I’ll discuss the crux of my duties: ShaunCon. While we just had a convention 2 months ago, that means I have 10 more months to plan for the next convention. I’m just able to breathe a bit easier now. But there are still duties for me to perform.
The biggest obstacle this month was the convention site. Preliminary talks indicated that the site fee would go from $1500 to $2500. When you add the cost of table/chair rental, this puts the cost range into that of a hotel. For that price (well over $3000), we have held conventions in a hotel with all the chairs and tables we need; the staff even sets up the rooms before the convention. For that reason, we were looking at a serious chance of moving the convention again.
Fortunately, the manager of Blue Ridge Mall recently informed me that she is going to keep the price the same as last year. I agreed to her terms, and she sent the contract to the Hoardmaster. For that price, I have no problems with our own staff setting up the tables and chairs.
There have been some pros and cons about holding the convention in Blue Ridge Mall. I’ll outline a few that may not be obvious to the membership. These are some factors that we take into consideration when choosing the venue for our conventions.
Pros: The space is cheaper than a hotel. We are allowed to bring outside food and even sell concessions. There are a couple of restaurants within walking distance.
Cons: It’s not as nice-looking as a hotel. There is no hotel within walking distance for the convenience of our out-of-town guests. We provide our own resources in some cases: Setting up chairs, providing hand soap for the bathroom, sometimes taking out our own trash.
Since we have hosted the past four conventions in Blue Ridge Mall, I obviously consider the pros to outweigh the cons. Many gamers are not that interested in the aesthetics of the convention site. In fact, quite a few are morbidly pleased to play in a gutted version of a full-blown retail store. After all, the RPGKC has held conventions in the Rodeway Inn, which was condemned shortly after one of our conventions. It was not easy to sacrifice the convenience of out-of-town guests, but most of those guests have their own cars and can drive a mile or so to crash for the night. Those guests who fly into Kansas City usually know someone in the area who can pick them up from the hotel.
A lot of the ShaunCon 2003 attendees expressed pleasure with this site, and I am pleased that Blue Ridge Mall will give us the same site in 2004. There is a stipulation that a long-term client is allowed to take that spot. After all, a long-term client will offer more than $1500 to the mall. If that should happen, the mall will put us up in another spot of the same size or larger. They are pleased with us as a customer and have worked to keep us happy.
The 2003 convention saw a change in pricing schedule. The weekend cost was $25 with the single-day cost being lowered to $10. The single-day admission was lowered in order to be more attractive for Magic and Warhammer players who likely will show up just for Saturday. The unseen side effect is that there was no reason to charge the full $25 for people who walk in on Saturday morning. So, we lost out on $5 on those people who did not come in on Friday.
At a future meeting, we will need to visit this issue. Should we keep with $25 for the weekend and $10 for a single day? Despite the loss of revenue, the convention was in the black. I personally do not believe that we need to raise the cost back to $15 if the convention can survive without it. Of course, there may be some reasons I cannot see at the moment that support raising the admission price.
Something else that was new for this convention was the separate event fees for Magic and Warhammer. It’s technically not new; it’s just that there is no one system that we are happy with, so we change it constantly. The RPGKC needs to adopt a permanent policy to apply to tournaments with exceptional costs. These costs usually are in place to cover an exceptional prize, which is what draws these players to conventions. After all, a Warhammer player can probably play a game for free in his basement or at the local gaming shop. So why would such a player pay money to enter our convention and pay money to enter the event? ShaunCon needs to appeal to these players.
The method we used was to charge people a regular badge to enter, which is eventually discounted by the tournament coordinator. For example, a Magic player pays $10 to enter the convention. The player wants to play in all of the Magic tournaments, which each have $10 entry fees. Typically, this means that the player would pay $40 to play $30 worth of tournaments, which is unsatisfactory for those who only want to play in tournaments. The consolation we offer is that each tournament they enter provides them a $5 discount on their admission. The same player pays $10 but only pays $20 for his tournament fees.
This method is probably one of the simplest ones we’ve implemented, but it still led to confusion. At ShaunCon 2003, there was some grumbling by one parent who basically accused us of bait and switch. This was actually more of a problem with the attendee (who was happier arguing than actually listening), but it could have been alleviated if we had documented this more on posters. I consider this to be a serious learning experience.
One thing that ShaunCon always needs is events. Every convention, we order a batch of RPGA modules. Then I round up judges for those modules. There are also non-RPGA role-playing events that fill out the schedule nicely. This allows people to demonstrate their games. Some writers will show off their games. And larger companies will be glad to find someone in the area to demo their products. If 20 people volunteer to run two slots of their own games, that gives us nearly four tables of unique gaming per slot.
One thing to keep in mind when running your own event is that it may not fill right away. Quite a few of the attendees already know what they want to try. Some are only RPGA players. And some come to see their favorite pet judge. If your game does not fill up right away, do not be discouraged. We typically offer 10 to 25 different events per slot, which can be overwhelming. If you run your games in every convention, people remember this. One of our members, Mike Howard, ran a limited Call of Cthulhu event which was very popular. After a few conventions, he had to continuously turn away players. He made a name for himself, and I still hear people talking about his games. I’m seeing some resurgence in GURPS thanks to the efforts of GURPS fans running games at ShaunCon. Pick the game you want to run, pick a slot or two, and bring it back to ShaunCon as much as you can. That is my advice.
These are my words about ShaunCon. Lately, the job of the Castellan is only ShaunCon, which is fine with me. That is quite a bit of work. Fortunately, the Castellan also has a slew of wonderful volunteers, which was the primary reason why I felt I could tackle this job. I have at least one person helping me with site issues, preregistration, headquarters, concessions, dealer tables, event submission, art show, marshals, and many other tasks. They display great patience and competency in helping me keep ShaunCon so successful. I think these people are what keep the other volunteers from being so burned out. And allow me to insert a shameless plug that we can always use more volunteers to help out. Inquire at the next Guild meeting.
Kevin Elmore