My daughter and I played this very game at gencon in 2010! We enjoyed it very much and have our DGS rings as cool souvenirs. Not sure if you were the gm but thanks none the less. Morgan
There were a ton of games I wanted to get into this year. Unfortunately, several (The ACK games, Tegel Manor, etc.) conflicted with my own games I did manage to get into Serenity (had a great time last year with this, and Margaret Weiss even stopped by to say hi) Savage Worlds Hyperborea on Saturday night Avenadia on Sunday and Chad's (Red Wizard) DC Heroes game. I can't miss that--I am a huge DC comics fanboy. I'm sure I will fit in some other games as well
Speaking as an extremely selfish fellow forum member who blew his entire stock of GPs on big ticket items and hence has a lot of free time (and some really *great* events still open but regretfully left on the table): More GPs sounds good to me!
I encourage all of you to sit tight and not pull your events. There are a large number of people that walk-in to Gary Con and will be looking for these great games to play. At other conventions (including GenCon) I never pre-reg for anything. I just show up, socialize and hope to find games to play. I think one of the good things about Gary Con is the ability to walk-in and play either in "scheduled" events or open gaming area. I will probably run pick-up games at Gary Con just to help keep that spirit alive. Chris and I talked and we are considering printing tickets for all open games when pre-reg closes. Then we could offer tickets on-site the day before or day of. This means more work on the staff and may not be logistically feasible. Does this seem like a good idea to help ensure people know about and get to play in more games?
I'm with this guy. I burned all 30 points on 4 events (that 12 and 8 pointer hurt). I'd pickup a couple other games in a heartbeat if I had the points. Even if we don't get extra points, I'll be looking for games.
I would not think of pulling my events. I know that most gamers only realize that race as class is desirable after losing three or four half Orc bards. By Saturday morning they will be begging to get into my Basic red box games to play as an elf. At least that is what I am telling myself
Howdy Luke, From a material-intensive referee perspective I'd much rather know if I have a viable number of players before hauling my stuff to the con. For example, the sand table game I have set up has one ticket purchased (Is the Pub Next Door gathering that night?). That is a lot of cost and effort to bring a sand table to the con if no one signs up. Also, while it could be considered flattering to have one's games worth 9 GPs, I'd rather have them worth 3 GPs and sold out! I think that is more trouble than it is worth. In previous years, having the list of events posted to the wall with their status and table location was perfect. I also liked the event specific sign up sheets at the table with the pre-reg players listed and numbered blanks for walk-ons. As far as the GP system goes, I think tiered values may be more successful at distributing players through all levels of demand. Maybe in the future VIP events could cost one gold, popular events cost one silver, and all other events one copper. Pre-reg folks get 2 gold, 4 silver, 6 coppers (that is 12 potential events in roughly 3 full days of gaming - surely enough and if not then open gaming will have to fill the insatiable gaming lust). In this apples and oranges system registrants can't blow their purse on three events and then be unable to sign on to other events due to lack of funds as they can in a single tiered system. Futures Bright, Paul
Okay, guess I'll throw my .02 cents in. I've done some simple number crunching & here's what I have come up with; 81 total convention hours for GC IV. (9:00am Thursday thru 6:00pm Sunday.) -24 sleep time. (avg. 8 hours per night, YEAH, RIGHT!) 54 hours remaining 20.5 The avg. amount of hours a convention go'er receives for 30 Garycon Points. (1068 current total event points with 184 current events listed. Avg. event time: 4 hours.) 33.5 convention hours remaining per attendee Now, I have not put in any time for eating, sight seeing, or anything else, but 33.5 hours is a whole bunch of time not accounted for. Also, I think it is a BIG mistake not having a single day badge/pass each day of the convention. (And advertise it.) As Luke stated earlier there are a lot of walk-ins at Garycon. Making Sunday free is a really sweet idea, but I think $15.00 a day for Thursday thru Saturday,each day, ( & maybe $5.00 on Sunday) is a fair price & allows people that can't afford the full $40.00 for the entire convention another option. ( And for those that don't/won't do the math that's $50.00 for all four days which may encourage them to register early next time.) I know if I walked up to the registration desk on openning day, expecting to purchase a single day pass & someone told me, "$40.00 please." I'd be like "WHAT THE %#*@!!" "But Sir, that's for all four days." "Fine, but I' am only going to be here today & maybe tomorrow." I'am sorry sir, the price is still $40.00 dollars." "I' am sorry too. MAYBE I'll be back next year when you have a single day pass." Enough grumbling for one evening............. that felt like a nickels worth.
I couldn't agree more with what's been said. Another thought would be to give a walk-in 'x' amout of copper pieces & offer additional gold, silver & copper pieces for sale at the registration desk to help offset other costs & to help fill open events. At the end of the event the DM would turn in their sign up sheet & pay for the event in the Garycon pieces they have collected. (No ticky, no laundry.)
Like Keeper, I know some folks who would like to show up for one day (perhaps for the auction) and wouldn't appreciate not having the option of a one-day pass. My two coppers.
Maybe $20 for a full single day pass but make it only $10 after 5pm for those who might drop in just for the evening? I would think these could only be purchased on the day for which they are designated and, should it come to it, only if capacity of the space allows (so no guarantees!).
First, I would like to say most emphatically, I don't believe there is a problem yet. There are perceived problems, due to the limited information available (all of 4 days worth of pre-reg data). I do like to address these perceived issues, mainly because it lets our attendees know what we were thinking as well as giving us more food for thought for this year and future year's events. A valid concern. Unfortunately, the numbers show that a 9pt event is much more likely to sell out than a 3pt event. Only 1 event costing 3pts or less has sold out, and that's a niche event (youth only). What I "hoped" would occur is that by making events less costly, it would drive attendance to them. Unfortunately, if you look back at various posters on this thread, that did not happen. The more expensive events were still chosen immediately and exclusively, as they were considered harder to get in to and more desirable. Many consider the inexpensive events easier to walk on to, I believe, and in some cases, lower cost may be associated with lower quality. The biggest reason this hasn't been done previously, is the added effort and volunteer hours required--trust me when I say it's something we will only do if we feel it will definitely benefit the show. That being said, the biggest benefit is to direct traffic to events that have space. When a list of events with open seats is posted, where do the players go? They go to the VIP events first, hoping to get in ("Look, Jim Ward's event still has 2 seats, let's go!"). This results in a dozen people hovering around that event hoping to get a seat. In the meantime, other tables with poor attendance get canceled (leaving less options for those players once they realize they can't get into Jim's event). By issuing tickets, we're guaranteeing space in an event. When you're at that ticket counter, you can see exactly which event you'll get into. This system also gives walk-ins more opportunity to play, without having to run to 5 tables in each slot trying to find a seat. It also gives DMs more information. At the start of the show, you had 4 unsold tickets, but 2 hours before your event, you check and now have no unsold tickets. Rather than have DMs hoping players will stop by, they should have that information further in advance. Yes, we'd all love to have that information in pre-reg, but that's not always possible. If you recall, we had just this system last year. You could register for one VIP event (gold), 3 regular events (silver), and 3 special events (copper). The copper events were all high capacity events or those with variable DMing cadres (our tournament). We could have just tweaked that system this year, but we had lots of attendees express their desire to play in more VIP events (the limit of 1 wasn't very popular). The variable point system was born to give that flexibility to all attendees (gold events costing 12, silver costing 9, and copper costing 6). The hope was that players who only wanted VIP events would happily snag 2 of them and then look to pick-up games, whereas the players who wanted to play all weekend would avoid the VIP events. This system hoped to allow for more flexibility within a tier, as certain days/times are less popular (a silver event at 8am on Sunday would definitely be less popular than the same event at 2pm on Saturday), and also allowed for popular events to incrementally advance towards the next level (so a popular copper event/DM might be 7pts next year, instead of 6). We have already considered going back to that system for next year, and continuing to use and expanding the Coin system as you suggest (great minds think alike). Though I expect attendees who don't care about Gold events will be invariably asking the question, "can I get 10 silvers for my gold?"
I also wonder how many unique individuals have pre-reg for events so far, compared to the amount of pre-registrations last year. I get the feeling that overall fewer people pre-reg for events than one might think and that even among the pre-reg segment, many have not done so yet.
Of course everyone would rather have their events full for low points than sparse for high points, but on the flip side, removing the scaled points would defeat the purpose of making sure the popular events get spread out (instead of going to just a few quick people, which is what would happen if everything was 3 pts). However, I agree completely about the material-heavy games. There aren't many events that involve a lot of transport, but for the small handful that do, we need a plan to make sure beforehand that it's worth their effort. Maybe cheaper from the beginning, maybe a dramatic price cut after a short time. But showing up and hoping for walk-ups is definitely a different proposition for someone whose material load is a binder vs someone who's filling a car, paying to ship huge boxes, or lugging 2 extra suitcases. In the same vein as your situation, I'm baffled at the lack of registration for Le Mans this year. It's been very popular in the past. Are people just assuming that with 24 slots, walk-up won't be a problem? Has Mike promised slots or conducted sign-ups 'off-board'? Dunno. But that's another event with a lot of stuff to tote. (btw, yes, no final word has been announced, but last heard, the Next Door Pub deal was tentatively planned for 4-9 Thursday)
I think this issue needs to be distilled somewhat. What if I were to add a single day badge and make it $40? Somehow, I don't think that's what you're asking for. Now, we can really address the issue, which isn't the lack of a single day badge, but rather the cost associated with coming for a single day, correct? I believe that the $20 badge for Saturday is reasonable and fair. Our show is very inexpensive already for what we offer and throwing in Sunday for free is a bonus. If first-time attendees want to come check us out, that's definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, it's not possible at this time to pre-reg for a one day badge (and it hasn't been in prior years either), though we can consider this for future upgrades. And for the Thursday/Friday single day attendees, I've already offered to refund those attendees if they leave early. So please help me understand what issue still remains?
Speaking for myself and and least one other volunteer, I specifically refrained from pre-registering for a whole slew of events in order to more likely be available if needed for "Con business-type stuff," aka, HELP! There are several events for which I didn't register, but would love to play in should the proverbial "fort" prove to be adequately "held down" at the time. I loved the idea of the Monty Python event and I've no doubt it would be enormously entertaining. In that particular case, especially, let's pause and ask ourselves, at a nerd-fest like this, how is a single Monty Python(!) game going to manage to go unfilled? Nay, I say. Or, rather, Ni! Mr. Stormburg's games are flat-out FASCINATING to behold - they are gamer MAGNETS, and visual magnets from across a room as well. Couldn't imagine participation being an issue there, either. ((And in at LEAST both of the above cases, I'd be happy to be "pulled" over to fill a slot, should I be able to do so!)) There are several others which, as time and/or opportunity allow, would be great to play in. On another note, I'm all about making the volunteers processes as streamlined and efficient as possible - as I'm sure anyone waiting for one to become available to help them would as well, so if there was a way, even, to make someone's unused (such as in my case) GP available to use/spend on site for empty slots, that'd be great, but I'm running late getting my arse to my day job, so I'll have to leave the logistics to others for now!
MY BAD!!! :? (as light bulb clicks on). Quote: While it is true that most conventions still have 1-day badge, in many instances, it can be as high as 50% of the full badge price. A 1-day badge for Gen Con 2012 is $50 on-site. That's insane. Based upon our registration information from last year, about 80% of our 1-day badges were for Saturday. We considered having a 1-day badge again this year, for $20, but decided to keep it simple. What we didn't consider were the small number of attendees who were only coming in for Thursday or Friday (we hoped by giving them a full badge, it would encourage them to return). That being said, we're happy to take care of this issue on an individual basis. If you're only coming for Thursday or Friday, see one of our staff at the show and we can work something out. End quote: I forgot you already responded to this in a different post. Sorry Chris.
Does anyone know if there are more events offered this year than last? I don't have the old catalog, so I can't check. When I saw the number of events my group was planning to offer, I cut the games I was running from 5 to 3. We want to make sure we have full tables. Like others have said though, I think by convention time, a lot of these games are going to fill up, and there will be a lot of walk-ons. I am not planning on pulling any games. In my opinion, one day badges are nice for the attendees, but can be a real problem for the people running the convention. I can see a lot of logistical issues with this. GaryCon is a whole lot cheaper than GenCon (and a better convention I think), although I do understand that some young people have problems scraping together the cash. I didn't have any problems last year with games not being full. At GenCon last year, my group was put into the JW Marriott for all our games. Because there are now TWO Marriott hotels within 6 blocks of each other, it created chaos: gamers arrived late, or not at all. Everyone was lost. I also had an episode where a group of friends signed up for my Call of Cthulhu game which sold out immediately. I had people emailing me about getting into the game for a month before the convention. Five minutes before the game started, these six guys turned in their tickets and went out to the bars, leaving me with an empty table. That was lame for me and for others who were trying to get into the game (CoC games are a premium at GenCon). None of that stuff happens at GaryCon
I like this approach. It allows everyone a shot at the VIP events. I also have no problem with having all my events copper. I prefer filled tables. It allows me more people to give swag too MoT
