[Deptheads] SoCal Smackdown (Was: Get games up ASAP!)

Thu Jun 10 09:58:39 PDT 2010

1. Veterans day  is always November 11th. 
For 2010 this will be thursday. Not a 4 day weekend. 
If veterans day falls on saturday gov. offices close on friday and if it falls on sunday gov. offices are closed on monday. 
So every few years it would fall on sunday or monday to give monday off for a 4 day weekend for a few people.

2. The pool of possible attendees and the pool of people that would attend our convention in the past few years are not the same.
Obviously there is a pool of people that did not see strategicon as an option but would attend another convention in the area. This includes stores, vendors, volunteers, attendees, game companies, etc).
Those closer to Anaheim than LAX are also now jumping into the pool. Some were not coming to LAX for a con. 
If we moved from LAX to orange county , burbank, or irvine we would add people to the pool yet we would lose some of those close to LAX that drove to the con daily from home because they were close.
A shiny new convention will draw people that were on the fence about strategicon or stopped going because it was too far, parking sucks, personal conflicts/politics, bad experience, etc.
And if someone says "hey..I go to strategicon" they can tell them to support strategicon in feb and may but support smackdown in sept. It's their only con per year.

We have all three 4 day weekends. We are the neighbor that throws a party on every holiday and gets upset when another neighbor schedules a hallowen party. That neighbor tells us that we have all the holidays and any time
they have a party it will conflict with one of ours.

It isn't like we have Gateway as our only convention and someone scheduled opposite our only con.
And this didn't happen all of a sudden. We were told last summer by robyn that privateer press wanted a convention to feature them in socal. Robyn was told we couldn't juggle that much additional space to accomidate. So those gamers did not attend strategicon but weren't missed because we never had them all before. And the few we had remaining left to join them for single day events that happened on saturdays opposite strategicon. Now those gamers are organized, have support and backing, have people that work for game companies attending and helping them. They will accomidate those we didnt. And now the dominoes fall. What was perceived as a handful of miniature gamers has now joined up with those unhappy about strategicon and those wanting to run their own show and formed voltron...oops..I mean socal smackdown.

We can't stop their party...but we can make ours a better choice to attend.
Now more than ever before we have to promote our convention. We have to look professionally run and organized, show a  united front, and lock in vendors, advertisers, volunteers, special events, and better overall con experience.
A choice to play settlers at both cons? But hey, my kids can play video games when bored at strategicon. A good movie room, seminars, fun and intersting guests, things like rock band and HMGS run events, and lots of other little things add to the convention experience and tip the scale. This is a wakeup call to step up our game and continue to improve in our weak spots. We took sept. for granted and now we see that gamers will have a choice and we want them to choose us. 
We have to concentrate on pimpin' our ride. Keeping the people we have and getting new ones to climb aboard the strategicon train. And let them be the little engine that could.

V

________________________________
From: "thatericn at aol.com" <thatericn at aol.com>
To: deptheads at strategicon.net
Sent: Thu, June 10, 2010 2:15:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] SoCal Smackdown (Was: Get games up ASAP!)

Hi Victor - 

Love ya, man, but have to disagree with you on a few things.

1) There's another choice for a holiday weekend: Veteran's Day. It's halfway between Gateway and Orccon, and like President's Day, has a mixed bag of people who get Monday as a holiday.

2) The limited pool of possible attendees leaves little margin for health and viability for both cons. I may be pessimistic, but this is a fight for survival.

3) People who "just want their space" don't start camping in their neighbor's front yard, raiding their refrigerators, or trying to poison their pets. I think the metaphors apply. We aren't being vain.

4) People with live-and-let-live attitudes work with their neighbors, maybe even (gasp!) approach and TALK to their neighbors when there are conflicting goals. When have these people ever approached us about anything? Never...

I could go on, but I'd just get myself angrier.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

All the best to all our team!

Eric N.

-----Original Message-----
From: Victor B <fhoenix88 at yahoo.com>
To: deptheads at strategicon.net
Sent: Wed, Jun 9, 2010 5:58 pm
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] SoCal Smackdown (Was: Get games up ASAP!)

Socal Smackdown

This convention is not just a bunch of people off the street trying to do a convention. They have people skilled at running national cons.
Some of them have run events and tourneys at gencon. One of them used to work for privateer press. They have web developers and game designers too.
Socal smackdown has run as a privateer press sponsored convention previously featuring invitational tourneys with turnouts from the whole west coast.
They ran a large event last year. Socal smackdown 2009. Robyn told this list last year that this was coming as a full con soon.
This year they are including all types of games and making it a full convention and not just a warmachine event.
They are hosting 1 of the 16 invitational tourneys and are the only venue west of oklahoma hosting so they will get attendance. I had 2 limited run invitational tourneys in the past 4 cons and one had
attendees from mexico, canada, oregon, texas, nevada, arizona, colorado and some die hard came from florida for one of them. People invest alot of money in their decks and even more money on their miniature armies and
tons of time building and painting them. It isn't just the game it is the hobby- build, paint, play.
They also have the co-designer for Malifaux (Dan Wheeler) running demos of his game with Wyrd staff and other guests to attend and run their games are in the works.

Carly simon isn't singing "You're so vain...you probably think our con is about you".

They aren't trying to hurt us..they are trying to have their own convention. They want their space. They had 3 choices of holiday weekends and we occupy all 3 so they were going to bump heads with us regardless.
And why wouldn't they run a 4 day convention in anaheim on a holiday weekend?  Los Angeles is largest city in america and we are only drawing 1500 people in september. Plenty of gamers still sitting at home.
We can't tell people they cannot run a convention or give them conditions for their con that benefit us.
We cannot tell volunteers to choose. We cannot bully people nor dictate.
They are going to get people. 
They are going to get good volunteers and staff. They contacted me and I am sure they contacted others here too as well as some of our volunteers.
They have that new con smell. Some people will go check out the new con.
They have store support. There are 40+ stores in the area and how many support strategicon and promote strategicon? They have the strategicon haters and other stores that want to jump onboard a new convention.
Everytime someone quits our con (staff, vendor, or volunteer) they take people with them. Some of these people will rally to the new con. A new start for them and they are back in the game and the added bonus it hurts us.
They have company support. They don't have our past baggage nor history of hotel hopping and lack of parking. 
They will attract new people and drag a few away from us. The stores sponsoring them (like even the warstore dot com, advertise and promote them). 

It isn't just about what we do best or how long we have been around..... it is what Strategicon offers overall as a convention.  Special events in all departments, guests that draw people to the con, invitational and qualifier tourneys, dealers that pre-release their game at our con , rockband and our well run and supervised video game room, vip packages and meet-n-greet, seminars, movie room, demo area, pitch car and large scale miniature events, flea market and auction. 
We have all this for sept. along with our variety of gaming in all departments and the HMGS back on board (woo hoo). We are a quality con. We just have to realize we are not the only gaming convention option for people in the area labor day weekend. Doesn't matter why they are on the horizon or how many haterz are joining them....they are here and they aren't going away anytime soon. That means everything that has been said by people already---get  info on the webpage, promote now and lock in gms and volunteers now, get special events and get the info to Tanya and Eric D, and work with each other as a team. And don't metion the name of the other con.  Treat them like "he who I won't mention who's name begins with an H"  from cthulhu. Let them sweat that we are established, have a core of regulars, and they have to establish themselves knowing alot of key people are already locked into strategicon. They need to pimp themselves like a Zumba
 infomercial. They got off the porch to run with the big dogs so they will do more than just bark.. 

Let the games begin........

V

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