Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Adrienne Tennant – Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Adrienne Tennant – Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Can you talk a little bit more about this Rock Band II? And also, are there any other kind of derivatives from that project maybe in licensing other kind of video gaming type of licenses for the novelty tee business? Is there anything there that can be done?
Elizabeth McLaughlin
Well, yes. With Rock Band the deal that MTV and Harmonics has the actual game so the marketing arrangement we have with them is really based on the game. Included in that is also in store presence of Rock Band and if you go in to our stores now you’ll see Rock Band banners, you’ll see that we’ve taken many of the music tees that are featured from the bands within Rock Band, we also have them highlighted. One of the things that we recognized several years ago, it started with Guitar Hero and of course has progressed in to Rock Band, is that so many of the kids, which is our target customer group, and maybe even a little younger than our target group, are learning about music via these music games. They’re hearing Metallica and Guns N’ Roses and ACDC and Poison for the first time and are starting to really recognize them as viable bands. So, we’ve seen in our stores an increase in not only request but sales with some of those classic rock artists.
It caught our attention early and John came on board and felt very strongly about finding a way to integrate in to that game because it’s much more of a pop culture phenomena than a typical game. So yes, there are opportunities for us, we don’t want to be contrived about it so we’re going to be very careful in how we do that. But, yes there is definitely some product extension there. But, we think the benefit for us is really from a branding standpoint being associated by all of these people that when they’re playing when their particular band reaches a certain level of points or success that they are able to be sponsored by Hot Topic. We are the only retailer that’s featured in the game so we’re excited about that.
Adrienne Tennant – Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Then for Halloween, what are your plans for Halloween in terms of kind of packaged versus non-packaged? I mean, it falls on a pretty decent day I guess this year, right? It’s a Friday I think so how do you look at that calendar for Halloween to capitalize on that? Then secondarily, as we go in to holiday with one less weekend and five fewer days, how are you positioning things kind of as we go between Black Friday and Christmas?
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