Day 22 of #RPGaDay brings out an old, reliable prompt: "Rare."
I had some rare rants to fill the day, but in the spirit of positivity, I'll simply post a 23-year old flyer for a local con.
We had a pretty vibrant convention scene in eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-90's. Sure, it wasn't Origins or GenCon (except for the year Origins was in Philly), but there were plenty of options available around the state.
Of course, not everyone will get along with convention organizers, or better yet, they simply think that they could do a better job of running a con.
I was one of them, and I'm happy to say, my experiment was well-attended and broke even.
Whatcon was not my convention.
The organizers of Whatcon tired to apply the pie-in-sky desires of most gamers into the con, along with relying on only word of mouth and a few posters on store bulletin boards. No pre-reg books (a big to-do even in the dial-up internet era) meant no gauging attendance, no organized play meant no groups of gamers who travelled to cons like the Grateful Dead),and somehow he cajoled one vendor from South Jersey to venture up.
At the day of the con, despite the no-frills desires, the only folks who showed up were the GMs who got in for free.
Hey, the Paranoia game was huge and top-notch, but the rest was not to be.
The organizers were out at least a cool grand for the site and it was really the last con we saw them at as a full crew.
Still not as positive as the powers that be may want, but healthy wisdom that things are run a certain way for a reason, and we want to tilt the scales to our theories, we should start small.
(I should add my "second" attempt at a one-day con was my 40th birthday party. Open invitation to the community, a handful of games, no dealers, a $400 fire hall payment, and my wife insisted in the closing days of feeding everyone. In the end, between a few "donations to the cause" and some completely unexpected birthday gifts, I think we were only out the cost of the food.)
I had some rare rants to fill the day, but in the spirit of positivity, I'll simply post a 23-year old flyer for a local con.
Of course, not everyone will get along with convention organizers, or better yet, they simply think that they could do a better job of running a con.
I was one of them, and I'm happy to say, my experiment was well-attended and broke even.
Whatcon was not my convention.
The organizers of Whatcon tired to apply the pie-in-sky desires of most gamers into the con, along with relying on only word of mouth and a few posters on store bulletin boards. No pre-reg books (a big to-do even in the dial-up internet era) meant no gauging attendance, no organized play meant no groups of gamers who travelled to cons like the Grateful Dead),and somehow he cajoled one vendor from South Jersey to venture up.
At the day of the con, despite the no-frills desires, the only folks who showed up were the GMs who got in for free.
Hey, the Paranoia game was huge and top-notch, but the rest was not to be.
The organizers were out at least a cool grand for the site and it was really the last con we saw them at as a full crew.
Still not as positive as the powers that be may want, but healthy wisdom that things are run a certain way for a reason, and we want to tilt the scales to our theories, we should start small.
(I should add my "second" attempt at a one-day con was my 40th birthday party. Open invitation to the community, a handful of games, no dealers, a $400 fire hall payment, and my wife insisted in the closing days of feeding everyone. In the end, between a few "donations to the cause" and some completely unexpected birthday gifts, I think we were only out the cost of the food.)
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