No Show players up this year?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by glamcrist, Mar 3, 2016.

  1. gizmomathboy

    gizmomathboy Spellbinder

    I had about 50% attendance at my 8am games this year. Last year I had maybe 1 or 2 slots out of 8 not show.

    As @brendar pointed out I think this is partly some registration issue hangover. I don't think this was malicious double booking. I did that when I submitted events because I wasn't sure what I was gonna get (gaming the registration system in a but I fully expected to not get half of what I wanted). However, for those events that had overlap I returned those tickets or made sure that they were being used.

    I'm still gonna run my events at 8am next year (well, maybe run one at 10am so the late night folks could more easily make it). However, I had at least 2 folks that commuted to the con (because they live nearish by) make the 8am game (one was teenager).

    I trust in the con organizers to get a better registration system next year so that we either don't have this problems or they are rare.
     
  2. silas

    silas Chevalier

    There are ways to prevent no-shows and double-bookings. Obviously, not allowing the double-booking of a time-slot is critical.

    But another issue is the size of VIP games. I know that a lot of people want to play with the old guard, but games of 10+ players just don't work when run in 4 hour increments. As a DM, I can't give the necessary attention to every player if there are 12 people at the table. This also leads to situations in which the VIP games pull potential players away from non-VIP games. I recommend that everyone keep games to under 10 players, unless the game is 6-8 hours in length.
     
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  3. Kubo

    Kubo Level 0 Character

    Not to mention that the VIP events are often better situated at the convention to draw in non pre-registered players in the first place. I agree that a 10+ player game serves only as an ego trip for the VIP GM or for the merciless hawking of merchandise. (Yuck)
     
  4. sir jon

    sir jon Spellbinder

    I've had a 10 plus player game at GaryCon and I'm no VIP. Nor was it an ego trip. You don't want in on those games, don't sign up. Plenty of other options.
     
  5. mwisconsin

    mwisconsin Administrator Staff Member

    Artisanal players.
     
  6. sir jon

    sir jon Spellbinder

    Aw, don't get me started on that!
     
    mwisconsin likes this.
  7. JediSoth

    JediSoth Troubadour

    The big complaint I've heard about mega-sized games isn't the 10+ player games, it's the 10+ player games where the GM allows 5-6 extra players to join, making it a 16 player game.

    Still, personally, I don't sign up for games that big, nor do I run them. I was OK with 8 players in my Tomb of Horrors game, but that's the absolute limit of my comfort as a GM, and still above my comfort threshold as a player in a game (I'd probably make an exception for Tomb of Horrors; I mean, it's a meat grinder and you KNOW that going in).
     
  8. Reidzilla

    Reidzilla Level 0 Character

    Last year, all of my events had full tables with players asking if I would take extras. This year my events were sold out but I had missing players in EVERY event! My Saturday event almost was canceled because so few players showed up. While I did have fun, this is making me reconsider how much effort I want to put into GMing next year. I had several new adventures prepped for this Garycon. I'm not sure I'll do that again.
    There was a lot of good stuff this year but a lot more bad stuff than last year.
     
  9. Raic

    Raic Level 0 Character

    Here is a roll call of my events.

    Thursday Night - Sold Out - 1 registered player showed up - 2 walk ups - ran the event. Had a great time.
    Friday Night - Sold Out - 1 registered player showed up - no walk ups - cancelled event. Had a great time - I jumped in a Ghost Busters RP
    Saturday Night - Sold Out - All registered players showed up. Had a great time.

    My two cents for what its worth - I like the idea of not allowing registration for overlapping events. I also like the idea of charging a fee to register for events above and beyond the cost of registering for the convention itself. This is done at other conventions and I think it helps motivate players to attend events they sign up for. I also think it would cut down on mass registering for events. However, I understand this approach may not be in the spirit of Gary Con, but I have found it to be an effective policy.
     
  10. stahlnee

    stahlnee Spellbinder

    Need a way to filter out events who are ran by hawkers. Or at least a listing prior to event registration.
     
  11. EOTB

    EOTB Level 0 Character

    I think that a retooled registration system is necessary to see how much of this was due to that confusion.

    That said, Garycon is trying to get bigger. Part of getting bigger is going to be no-shows to games. While it may be impolite, I think that having an expectation that people are going to stop doing something they are having fun at in the moment, because of a game commitment made a few weeks prior, is setting oneself up for disappointment. Peoples' schedules shifting as they get into a groove with their friends is inevitable.

    If you're a DM that is fairly new to Garycon my advice would be to take the punch and roll with it. Most of the DMs I'm familiar with (non-gaming celeb DMs) have been doing it year after year to the point where they are known quantities and the opportunity to play in their games is not to be missed for any reason, if you are lucky enough to get in. They have full or nearly-full tables no matter the day or time slot. But that was because, each year, another handful of people post-play decided the experience of those games was a Garycon priority. That takes time to build up.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2016
  12. francisca

    francisca Troubadour

    You'll always be a VIP to me!
     
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  13. glamcrist

    glamcrist Footpad

    no problem!
     
  14. glamcrist

    glamcrist Footpad

    yeah, my games:
    Thursday AM, 5/6 sold, none showed
    Thursday PM, 1/6 sold, no-showed
    Friday AM, 6/6 showed
    Friday PM, 5/6 sold, one showed
    I didn't get any walk-ups though
    while I had no-shows last year, it was not nearly that high a proportion, and I did have a few walk-ups last year. mostly because i was right up front in the lobby ;)
     
    Jarlaxle likes this.
  15. gizmomathboy

    gizmomathboy Spellbinder

    You're just sucking up to @sir jon to get some of his Malort stash.
     
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  16. stahlnee

    stahlnee Spellbinder

    To Sir Jon, that would be a novel idea.
     
  17. Buttmonkey

    Buttmonkey Troubadour

    I'm sorry to hear you had such bad luck with walk-ups. I guess I've gotten really lucky and been able to fill out my tables the last couple years without any problems. Hopefully, there won't be so many no-shows next year once the registration system is fixed. It felt like no-shows were rampant this year compared to previous Gary Cons. I suspect a lot of that is due to the fact there was no easy mechanism for players to return events they decided they didn't want during preregistration.
     
  18. mwisconsin

    mwisconsin Administrator Staff Member

    As the admin for 12 tables, I can tell you that no-shows were a small problem, but walk-ups were a bigger (and happy) problem.

    At more than one point, I had to turn people away from the room, as we had 7 people+1 DM at every table in the room. I can recount that happening on 4 occasions -- so 8 hours of having 96 people at the tables. The vast majority of those tables were walk-ups.

    For the no-shows, we'd have that happen at 8am and 10pm more often than not. On one odd occasion, we had 2 no shows for a VIP multi-GP event, and one guy just standing there waiting for a seat to open up. I heartily believe that the no-shows, on those occasions, were due to general dice-throwing fatigue (perhaps also fueled by nearby friends and bars).
     
  19. gizmomathboy

    gizmomathboy Spellbinder

    @mwisconsin That's and interesting idea. Has there been thought of room stewards? For this year's layout it might have been useful for 1 person to handle the Linwood area (plus 1 specific to the board rooms cuz VIPs), 1 or 2 for the Evergreen's, and then a couple more for each of the rest I am forgetting.

    Just as a way to handle some things that come up. Like my first event the table was double booked. My event at 8am-noon, and another event at 10am to whenever. I think he just found a PRE table to use. I do believe he did sort that out with HQ.

    Not sure if there were enough volunteers for such things but throw that on the "Pile of Ideas".

    Might be more necessary as the Con grows.
     
  20. mwisconsin

    mwisconsin Administrator Staff Member

    I haven't heard it discussed, but I think it's a worthwhile idea. Plus, if we name them "Stewards", I get to cosplay as Isaac the Bartender.
     
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