Wednesday 30 December 2015

And sometimes you just need to build a lair...


And of things I got for christmas, one of them was a couple of shelves that fit rather nicely on top of my existing desk (not so much a desk as a repurposed kitchen table), to increase the amount of available space whilst leaving me easy access to everything else that I need.

Top shelf for monitor, speakers, webcam, and the case for whatever I'm watching at the time, below the speakers is the batman figure that holds my to do list and inbetween the drawers and the DVD case is a bone compass my brother brought me back from his many travels.

Middle shelf for functional things, inks (all the different colours and the reserve jar for all the excess mixed up, dice (smaller than the enormous paperweights on the lower section), batteries, pads, tablet, and whatever I'm presently reviewing.

Lower section for storage,a multibox set tiny wife got me and then a container for all the other things, so grip toys, back scratchers, and other such things.

In the front of the desk, left to right, bowl of christmas munchies, keyboard upon which the million was done (you can see some of the letters have been rubbed clean off), map for the Hungry ocean that I'm working on, and a copy of the paranoia game for something I'm doing for a friend....

Where do all of you do your work?

Monday 7 December 2015

Dragonmeet 2015 – An organisers perspective


So we’re done, made it home, had a day to reflect on things that went right, things that went wrong, and how we’re going to improve all of them.  As with all things, you never know just how much is going to occur till you’re there and it’s occurring, but this year has certainly had its share of ups and downs, particularly after the pressure of having a successful first year and the need to keep that up for the second year.

We’ll start with what went wrong…

Three traders didn’t make it, one had an absolutely unimpeachable reason (looking at you here Martin), one had a reason, but it didn’t really hold water in the cold light of day, and one didn’t even bother to make an excuse, just didn’t turn up… Not much you can do with that, but the one that had the most reason also had the most grace, briefing us well in advance that there might be a problem and letting us making alternative plans if the worst was to come to pass.  It’s the sort of thing you rely on in people, and those that do right by us, we’ll do right by in return...

Six GMs didn’t make it to their slots, and we’ll never have to worry about them at Dragonmeet again…

Two volunteers didn’t make it to their shifts, and we’ll never have to worry about them at Dragonmeet again…

Harsh?

Not really, if someone has let you down once without reason, not even after the event, they’ll quite likely do it again, and of the ones that didn’t make it, three of them came to the Con to get their free entrance and then didn’t show up to cover their freebie…

Those we’ll never have to worry about at any convention I run again…

People not turning up I can live with, just tell me, I’m good with it, I know what I’m up against, and I can take the sheet down before six people sign up on it.  I don’t have to sit down at a table with six eager faces and let them know that I’m not the person who’s turned up to give them an excellent game that evening, but instead the person who trusted someone else to turn up and give them an excellent game…

And I really don’t like doing that, particularly at the end of the day when I can’t draft anyone else in to cover, except those Legends like Sonya Dunbar who abandoned her player slot and filled in at zero notice without being asked, I do notice when people do these things for me, I just don’t always get time to say on the day…

All of the tournaments were late or completely absent, and that’s unacceptable, it changes the landscape of the convention significantly and when there’s nothing to replace because everyone didn’t turn up, it’s a hell of a problem, but the more the years go by, the more people want to come along, the dynamic changes and people let you down less…

Or so the theory goes…

The last thing that could have been better, the lack of space, last year we had 47 games per slot and we were overcrowded, but we had (just) enough games to cover the demand.  This year we had around 30 games per slot and we had a lot of people asking where did all the games go…

Well, there’s no answering that one, we had limited space, and a lot of traders wanted space, if we’d known then what we know now, we’d have had a whole extra room of games in there, but that’s life.  As with all conventions, it’s a balancing act, without the traders, people can’t buy anything, without the games, people can’t play anything, you need both to make a good convention, and when the venue isn’t big enough to account for how fast the con has grown, you have to make choices.

Next year will be better, and I’ll come to that in a while.

So what went right?

Spacing…

We widened the aisles and narrowed the pitches a little, net result of having more traders in the same space, but also having more space for people to move around.  There’s nothing worse than not being able to take your time browsing the traders without being bumped into every three seconds, and the results were noticed by all.  Traders were fine even with less space, attendees were happy with the extra room, and so even with a few hundred more people at the con, everything was a lot more relaxed.

Seminars…

Combination of talks on various things and companies giving sneak peeks at the future.  Interestingly enough, it was the sneak peeks that got more interest when I would have wagered good money on it being the other way around.  A difference between Dragonmeet and Expo for sure, but we’ve got the data on how many attended and which ones engaged most with the audience, so when It comes to next year, we know where we’re going…

Games…

With the lack of space this year, I had to make a difficult choice, there are GM’s who turn up for me every year, every con, always do well and always sell out.  They are the best there is at what they do, and the con wouldn’t work half as well without them.

Imagine how it felt when I had to ask more than eight of them to only run one slot this year because I need to build the GM base for next year…

However, every one of them understood, and so I got sixty games from sixty different GMs, all of whom will come back for next year, many of whom will volunteer two slots because they liked it so much…

Clubs and groups…

Every year, I get several clubs coming along, this year they all pulled out the stops to make sure the con went well. So in no order at all, The Pathfinder society, The London Indies, RP Haven, Shadow Warriors, The Phoenix games club, and Playtest UK.  Dragonmeet doesn’t run without you guys, never forget that.

As the con grows, it becomes harder to name and praise all those who give over and above what they said they would, but when you get to forty five names on the list, you start to think it’s looking more like a boarding pass than a sincere thanks, so I’m doing it a little different this year and sending individual notes to people (tomorrow, when I've got time to type them all up :) )

Last of all on the list of things that went well…

The convention team…

I’ve been working conventions for years, sometimes you get good teams that all work together, sometimes you get teams that fight each other every step of the way, and sometimes you get the teams where there’s workers and shirkers in (un)equal amounts.  I think we’re where we need to be in terms of running the con now, we know what works and what doesn’t, all we need is the feedback to make it not just good, but the best…

So…

Talk to us, let us know what worked and what didn’t. Don’t hold back on it, if you hated something, I’d rather know now than book it next year because I walked past in the one minute where it was awesome, but I also want to know what was actually awesome, because I’ll get more of it…


And I’ll see you all next year… 

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Board game volunteers needed at Dragonmeet

A few days till Dragonmeet and several of the people who were going to be helping us there have done the last minute drop...

While we can certainly put them on the list as people we don't ask for help ever again, it gives us the invariable issue that we're short on people for an important area of the convention, so in a break from normal protocol, I'm making a very short notice request for assistance at Dragonmeet, I'm needing people who are willing to run four hour slots in a public area for board games, those games will be 7 Wonders Duel, Celestia, Colt Express, Dice City, Code Names, Flick'em up, Mafia De Cuba, Ticket to Ride, and Time Stories. 

Perks of the job are that we'll give you free entry to the convention and £25 as a thanks for helping us out at such short notice. Anyone who's interested in the job, I'm needing morning and afternoon shifts, so 09:30 in the morning till 13:30 in the afternoon and then 13:30 in the afternoon till 17:30 in the afternoon.

Anyone interested, mail me directly or reply to this post with your details and I'll be in touch.

Tuesday 1 December 2015

On the subject of troublesome kickstarters....

From the last few days, I've found that there's more than a few people who've been burned by Kickstarters, and that my own experience with them has been far better than many of you out there.

My consideration that perhaps Ken Whitman was an isolated incident is now being challenged on a number of levels, and I think it's time to do something about it, because I've got loads of things from Kickstarter and I've only been burned once, and even that once made me think about things more carefully, which led me to the conclusion that if we had forewarning, we wouldn't get burned as often as some have been...

What if there was a place to name and shame rogue kickstarters?  Not just the ones you personally have been burned with, but also a place to check up on other people who've been running kickstarters to see if they've got prior form, failed on previous kickstarters, and most importantly, see if they've resurfaced under a different name (see Ken/Walt/D20) to try again?

So if there's a kickstarter that's not doing well, or that's not delivering what it should, there'll be a place to leave warnings for others to see what's going on.  I'm not talking about the kickstarters where it's two weeks late and the project creator is on every day apologising and keeping people updated on what's going on, but the one's that have gone into comms blackout and the creator is on the run.

So the question is to the world at large, how useful would such a site be?