Dragonmeet 2025 Running the Numbers

I follow in the footsteps of my esteemed colleagues (primarily the brilliant Colin le Sueur of By Odin’s Beard RPG fame) in writing my very first post-convention report. My name is George, I’m the studio lead at Three Sails Studios, a small indie TTRPG design studio and publisher based in Manchester, UK. That’s me on the right, in the picture above, next to one of my co-owners and creative partners, Jeremy. And that is us being awarded Gold for Best RPG at Dragonmeet 2025 for our debut game, Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG! You’ll forgive me, but it is the only photo I got of our stand for the whole day, and a win like that feels worth showing off just a little.

This last weekend, Three Sails exhibited at Dragonmeet 2025 at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London’s Docklands. I promised I’d write a report up of our convention experience and include as many of our numbers as I can and here is me making good on that promise.

Let’s get into it!

Logistics

Dragonmeet happens in the last weekend of November every year, and this was our second time exhibiting. Jeremy and I were there last year promoting Mappa Mundi a few months before our Kickstarter (which happened in February this year) and it was great to be back this year, in the new venue, with Mappa Mundi available for sale and winning the Gold award.

While most of Three Sails are based in Manchester, Jeremy is London-based, which makes Dragonmeet a good bit cheaper for us as we don’t need to pay for accommodation. I got the train down from Manchester in Friday morning, stayed with Jeremy on both Friday and Saturday nights, and travelled back to Manchester late Sunday morning. I did have to travel with our stand materials (a 4m wide banner and our sample books, table cloths, art prints, chargers, card reader, etc.), which was painful, but largely trouble free.

Our stock was brought to the ExCeL by the team at GMS, who also did this for us for Tabletop Scotland earlier this year. They brought ten cases of Mappa Mundi with them (sixty copies) and everything arrived promptly and safely. Thanks GMS!

Costs

• Stand Costs (4 x 2m): £631.20 including VAT. We are VAT registered, however, so I expect to claim 20% of that cost back, bringing our actual stand cost to £526.00

• Travel: £130.25 (return ticket from Manchester to Euston, plus incidental travel to and from the ExCeL)

• Meals: £42.19

• TOTAL EXPENSES: £698.54

Compared to most, we’re able to do Dragonmeet pretty cheaply as we don’t need to cover accommodation and (as of this year and last) only need to pay for a major train journey for one person. Plus, being able to reclaim VAT on our stand cost means that the sticker shock is always lessened, though I think Dragonmeet is still definitely affordable.

The Stand

We’re still a very young company (though I do have to keep reminding myself of that). We’ve only been attending conventions as TTRPG designers and publishers for a year and a half, beginning with UKGE 2024, and have since done Dragonmeet twice (2024 and 2025), UKGE a second time (2025), and Tabletop Scotland (2025). And we’ve only had product to sell at those conventions this year, beginning with UKGE back in May.

As such, our convention operations are still very underdeveloped. Our stands are basic and barebones, though we do love our big banners, which always prominently feature the illustrations of our other co-owner, Joel Kilpatrick.

Our stand this year was no different. Two six metre tables, each with a black tablecloth, the 4 metre wide banner, featuring Mappa Mundi and our upcoming release Gallows Corner - A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, and a roll up banner for a new game we’re publishing, City of Espers - A Street-Level Psychics TTRPG, by Nathan Blades, which we publicly announced at Dragonmeet.

We’re working on our convention presence and I’m hoping to show you a much nicer looking stand at UKGE 2026, but for now, trust me when I say it was basic.

Our layout was designed to be inviting, to be arranged so people could step into the stand and look at our stuff without needing to stand in aisles. To that end, we had two tables, each facing outwards along the open edges. On the left side of the stand we have nothing but Mappa Mundi, for people with a buying focus, while the right-side table had some Mappa Mundi, but was mainly Gallows Corner and City of Espers, intended to show those games off and encourage conversations and mailing list sign ups. I think this worked really well (much better than UKGE, at least), as I’ll explain below, and it encourages me for UKGE next year.

But let’s look at our sales. That’s why you’re here after all!

Sales + Sign Ups

We currently only have one game on sale, alongside some prints, so this should be pretty simple!

We sold 49 copies of Mappa Mundi, for a total take of £2,925. Mappa Mundi retails for £60, so you’ll notice £15 missing there. One person had bought the PDF version from our Shopify store earlier in the week so I offered them the opportunity to upgrade to the physical version for just £45, taking the £15 they’d already paid off the price.

We also sold a few of our prints, for a total of £80, which is quite a lot less than we’d normally take on prints, but the stand really wasn’t set up for them this time, which explains the lower take.

TOTAL SALES: £3,005
TOTAL EXPENSES: £698.54
PROFIT: £2,306.46

We also had 35 mailing list sign ups for Gallows Corner (the new clothbound, silver foiled cover really attracted some attention) and 25 sign ups for City of Espers, with a lot of interest in the game, including multiple offers to buy it then and there (if only)!

We started doing conventions without anything to sell, exhibiting purely to drum up attention for our games, and it remains a significant part of why we do conventions. I managed this balance much better at Dragonmeet than I did at either UKGE or Tabletop Scotland this year, and I think the way we laid out the stand helped with that.

Gallows Corner, looking pretty in black cloth and silver foil.

summary

Dragonmeet 2025 was a great success for us, with a great take, an award (which is always helpful for ongoing sales), and a solid number of sign ups to our mailing list for our upcoming games. Gallows Corner goes to Kickstarter in February, so this was our last in-person event to show the game off, while City of Espers will be going to Kickstarter in September, so we have UKGE and Tabletop Scotland to keep promoting it.

What I learned is that two people on the stand was definitely not enough (thanks to Sam for helping cover when we needed it, and selling nine copies of Mappa Mundi in 45 minutes. A machine!) and that we’ll need a third person with us next year.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this relatively quick breakdown of our convention experience. I’m sure by next time I’ll have a slightly different format, but we’d love to hear your thoughts and how Dragonmeet was for you!

You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, or join us on Discord. We’d love to have you with us!

You can also learn more about Mappa Mundi here (or buy it here), Gallows Corner here (and follow us on Kickstarter here), and about City of Espers here.

Until next time, be excellent to each other. A better world is possible!

In solidarity,

George
Studio Lead