Bailey from Glowforge here. With CES behind us, I’m seeking suggestions for cool tech or maker-y events at which Glowforge should consider making an appearance. Could be this year, could be next year - I just want to know about any awesome, Glowforge-y events that might have flown under my radar thus far.
I’ve got Maker Faire(s), CES, and SXSW covered, and of course there are tons of great local events at schools and makerspaces all over the country, but I want to hear from you. What events do you attend and do you think Glowforge absolutely should be at?
Large costuming conventions would be a great place to show off glowforge. The majority of people who go to these events are makers; prop makers, costumers, designers. DragonCon in Atlanta is HUGE. 70k people were there last year. They have a massive vendor area where people would LOVE to check out something like a laser cutter. If youre up to it, you could even potentially do a panel there about laser cutting. People would eat it up. Vendor applications open Feb 1st.
Ya know… plus you would get to see all the insane costumes and props people make with things like this!
Im not sure how tight comic-con is, but you might consider that as well… a lot of costumers go there, but its more media oriented than maker oriented.
That’s a brilliant idea. The GF team might consider partnering with one or two good, maybe famous cosplayers who are known for making their own awesome costumes, by allowing them to make or enhance their costume parts on a machine. They would be amazing ambassadors to that community.
These guys all make amazing stuff, all do web based instructional videos and live streaming. A lot of them work on props for the video game industry, movies, and high end geekery. I know the tested crew hangs out with most of them. They all use a lot of materials and processes that would benefit highly from having a glowforge involved and would more than likely include it in whatever videos or write-ups they were doing for the build process.
I think theres a good bit of marketing potential there…
A build your own area where visitors can buy the template (if you run out of leather, tandy usually has a booth there too! haha). Have a bunch of little templates for different projects they can choose from and let them watch you cut it out while they wait.
Offer to engrave their name or some simple text on it somewhere to give it that one-of-a-kind personalized feel. People would love it
…then let them go off to assemble it on their own and tell them to hashtag it #glowforge on instagram. Boom
Sorry, I only know uncool events. Any show that attracts mechanical engineers, automation engineers, industrial engineers or industrial designers. MD&M or any of the other regional shows have a lot of rapid prototyping booths. Pretty much any medical device manufacturer has a machine shop (we have a mill, a lathe, a drill press, various cutting tools and an anvil that went missing) and these days it has a 3D printer in it. We have a laser that was originally intended for a manufacturing line, but has been re-purposed to occasionally cut small things. Manufacturers have to make fixtures for R&D prototyping, but the machine shop is mainly used to make and repair fixtures for the manufacturing lines. I would think the glowforge, at its price point, would attract attention from this community.
We need clear plastic cages around machines, simple little jigs for hand operations, a custom shelf, all sorts of things that are not necessarily part of the main line but are designed in a CAD package and then hand built.
The closest thing to a “maker” event that I go to is The Woodworking Shows. Last year, the event in Springfield, MA, had a couple booths with CNC machines. One booth was fairly busy but the other booth rarely seemed to have anyone at it.
