Adepticon has a huge PP presence. I'd like to see that at BOLScon next year. Demo game booths, awesome freaking swag, and wayyyyyy more events!
Printable View
Adepticon has a huge PP presence. I'd like to see that at BOLScon next year. Demo game booths, awesome freaking swag, and wayyyyyy more events!
Sadly, we tried very hard to get swag from PP, but they said the Adepticon thing was a one time deal and wouldn't give us the same...Quote:
Originally Posted by Caldera02
If WarGamesCon gets huge, PP will have no choice but to kick in some swag. All we have to do is be dedicated to making it the biggest it can be.
There was a great showing from the Warmachine group this year-- too bad they were in a side room where it was hard to see if you were just walking by.
but adepticon is huge. And ben could run demo games because he is a PG, but he has to run the events. The swag also go with the size, and this year they were doing a special push to get people involved in their game. I doubt you will see the same swag next year at adepticon.
I know I want to focus on helping the PP systems have more of a presence and to be a money maker for the con. That will go a long way with being in the main room.
Truth is they are going to cons with thousands of attendees not small cons/tournaments. Our goal should be boosting attendance.
If you guys want more of a Privateer Presence, seriously get people to sign up early and commit to the tournament. Talk to the people who play Warmachine and Hordes and tell them to sign up and pay right away. The more people we know ahead of time and committed the better we can be prepared and the more we can leverage barging wise with the vendor. We had a total of 10 people the week before the convention and all of a sudden we had an influx of 32 people.
We can't call up Privateer and go hey guys, we have 10 people coming to our event at Wargames con can you send us free stuff or merchandise to help support the event. They look at it from a business stand point and it doesn't make sense. Now if we have 32 people sign up and we are 6 weeks out we now have a different story. We can say we are expecting a influx of 15 to 20 more people than Privateer is willing to do help out in catching net new customers from other events because their event is healthy as well.
So in short, sign up early, talk up the event and get more people to come. Create leverage for us to use with the vendors and you can get bigger presence.
More momentum the community creates the bigger it gets.
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkwynn
Why would you schedule more events for 10 people?
From the point of view of a new player, I wouldn't have signed up for wargamescon if locals hadn't been talking about it at dlair.
- I wasn't able to find detailed information about the WM/H events on the site. No schedule with actual times, no link to rules, nothing but the registration links.
- It was announced as a qualifier for warmachine weekend just a few days before the actual con. Chances are this is why you had the influx of people (and even then I saw complaints on other forums about how it wasn't fair that a 35pt steamroller was a qualifier, since all of the others were 50pt).
Basically, I'm saying that clear information in advance would help people commit earlier to going to the con.
That should be fixed now that Ben has one under his belt and most of the work is finished and a schdule is already produced.Quote:
Originally Posted by cody
point one will be taken care of next year.Quote:
Originally Posted by cody
point 2: Boo hoo. Almost every masters event Ive seen online has the masters at 50 pts, but the qualifiers are 35 pts the days before. Whatever, they can cry me a river. (that isnt to you cody, just the *****es on the forums)
Yeah, I don't think the 35 vs 50 point thing is a big deal, but finding out the day before the con started that it was a qualifier is. Not sure how that got negotiated, but a post on the main PP forums several weeks in advance that it was a WMW qualifier probably would have brought in more pre-reg.
Just to make it clear my intention is to be helpful, not complain, if there's anything I can do to help out next year, either on the website or at the con, I'd be happy to.
Except it literally happened a day before the con that they said it could be a qualifier. It was an 11th hour thing that Ben worked out to get more numbers...Quote:
Originally Posted by cody
Have a little more faith cody
That is true. I felt like a red-headed stepchild when I first saw the room. However, I got over it. While it would have been nice to be in the same area as the Warhammer players, I kind of liked having a room all to ourselves. Perhaps some larger signage to indicate where the Warmachine/Hordes players are would be helpful for next year.Quote:
Originally Posted by RealGenius
If next year's Steamroller is a qualifier as well, I think you'll see more people pre-register.
I agree about larger signage. Also there are those of us who are judging during the day that would totally love to do stuff in the early evening.
Everyone is talking about how Warmachine was off in it's own room and how weird that was... But at Adepticon, which is what this thread was comparing WGC to, the Warmachine room was halfway across the hotel from the 40k room. We were off in a totally different part of the building and you had to come hunt down the Warmachine room.
Having done that experience, I honestly prefer it. Ask anyone who went this year, the vibe in the Warmachine room was mellow and fun. The 40k room was full of tension and frustration that you could cut with a knife. Even during the Hardcore on Friday (7 minute turns at 50 points) the room still felt chill compared to everything going on in 40k. On top of that, on Saturday at WGC our turn out matched the Friday at Adepticon. Our Team Tournament wasn't as large, but that will grow as the game continues to grow. It helped that there was a championship round on Sunday that any tournament you played in qualified you for. Gave the smaller tournies (Hardcore/Mangled Metal/Tier/Team) an extra incentive and drove people to play in them.
Oh, and the 24-hour gaming was AWESOME. They had press gangers running the whole weekend and tournaments over night Friday and Saturday. You got tickets for playing pick up games, driving towards swag you could buy at the end. This was stuff like the PP dice, template packs, and a few art prints that were sweet looking. Frank played enough games to get a beautiful Centurion print. Again, just another incentive to keep playing. It also meant that anyone who was mainly there for another game could come and get some Warmachine/Hordes games in. We were also heavily rewarded ticket wise for getting new players into the game.
The biggest thing they did as far as presence (swag aside) was have demo stands right outside the 40k room. That is something we should change about next year. Take up a table or three and do demos of alternative games (Mantic/PP/Spartan/etc). That was where the post-game foot traffic was and it helped the visibility.
I think we could setup a similar atmosphere to Adepticon next year, but we need bodies. The problem we would have is that everyone who was local was playing. Ben alone couldn't run all the events I talked about... at Adepticon there were at least 6 press gangers running the show in shifts and a few more doing demos the whole weekend. Because we needed bodies to fill out the tournament numbers this year, we weren't going to be able to pull that off. The more WM/H grows, the more likely it will be we can generate the atmosphere, but we have to make an effort and plan well in advance.
Now... who has time to do that given, ya know, lives and stuff?
I will be more than willing to help next year. I was brand new this year, but by next year I should have plenty of games under my belt, for game knowledge.
There was an alternate game table in front of the 40K area, but lets be honest. How much time do people have to mill about at WGC? most people arent used to the 7 game sechdule and are in super 40K mode. That sort of stuff works at a huge event like Adepticon because you will have a much larger segment of open gamers just wandering around looking for a pick up.
Im not saying its a bad idea, I dont think it will fly at our scale. We need to focus on making WGC a destination con first to get enough people to max out and then you will see the ammount of wanderers increase with that.
My idea for next year is:
More/Better terrain
All rules and expectations posted on the website
Primer scenarios on the website
Have Ben work on making it a qualifier for Warhammer Weekend again (that will make it a destination)
Getting the word out early
THe more people know, they more they can plan. If they know that we have had increasing numbers, then they would be more apt to come down here. If we have more early registration, its easier to negatiate with JWolf for money to go towards prize support (lets be realistic, 40K pays the bills and its up to US to make WM/H more attractive to get a larger slice of the pie) And if the people at Privateer Press see that we are indeed a legit tournament, then more interesting swag will flow our way.
I'd be interested in helping PP presence if another body would do any good. I'll be back in February, just lemme know.
I agree here Angel. Wolf and I talked about this last week and we want Warmachine to grow and we are going to start put terrain builders dedicated to Warmachine problem is even though we play the game we are not adept in running it by ourselves. We need people's help and people from the community who can help champion Warmachine. We are willing to support it and make i grow but we need the help of the community to make Warmachine bigger and better.More people willing to help with the small things the better the event can be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mustakrakish
You'd think PP would have some sort of person locally who could champion their cause... hmmm...Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkwynn
You think ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by RealGenius
I was told back in January to keep it "nice and simple," which I took to mean not particularly huge. With the amount the local community has grown by recently I thought Austin and its nearby surroundings would be enough to satisfy that, but no one pre-registered and we had no-shows from a lot of people I was expecting to see. This was also the reason my initial plans for a 50 point Steamroller were downsized to 35. I was a little shocked when I was told the Warmachine room would accommodate 54 people.
In hindsight, here are some things I wish I had done differently.
Gotten WM Weekend qualifier status sooner. I didn't think the event would be big enough, but with numbers looking grim I took a shot and luckily it paid off.
This is the biggest one. Checked the WARGames con site to make sure the event information had been posted. I never went there because I didn't need a ticket. I know that might sound pretty short-sighted, but there was a thread that appeared in the BoLS lounge asking for more specifics about it so I thought that person must have gotten that information from the site. That person turned out to be a local who's forum name I didn't recognize and had gotten the information firsthand. The lounge seems to be down right now though otherwise I'd link it :( Edit: here it is:http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.ne...ad.php?t=14167
Written a BoLS article specifically about it. Simon of PP said the reason why he never tweeted/forum posted/ otherwise promoted it through the Privateer site was because all the info about it was written in association to stuff also promoting Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. He said he couldn't do anything that might also promote another company's system. I just wish I'd known that 6 months ago. He told me this in person at Comicon. I don't think it was off the record but I'm extremely cautious about saying anything that might be construed as mud-slinging. So... Simon is great!
Tried to get other PP forum users to bump the posts I made about it which, aside from the last one that you guys did help me with, all dropped out of sight like rocks in a muddy pond.
Recruited people to help me make PP specific terrain. I spent a large part of two months and easily $300 bucks on the stuff I made myself. And I only finished two tables.
Otherwise Larry and John were on PP from the beginning trying to get Adepticon level support but that never happened. If they hadn't fought as hard as they did, we might not have even gotten trophies, let alone uncut card sheets, signed rulebooks, and those cool dice a lot of you got on Friday.
Anyway this is all filed away for next year. I plan on repeating the 30 minute Mangled Metal next year for sure as it seemed to be the most popular. I also want to do a team Hardcore and a 50 point Steamroller. Any more stuff than that and I will definitely need some assistance. I can't run two events at once and my wife is pretty offended by the loss of any husband weekend together time as it is.
I'd be happy to help you / run an event (as long as it's not the mangled metal, that was too fun to miss playing in again).
I'll throw my hat in the ring for helping (though I'd also humbly request to not miss the mangled metal). Maybe running demo games? Not sure what all you'd need.
On the table front, I'd definitely be willing to build as many as I can. That's my project as soon as I slog through the Khador commission I'm on, and my Ret.
-Quin
I think this is the biggest problem. I know that quite a few people showed up when all was said and done, but I'm sure it would have been great to tell PP a few weeks before the event that 20 or 30 people are already signed up.Quote:
Originally Posted by GentleBen
On the website issue, I think you are spot-on and think this is one of the issues that may have caused the low pre-reg numbers. Happily it is something we can easily fix and will for next year. Sending you a PM.
Ben how many tables do you plan on WM/H having at WarGames Con next year? If I get a rough estimate I can start building terrain for it now.
I have no idea. 25?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy247
Good enough I'll start cranking out some terrain for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by GentleBen
Ooh, I wish I was back because I have a hankering to build lots of ruins terrain. I was thinking of making a whole table with ruins being overgrown by a forest. Maybe Iosan ruins in a desert to show something near the bridge to heaven that exploded?