Building a Great Convention Part 3
So in parts one and two I talked about the need for the absolute basics
of any convention, the people who are going to run it with you and the data
with which to ensure that going forwards you’re working on fact, not
supposition. Now comes the point where
you need to look at what will get the rest of the world to the convention and
get them there every year...
This is where it becomes necessary to consider the reason why people go
to conventions in the first place.
People go to conventions to find things they can’t find at home, to
find things that they can’t find at their local games store. People won’t make the additional journey to
get to the convention if you’re only offering them things they can already do
within a short hop of where they are.
At Expo we consider this every year, as strange as it sounds, it’s not
enough to simply be the biggest games show in England, that’ll get some, but
not all, not even most... Last year we ran a Laser Tag event, the year before
that we were so preoccupied with making the move to the new, larger premises,
that we didn’t have time to do anything else (but we moved the convention to
the biggest hotel in the area, only a stones throw from the NEC), and the years
previous to those, we’ve run Living Munchkin and had live action groups running
demonstrations for people. Before then, before
we knew about having to do new things, we just provided loads of games for
people to play.
And here’s the other problem with making conventions better...
Once you’ve started doing it, you can’t stop, not even if you wanted
to, you’ve set a precedent and that precedent is now what leads you forwards,
your public will demand nothing less...
Cheerfully we have no issue with any of this, we just get on with it
and keep finding new things, but there’s something that works in our favour
when it comes to these things. When a
lot of people say they’re going to do something, they talk, but they never do.
We Do...
And because We Do, others will take our lead on this, when we ask for people
to do things, we ask because we know it’s going to be something good and they
know that we’re good for our end of things.
For any convention to succeed, that’s where the work has to go in, when
you say you’re going to do something, you have to deliver it, so it’s doubly
important to make sure that no one says anything till the deal is already done,
I can tell you about a million things that we’re planning to do at Expo, but
until we’ve actually got them secured, sealed and delivered, I won’t be saying
a thing because that would get peoples hopes up, and while we’re probably going to deliver on the
promise, we’ve built this on being sure that the promise has already been
delivered when we tell people.
So what does that have to do with coming up with new things...?
It’s difficult to keep coming up with new things, so when you ask
people what they want, listen to every suggestion, no matter how far out of the
park it is, no matter how unlikely it is that you’re going to do it, listen to
it because it might give you an idea for something that works...
Three years ago, a good friend of mine won the Cthulhu Masters
Tournament over at Gencon and when he came home, he asked me why we don’t do
something similar. I had to agree, and
on the first year that we went to the Hilton, we held the first UK Cthulhu
Masters tournament. In the aftermath, a
lot of other people interested in cthulhu took note and the following year we
had everyone from long term GM’s to line developers from the Cthulhu lines
asking to be involved. We improved the prizes, got things that most people didn’t
think we could, and we held it again, and this year, I handed the final over to
someone else, because no matter how much I wanted to do it myself, I know that
there’s a million things that I need to be doing, and so I gave it to someone else,
and the trust I showed there paid dividends when they came up with scenarios,
plans, props (full and accurate replica of the Indiana Jones Grail Diary
anyone...?) and a game that was just as good if not better than the one I would
have run...
Last year we ran the first D&D Battle Royale that has ever been run
outside of the US, we had the people in place, they got the support, and we got
the event...
Next year...?
Well, I haven’t got the promise yet, so I can’t say, but it’s going to
get bigger and better, there’s going to be other tournaments and games that you
can’t play anywhere else, and we’re going to keep finding ways to improve
things, to making Expo a place that you can do the things you can’t do anywhere
else, and we’re still listening...
So keep talking...
