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I was just checking the intarwebs and noticed that Florida really doesn't have it's own gaming conventions any longer.
Given that anyone who wanted to do this should start out small and granted needed to reach out to all the LFGS's in the area. How I wonder hard it is something like this to pull off.
Has anyone written up a "How to" on this subject? I'm not really interested in becoming a GenCon south, I'm just sort of interested in what it would be like to be a small regional event.
(I'm not really ready to make this plunge yet, I just started to wonder.)
Well, first of all, no matter how small it is, it is a group effort - there is no way you can do that on your own. Organize a few like-minded individuals (I would recommend no more than five for the core team).
You would need rooms for this - a school could serve well. Don´t try to organize it at home. Of course, renting rooms is costly, so you will need to calculate the thing. How many gamers might attend, and how much are they willing to spend? If you find rooms, what are the regulations of the place? Who can be called in an emergency? Where do you find necessities like cleaning implements and - toilet paper (don´t laugh, its crucial.)
Perhaps start with doing it on a saturday only - organizing sleeping places can be a real nightmare. Who carries the financial risks if the thing foes belly up? Do you need some special insurance for that kind of event?
Next, you probably need some food and drink - even if only some basics, like coffee and sweets. Are there any regulations on reselling that kind of stuff?
Gamemasters are of course crucial - don´t plan with you and your fellow team members being the GMs. It just won´t work out. Try to get ahold of folks offering game rounds early. Then, you have to organize a timetable for the game rounds. If you got any table top/miniature gamers in the mix, they need a LOT of space.
Is there any FLGS that might want to sell stuff there? That draws attention, but needs more space.
You need some more helpers for all kind of jobs, like collecting entrance fees, manning an information desk, serving coffee, collecting trash - gamers produce an inordinate amount of trash. You are the supervisor of it all, and you will be quite busy all the time. Expect to improvise a lot.
After the thing, you will have to clean the place (beware of the toilets), and see that nothing is left there. Especially the trash.
Just a few ideas from my own experience with organizing LARPs and helping at a few P&P conventions.
Stefan
Has anyone written up a "How to" on this subject? I'm not really interested in becoming a GenCon south, I'm just sort of interested in what it would be like to be a small regional event.
You might want to contact a poster over on the Reaper Mini forums known as Rastl. Here's her blog link: http://rastl.vox.com/
She did a small con up in Wisconsin (RastlCon), and might have some good tips for you.
My wife and I are gearing up to run our second small Con here in central Maine.
There are really only 3 people who plan the thing: My wife, myself, and a friend of ours. If we had more than that and we know nothing would really get done. Try to line up a good graphic designer do do your website and promotional materials. Fortunately my wife is a professional graphic designer and marketer so we have that covered.
For your first con keep things small at first and consider the focus of your con (I will assume that you want to run an RPG/game con). Keep this focus in mind during all your planning. It is easy to loose sight of this.
The first thing to do is figure out how long you want the con to be. I would recomend no more than one or two days to start. Preferably over a weekend with a holiday attached. We do ours over Martin Luther King weekend that way people who travel have that Monday to get home and rest (and give the planners & volunteers a day to recouperate as well).
Once you've figured out how long it's going to be then you have to find a venue. A school would work, as was mentioned above, but you will prabably only be able to get part of it and probably not for multiple days unless you or someone you know is on staff. You can also look at event centers, convention centers as well as town or city recreation centers. We do ours at a local hotel that has a small convention center. They do lots of wedding receptions and are used to large amounts of people. They also give people attending the Con a small discount on any rooms they get for the weekend.
You will have to check on the Venue's policy about food and beverage. Some places will let you have booze, others won't. Some might requre that they be the only ones to sell food as part of the contract. Getting a venue may also require some upfront payment so be prepared for this. Fortunately we have a good relationship with our venue so they let us pay for the use of the place afterwards with the money we made from the con.
If you want to have movies or classes make sure there are spaces available for this and think about how you will get any audio/video equipment. We have some friends that work in the AV department of the local university that we utilize on this end of things.
Also see what their capacity is for tables and people. You'll need to figure out how you want the game room organized to keep things simple and straight forward. Do they have round tables or square tables? Our venue has both so we have round tables around the perimeter of the game room for RPG's and bord games. We have two large suare tables in the middle for the wargames and miniautures. We put the minies guys right in the middle in front of the entrance to give anyone that enters something to look at imediately as they get into the room.
Once you have a venue and a schedule you will need to get materials out to the public so they know it will be happening. You will need a website that will need to be updated regularly and you will need fliers and posters designed and printed and put up.
We found a great site called Warhorn.net that is an event manager for cons and will help you set up online registration and payment.
Now you NEED to advertise for GM's. A game con is nothing without them. I would sudjest creating an online form linked from your website so that will let people submit events that you can then schedule.
You'll have to decide when you want to open up registration to the public and how much you want to charge
You'll also have to figure out any programing you want to have. Last year we had members of the SCA do some demonstrations through out the day as well as some live steel combat groups. We also had some Vode from the Mandalorian Mercs trotting around in costume (we had a great picture of a 12 year-old fleecing one of the mercs at poker).
That's all I got for you. If you have questions my wife will prabably be better able to field them since the thing really is her show. You can reach her at: info@snowconmaine.com
You may also want to contact some of the hosts at the Fear the Boot podcast (www.feartheboot.com). They also do a small local con and might have some good ideas for you.
Yes, it's hard work! I was involved for years in a convention where we had dealers, guests, gaming, etc. In brief:
decide your target size (10 guests? 50? 100? 1000? more?)
determine how many game masters you can get (can you support all these guests in other words)
find a venue (hotel? someone's home? something in between?)
do you want a website? who will host? how much will it cost?
figure out your costs for facility plus staff expenses plus GM perks, etc (here's where reading these other threads will help you)
Decide if you can do it.
If you can, form a convention committee and get started.
Never advertise before you're solid on the venue and the commitment from the folks who will join you.
My suggestion - take a leaf from the ENWorld playbook. Host a gameday in a house or small space where you can run 2-5 game simultaneously. Recruit GMs and try to run a gameday. If you can get through that, then consider going larger.
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Thanks for the replies. This is something that I'm mulling over so I don't really have any rolling at the moment. I like the idea of a gameday situation. I wouldn't want to try and do more than 100 to start.
Ill have to think this over. I really would want to go into something like this badly. I'd rather do something small, inexpensive and pulled off well than something large, cheap and shoddy.
Oh yeah. I forgot about venders. Figure out if you want to charge them for space. Make sure you have space for them if you're going to have them.
Make sure to put something together that you can either give or send to them for information. This should include dates and times of the event and some place for them to tell you how much room they are going to need for their warez. Some venders may only need a half table. Some may need two or three depending on what they are selling.