[Deptheads] Guest of Honor/Special Guests for Gamex

Mon Feb 25 22:39:41 PST 2008

My key has been networking.
I go to over 10 conventions a year as media and meet and greet personally with everyone I can in the industry.
I have gotten all the major players in collectables (like wizkids, bandai and wizards of the coast) to send me limited edition convention exclusives and product support.
They also list all official sanctioned tourneys and our venue is on the list each time--free advertising for the convention. This also means that joe local that wants to know where he can play his deck and get the cool cards that go for $50 each on ebay sees our con and attends (like the guy from tampa that came) I also give away extra stuff as participation prizes and sportsmanship.

I am working on getting more stuff for rpg to have as prizes as well as give aways for the computer room (which i will get at E3).
People like to get swag. They can game at local stores but at the con they get "stuff". I still say we need a convention bag of stuff for 4-day con badge purchasers with bonuses for those that pre-register for con).
Stuff for collectbles, miniatures and rpg is more valuable than a guest. Matt wilson (privateer press) is great guy but most people already saw him several times at gencon socal and comicon). Socal cannot get gamers to come out to see celebs. However-inviting privateer press to come sponsor a tourney and have a table to sell their stuff (including pre-release stuff) would be a boon to the convention. That would score big for us.

btw- last august some of the mini events had prizes. Good prizes. One even gave away a whole army mailed from the company to the winner. Warhammer always gives away good prizes as does warmachine. But the historical, small company sci fi, and out of print mini games are a different story. Miniature game tourneys require you to bring your pained army to the convention. That is alot of space and therefore minis are a destination for you. Easy to carry a ccg deck, handful of plastic star wars minis, or your bag of dice and rpg materials. Dragging minis to the con is a chore unless it is destination event. The warhammer and warmachine tourneys get their crowds and their tourneys take the entire day. A historical miniature games (outside of sword and flame) takes you several hours to play (and no one likes someone stepping in, taking 20 minutes to explain them the rules and 15 more to tell them what is going on and then having that person leave 10 minutes
 later). Skirmish miniature games are non-tourney, quick, and great for con day sign up. Packing your minis in your car and going to local store to game is not the same as packing your car for strategicon with your friends, paying the con entry fee, paying parking, and playing the same local people you play for free each saturday. Even a prize will be less than what it cost you to attend for miniatures.
The games workshop store in connecticut had 38 show up for a tourney- entry was FREE- and they gave away an army box ($200) and several other prizes including door prizes. They had a local convention and had only 12 for 40k. And they all paint and save up for GW games day in baltimore. Competiton for miniature gamers on weekends is fierce (especially when several of them rpg and play other games while at cons. 7 of the warmachine regs each con were in the UFS tourney for 8 hours that day, 1 was doing d& d all weekend, and 2 were volunteers). 
Also note the large miniature tourneys coast to coast charge a moderate to large entry fee $20 to $60 of which part is the prize fund (like broadside bash was for $60)

As Denys stated-
"We need something event-oriented, like the Warhammer Broadside Bash, to get folks to come out to a game con and lay down cash to play vs. going to their local game store for free and finding an empty table to play". 

What we offer has to be better than what they get at the local hobby store for free (or almost free).
The key is getting the companies to sponsor or support the events. The step after that is getting companies to use our venue for special events and regional tourneys.
And the key to getting companies is to present ourselves as a well-oiled professionally run convention.
We need consistency and reliabilty. Regs need to know our base layout con to con and the foyer can be the "special area" that changes (and san jose).
People need to be talking good about our con and others will overhear and inquire. Word of mouth in local stores, blogs, web pages, etc.

And save money on rpg or miniature guests and get them swag instead.
we would have better luck if we had actors from firefly, lord of the rings, or heroes than most industry guests.

V

-Survied the harsh winter and snow of vermont without so much a a cold and I catch sickness from people at the con in sunny california.

----- Original Message ----
From: DB <noldor at gmail.com>
To: deptheads at strategicon.net
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 9:59:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] Guest of Honor/Special Guests for Gamex

>Paul, Sarah and Denys - correct me if I'm wrong.

You’re not wrong.

Money is better spent on rpg rooms vs. rpg celebs; the rpg side of the hobby is in flux so that we have D&D dominating everything (as it’s always done) but the indie-game/story-game movement has really eaten into the more traditional mid-tier titles. Talking about Hero, Shadowrun, even Gurps to some extent.  In the L.A. Area, folks who played those games don’t show up to the con anymore — I had Gurps games at this past con struggling to fill available slots and that’s *with* Steve Jackson being a guest of honor and a well known Gurps GM running the event.  This is in contrast to some indie games which had 5 to 8 alternates each waiting to play.  Don’t get me wrong, certain traditional titles still draw in folks, it’s just that we need more games of those ilk being run rather than celebs.  Let’s spend some cash on “roleplay” prizes to hand out to folks in our games, specifically our tournament games which are currently supported by
 Robert Lionheart buying prizes with his own money.  I mean... We spend thousands of dollars on prizes for board-gaming and we spend five $20 raffle prizes on rpgs.  Board-gaming is the biggest draw of strategicons so we’re doing something right there but me and Paul have DOUBLED the amount of rpg attendees since we took over.  And that’s just us doing that on good will and reputation.  Sarah adds management competence into the equation and our rpg folks are having a lot better experience than they used to.  Throw some cash at prizes for our players and food and space for our GMs, not some rpg celeb that a handful of people would be interested in seeing (and can usually chat with online for free).

For that reason, I think minis could use a shot in the arm.   I’m singling this out because I was at Gaming Empire (Pasadena) on Saturday and there were 50 to 75 folks, SRO, waiting to play the big two 28mm minis games (Warhammer and Warmachine).  Contrast this with the minis room at OrcCon which was looking pretty empty.  We need something event-oriented, like the Warhammer Broadside Bash, to get folks to come out to a game con and lay down cash to play vs. going to their local game store for free and finding an empty table to play.

One idea -- Try to bring Matt Wilson, creator of Warmachine and creative director of Privateer Press, down to Gamex or Gateway and spin a bunch of Warmachine/Hordes tourneys out of it. 

Also, let’s make sure we’re spending on prizes for the minis events.  Let’s put our money there to inspire competition.

Just some thoughts.

 - Denys

On 2/25/08 5:52 PM, "Eric Burgess" <erburgess at gmail.com> wrote:

I think we've already gone around and around on that before. RPG guests not much of a draw. The RPG team has already pretty much agreed to that previously.

If you can get local people or there is something really big like the 4e D&D stuff, perhaps, but mostly, they won't add any attendees. Reiner brought many people from other states and encouraged locals to that don't normally come to Strategicon to try the show out. Jay did the same (many would-be designers loved the chance to meet with him). Board games just has more 'celebrity' people that cut across the entire swath of enthusiasts than RPGs do (which is more fragmented by the games individuals play). That's just the way it is.

I honestly don't think the RPG fans will think themselves ill-treated as long as they have the space for their games and our crack team of RPG folks continue to bring out the 'celebrity' GMs that run good games. That's far more important than designers. I'd wager that they'd rather spend any money on securing good rooms, perhaps finding small ways to encourage the best GMs to keep coming back than spending any money to bring out some RPG 'celebrity'. Paul, Sarah and Denys - correct me if I'm wrong.

On the other hand, it's good money spent on board game guests if we pick the right one.

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