2010 Con reviews

[Kosh]

What a great job done by Erin & crew. Thanks to all.
Pros:
I liked the package for pre-regs, especially the list of games we offered to run, a nice touch.
And what can ya say about the Web site besides simply freak'n amazing.
The code system for game Type/Location was simple and effective.

Cons:
The font in the booklet could be a tad bigger, for some of us, our eyesight isn't quite as keen as it once was.
The Student Center could have left some lids for the coffee, I didn't want to slop on the floor enroute to a game nor onto someone's game. At least I ddin't see 'em at the time.

Kosh

[Schwaran]

Adding on to Kosh, thanks to all the Con staff especially our Chair, Erin, on a successful year!

I would like to say that the code system has a nice start to it but I feel it could be simplified to removed redundancy and be easier to refer to.

I agree the booklet was well done but I think many would appreciate slightly larger font.

I will have more thoughts I'd like to talk about at the next meeting, in particular how session sign-ups were handled.

[Rinoa]

Since my entire Con experience was (once again) spent in the video game room, I can only really comment on that and sparsely on other things. Not that I minded, FYI.

Pros:
- First of all, WOW. GREAT job by the planners of this year's convention. I really feel like Erin did a fantastic job delegating tasks around so no one felt overwhelmed by their duties. Every staff member I spoke with seemed to be personable and friendly to everyone they interacted with and doing their jobs dutifully. I was also extremely pleased to see people step up to fill in for others when things cropped up to take them away from their scheduled times. I would personally like to give a big THANK YOU to Sean for filling in last night. Once again, you go above and beyond what is expected of you, and I really wanted to sleep!

- I loved seeing another Con that blended alumni and current members alike. I feel like we just keep getting better and better at being less clique-y and this is a very positive thing!

- A new thing this year that I really enjoyed was the amount of people I spoke to whom I didn't recognize that told me they'd been referred there by current members. In my personal experience, my list of friends who came in from out-of-town started as 2 in 2008, increased to 3 in 2009 and was up to 5 this year! I know of several other people who brought a plethora of gamer friends to our Con and you can never go wrong with that.

- The artist I knew with a table profited quite nicely from her prints, and I'm sure she'd love to come back and do it again.

- The anime room seemed a lot more successful this year than in previous years, and as usual, a big thank you to the SPAMM guys who ran it. (George, Zach, Chrono...)

- I LOVED all of the new information in the booklet. So many helpful things were included that I don't even know where to start.

- All of the extra special additions to the Con this year made it feel much more like a big event rather than just RPGs with a video game "room" attached. It was really spiced up this year by even the littlest things. Even something as simple as coffee was commented upon and loved.

- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of the thoughtful people who donated items to the video game room. It was significantly less sad this year with all of the participation. Extra-special thank you to Jason for organizing the Rock Band tournament and dragging tons of stuff with him.



Cons:
- One other concern of mine that is inappropriate to bring up on the forums that I will discuss at the meeting.

- The font in the booklets was quite small. Not difficult for me to read, but I can see how it could be for others.

- I always wonder if we really need that room between the Artists Alley and the video game room. I hardly ever see more than 5-10 people in there and I wonder if we could just merge it into the main room to save on costs. Just a thought.

- Plattecon always leaves me feeling tired like a dead.

[N9IWP]

I made some comments last night but I guess I forgot to submit it

Overall a very good con. For approximately the 4th time ever the WX wasn't awful Friday and/or Sunday which I'm sure helped.

I actually like full listings in the booklet, but the codes do save in printing costs. Since all thge games were "yes" for materials provided and only 2 were not "beginners welcome" there probably could be some tweaking in the system.

The main room was quite crowded Saturday, I think having the board/card game room that day at least made sense.
Just out of curiousity, was theer any rhyme or reason to when baord/card games wer scheduled for that room vs the main one? Run time? Number of players? Not complaining, just curious.

Here are games of note for me:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/5 ... es-of-note

Brian

[Kosh]

Also, nice "gamer herding" Hilary. Sometimes gamers will just wander about, especially if they are knew, & ya gotta just plant their butts at a game. I did it myself back in the day, it helps the DM's in filling out their sessions & players realize we really do want them to have fun.

Kosh

[Nightmaster]

I can speak to a couple of the decisions as they stood. The placement of games was based entirely upon the number of available tables. The Board game/Artist room was filled almost all of Saturday with artists, and the Card game room was filled with the Magic Draft most of the afternoon on Saturday. So in reality, excepting those two events, the time that we needed extra space most was the time that we didn't have it. We will be looking into getting more space for the next year. When the extra rooms weren't full we tried to organize based upon the types of games being run, board games in the board game room, card games in the card game room, etc. But when they were full, we shifted them back to the main room. On the plus side, we had a list at the main desk as to how many open tables we had at any given time. I understand the wanting to cut back on costs, but during our peak hours we really need those extra rooms. If the attendance goes even higher for next like year like we want it to, we may even need more space, rather than less. Thanks for the input though!

I can completely understand wanting a bigger font in the booklet, and we will make sure to do that for next year.

Yes, I do not know how to stop making plattecon make us feel tired like deads.

Thanks for all the input so far, keep it coming!

[Koriel]

Next year I advise changing the "Skill Level"/"Materials Provided" to requirements, and if the code is used again just put in a yes or no (You could then check the reg desk for details). I say this mostly because in some games, especially in the horror genre where your goal is to raise the tension levels in the group, its not always something you want children playing.
It didn't occur to me at this con because you don't typically expect the younger children to be interested in RPG's as much as they are in board/card/video games. However, I did have a young child sign up for a game I ran where three players got murdered in fairly gruesome ways, alongside other unpleasant things (Luckily she did not show up). So I think next year we should combine all of the requirements into one category, because that would allow us to add in other things such as age restrictions and we could just leave it blank if there was no skill or material requirement.

[Niehaus]

As usual, I spent most of the con in the video game room as well, so limited advice can be given about rooms other than that one. I share the same "inappropriate" issue Kelly did and agree that it is best to discuss said problems at the meeting.

One thing to bring up. The Bear's Den is supposedly slated to get new computermachines next fall (as is the Co Lab where the LAN was held.) These comptuerboxes could run a lot of higher end games from what I'm hearing people tossing around for specs. The LAN room this year was slow to start up, but once a small group people stayed in there for long enough for people to realize what was going on, it became quite popular. I discussed the possibilities of reimaging the entire Bear's Den with some of the guys from BILSA IT and they thought it'd be pretty sweet and very doable next year. There are at least 90 computers out there and - in the event that this was promoted it as a super mega LAN - things could go crazy good for next year's con admissions. Steam games like TF2 and Counterstrike can run in the labs on low-medium settings as it is now, so if we advertised a "bring your own Steam account" sorta thing, we could easily circumvent the necessity to buy 90 copies of TF2/L4D2/etc.

[telsaan]

Niehaus, a LAN that big would be scary, but I'd totally go for arranging it if it's possible!

I'm really happy that lots of people enjoyed the convention and had lots of fun. There were some surprises in the flow of events: busy vs. slow times, maximum table population on Saturday, registration starting as early as 3pm Friday?, extremes in the attendance of the LAN and anime viewings, and the silent auction had overwhelming interest that I did not foresee. But, y'know, so it goes and I had a great weekend.

Things that made me really happy...
Video game room handled the checkout system and got lots of systems set up (Kelley, I'm especially thankful to you for getting checkout setup and coming to me with all of your questions!). The convention was busy busy busy on Saturday! Even Friday was pretty well attended. PEOPLE WERE HAVING FUN. The artists did alright on business and want to do this again; they all did some excellent work, and even though I thought I knew what to expect from them they blew me away with the quality of their items. I had a very good crew of helpers this year and I got to hang out with my friends!

Things I could've done better...
Clearer instructions for the silent auction, better advertising for the artists, LAN, tournaments, and last-minute book signing, training for reg-desk workers because I know I was too vague about this, reduce the t-shirt order, and more space for Saturday! There are other things, too. Somehow, I need to come up with more food options. And I probably should have finished doing dishes before having 6 guests stay at my apartment. Oops!

I really liked talking to people about all of their PlatteCon ideas, feedback, memories... These are important things to discuss. Mostly, though, I thought this year was a pretty good year. We had fun and covered our costs plus a little bit more -- and the bills haven't even come in yet. Huge thanks to the scholarship committee!

Next year's goal is to have more things done sooner and better!

[Nightmaster]

One of the things that did come up was one of the first registrations apparently believed that we did not offer early registrations. I did not want to generate conflict so I let it drop, but I think they probably got to the website after the deadline. Or maybe just missed the boat. Idk.

[Kosh]

One of the things that did come up was one of the first registrations apparently believed that we did not offer early registrations. I did not want to generate conflict so I let it drop, but I think they probably got to the website after the deadline. Or maybe just missed the boat. Idk.

yeah, we just been doing PreRegs like since the frak'n beginning.
The Website mentions it, it's under the PlatteCon section of the Forum,the Emails even mentioned it as I recall. Not much more can be done, wake up & smell the dice dude.

In the dining area, I saw we were listed on the "standees" on the tables, that was nice to see because every little bit helps to catch a gamer's attention.
Kosh

[Kosh]

Does the SC desk make copies? I had overflow & was out of sheets; I felt badly for turning someone away. That info might be something worth mentioning in future Con booklets incase other DM's thought some materials.
I couldn't remember if they did that or not.

Kosh

[telsaan]

Food situation. I would like to know thoughts.

I talked to the Crossing people before and now after the convention about the extended hours. They did rather well on Saturday (the Haus, too), but we can't say for sure if that's because of us or because of Pioneer Idol that was also occurring at that time.

It would be very doable to get the Perk open for extended hours instead of the Crossing, and the Haus does have more hot food options now that it used to. The Perk won't have weekend deli options, though. So. What say we try opening the Perk longer instead?

[N9IWP]

My preference would be to have the Haus open at 4 (instead of 4:30) to better mesh with the dinner break.

Brian

[Unbreakable]

I think the Perk and Haus being opened for longer is more important that the Crossing. The Crossing had only two options for the most part and the Haus covers them for the most part and has more to boot. Because the Perk is much closer to the convention than the other two I think that being opened longer would a good thing for the convention. Ther Perk would be better for quick snacks which would be more important later in the evening as well.