[Deptheads] Meeting notes

[Victor B]

New people attend a specific strategicon because of a tourney's, events, 
prizes and special guests (or a friend brought them).
Our current attendance number system would not show that we got more people to show up to a convention because of a special guest.
Orccon always has the largest attendance and each specific con (orccon, gateway, and gamex) grew each year after new ownership.
 
Example: We have 1200 people attend orccon. The next year we have steve jackson and get 1300 people. Steve jackson is a good draw but did steve jackson get 100 new people to attend or were most of those people board gamers that already attend?  For the extra 100 we also have to account for the 75 extra and new people that were in the broadside bash, the 30 new people that came to play the boffer larp , the 78 new people in the 12 hour naruto tourney, the big vampire larp game that had 30 people saturday night for vampire only, and those that came to try the demos for the new dungeons and dragons edition. Even rock band had a few people show up just to play in the rock band tourney.
 
Also note that we lose people as well as gain. So 1200 to 1300 could mean we lost 200 people that attended previously but gained 300 new ones.
Plus we have to account for volunteer and staff badges to see how many paid memberships we gained at a convention. Alot to consider.
 
There may be people that spend most of their time playing board games at our con but that alone was not what got them to shell out the money to come to the convention over just gaming at their local hobby store or at home.
 
--Sue likes that she can play boardgames, try demos, her daughter can play pokemon and kingdom hearts ccg, her son can play video games and "are you a werewolf", and her husband can play a historical miniature game sunday and napoleon wars wargame on monday. 
 
--Tom plays rpg and some rpga. His kids play the boffer larps, video games, and yu-gi-oh. The whole family plays rock band tourney.
 
--Bill and sandy both play mostly boardgames but he also plays warhammer 40k. He likes that he gets to dust off his space marines every few months and throw down in an apocolypse event late saturday. Their teen kids don't play traditional boardgames nor collectable games. They will play "are you a werewolf", pitch car, or a screeming game but mostly do video games, role playing games, paint andtake, and larps.
 
--Sam comes to enter in the painting contest. He will play in a role playing event that same day, sell in the flea market and then go spend the money in dealer's room-but the painting contest and flea market is why he showed up
 
--there are volunteers in each department that spend most of their free time gaming in another department. I have gms that also run rpg, rpga, boardgames and computer room. I have gm'd role playing, miniature and board games as well as larps. Robyn has also run events for collectables as well. Whatever helps the con.
 
--Event-only badges shows how many people showed up just for that collectable, warhammer, or larp event. There are also saturday-only people that aren't on an event-only badge. 
Those that want to get the most out of their saturday. Shop the dealer room and flea market, try demos, and play in games that are quick. Quick collectable mini/card games, quick boardgames (usually the card ones or games like bang, nuclear war, etc. that don't require lots of rule absorbing) and they jump in for 30 minutes or more in the large scale games.  
 
--and last but not least---our regs who show up each convention nomatter how bad parking, hotel or anything else is. They have been with us thru thick and thin. This is a "family gathering" environment for them. A weekend 3 times a year where they can escape and game, watch bad movies, play video games, paint miniatures, shop, sell at flea market, and if lucky catch rocky horror again.
 
Orccon always does good. Mostly because we are coming off a 6 month layoff, we are more organized with more big tourneys wanting to run at orccon (I always get national, regional and qualifiers for orccon- last year an international event that had people from over 8 different states plus mexico and canada), plus there is nothing competing with us. We are the regional place to be in february. In May we have the bay area and other conventions competing with us for attendees (and we lose alot of people because those cons are once a year and we are 3 times a year) and in august we are right after many major cons plus gencon (where boardgames are secondary to miniature, collectable and rpg games) and at the same time as other conventions like dragoncon (where role playing reigns supreme).
 
Strategicon's core is now boardgaming.
Other departments had their time in the sun and will again.
It is what it is.
Ride what is hot at the moment and realize boardgaming overall is the easiest to come to a convention and jump in.
Rpgs have very limited participants per event and more copies of the "game" is not an option since they are gm driven not gm supervised. Plus rpgs take lots of gm prep. Can't just open a box, set up board, and play.
Many collectable and miniature games require the player having his army or deck and bringing it to the con and dealing with bad parking. 1 copy of the game per 5 people is not an option. You need your stuff so you aren't bringing it all unless there is a sweet tourney to play in. 
 
Variety gets people to the convention even if they spend the majority of their time in one area.  Boardgame is king but it needs the other playing pieces for strategicon to be an overall success as a convention and not just an expensive weekend long games day. Let's all work together to keep the con growing and successful.
 
V

.


 


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mordred.punk.net/pipermail/deptheads/attachments/20091016/6e7729e2/attachment.htm