 Found a new, easy source of money - video game nerd gatherings! Some friends of mine have put together a video game conference here in town the past three years. This year my decal business was the title sponsor of the event and I had a booth setup cutting custom decals on demand - first time I've ever taken my gear to a venue, instead of just pre-made decals - was definitely worth it! I had a few dozen pre-made decals on the table and about half way through the first day a guy asked if I could make a decal of his "gamer tag" (the names they use online for gaming) that he could put on his XBOX 360 (see example below). I said "sure" - he told me what he wanted and a few minutes later I handed him a simple 2-color text only decal and charged him $5 (yeah, I know, that is low, but this event was more about getting my name out and less about making huge profits) - and then he came back a few minutes later and his son wanted one - but he wanted one for each side of his XBOX so that was $10. Then he decided he'd better get 2 for his daughter, too - I've made $25 off of this guy in <30 minutes. Then once the other gamers started seeing them installed, they started lining up at my booth and at that point my Graphtec turned into a cash printing machine. By the end of the 3 day event, I had cranked out over 80 custom decals, plus sold another 30+ pre-mades and have orders for even more to complete tomorrow. I had one guy bring me the side panel from his computer case - it had a big scratch in it and he wanted a large dragon design to cover the scratch and he even provided the artwork, which made it so much easier. Another guy is into BMX biking and he brought me the front number plate off of his bike on the last day and had me do a design for that, too. It was an awesome weekend! People just kept coming to me with ideas and I turned them (the ideas, not the customers) into vinyl decals. At the end of Day 2, I went to Wal-mart with the intention of buying a large screen monitor to hook to my laptop that I could turn it towards the crowd and let people see what I was working on (I was getting tired of people leaning over the table to proof their design). They were out of stock on any big monitors and so I ended up buying a 42" LCD/LED TV with VGA inputs and using that instead... I made enough on quickie decals to pay for the TV and pay the obscene concession stand prices (Seriously, $3 for a 12 oz. soda?) for 3 days and still show a profit. And in the morning before it got busy, I was able to crank up MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator) and play some Mortal Kombat and other games on the big screen... Nerd-vana! I also had a bunch of dye-subbed items on display and for sale and took a bunch of orders for more of those items. I did the award plaques for the gaming tournaments using the Streamline Awards from Conde - those cost less than $4 each and although small, look awesome (see pic below). Any ways... if you know anyone into video gaming, ask if they know of any LAN party events and see if you can get yourself invited - you may find that everybody there wants their gamer tag on their console, too! First place I ever saw a vinyl cutter in action was at a Ham Radio convention and they were cutting out call letter decals for Ham nerds and they were busy all day for two days cutting Arial Black numbers and letters 2" high in single colors - you just need to find a gathering of people who want to convey a simple message - their gamer tag, their call letters, whatever and then cater to that and you can make some big bucks without a lot of effort. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Binford 53 Posted October 15, 2012 That was AWESOME man ... What a great Idear... I like how you went about it . Got that 42 inch tv very smart thinking ... We have a huge Flee Market in Reno at the Drive in Movie Theater all the time .. i been thinking about doing something like that to.. set up a booth .. i like working with people ..the Game Convention was Genus bro ... love it ... I might have to try that out someday in Reno ... Great story . and nice work on the Xbox360 .. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
OWJones 1,981 Posted October 15, 2012 The guy in the referee shirt is Walter Day - back in the 1980's he ran a small, local arcade called Twin Galaxies. At the time no one was recording high scores for video games around the country so he implemented a leader board in his arcade and let people call in from around the world with their high scores so one central location could keep track. His efforts led to the Governor of Iowa and the President of Atari declaring Ottumwa, Iowa to be the official Video Game Capitol of the World, a title it still holds to this day. Although he has since retired and the arcade is long gone, he still continues to keep the spirit of '80s arcade games alive and shows up at video game conventions all over the Midwest (usually at his own expense), always in his referee shirt, and helping to find the best video gamers in the world. Here he poses with the winner of this year's Mario Kart 64 tournament winner. If you like video games, check out this new device at http://game-consoles-worldwide.com/ - it's a handheld gaming system that runs a wide variety of emulators to let you play all of your favorite, classic video games, including Amiga computer games, which I'm very excited about. It will be $125 and available hopefully by the end of this month - I really want one! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Binford 53 Posted October 15, 2012 So he is the god father of score boards cool photo man... thanks for sharing Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lapsey 16 Posted February 13, 2014 Hey Tim's xbox lol 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pcrat 65 Posted February 15, 2014 oh yea! I remember the tetris days me and friends would stay up allll night trying to beat each other. then we always play the original first super mario bros on Nintendo, and see who could beat the game the fastest and fewest lifes. ( 1 Up glitching was allowed since it didnt matter, but that just took time ) god i love those days! bring back the original Nintendo, but with the ability to record your games.. now THAT would be pretty cool. I still have an original Nintendo and and Older 32" Tube TV so i can play Duck Hunt, since the light gun dont work on LCD tvs. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
