GameCon Spokane is in the books. Share your thoughts...
Our first GameCon closed with approximately 300 people having attended. We are so pleased that so many awesome gamers came and shared our common passion with us! We have already gotten five paid registrations for next year!!!
As the organizers of GameCon we would love to hear your feedback on what you liked (YAY!) and what we can improve upon(darn...).
First off, we know the HUGEST COMPLAINT is (and should be) the total absence of food or drinks allowed in the Con area. We are very grateful that you all complied even while you were grumbling. We understand that was a really unfortunate circumstance to have to deal with, and deal with it you did. We were sorry to have to pass that strict rule along to you. As you know it was imposed upon us by the food service company that owns the rights to the building. Feel free to grumble about that some more, it might help to get it off your chest, so-to-speak. Other than that, please give us your feedback!!
Also, if you are contacted in the future by GameCon for a small survey, please take the few minutes required to thoughtfully answer the questions. It will help us do better next time!
One last thing: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all the Volunteers who make GameCon Spokane possible!!! Thank you to the security, registration, hospitality, set-up and tear-down volunteers! Thank you to the AWESOME GAME MASTERS who scheduled, packed, hauled, set-up, and wonderfully hosted their AWESOME games!! You GM's are what make any gaming event fun!!
Gratefully submitted,
Your Humble Convention Staff
Indeed, and nicely said, David. I was very happy to see the first attempt be so incredibly successful. Thanks for your efforts as well, friendly and intelligent opponents make a tournament fun, but the judges and moderators have a big part to play as well. The 40k day was a lot of fun. I played against 3 armies I don't normally play against, and that made it fun and challenging as well.
The people at the other gaming areas were all willing to take a moment and answer questions for the rest of us wandering around just checking it all out. There were no major 'problem attendees' that stood out (there's always someone complaining about something, but no major issues...).
Thanks to all the volunteers who made it go, thanks to the organizers who made it go (especially the SpoCon folks), and a big thanks to the Gamer's Haven for sponsoring prizes, giving the crowd some great deals over the weekend, and coming back to the area after hiatus.
I look forward to next year, and I will be buying my entrance early! Thanks to everyone for making it fun and successful. JT
James E. (JT) Turner
I had a great time, I got a chance to meet a lot of new people and re-meet some people I met at SpoCon. Congrats to everyone for running a very successful event! I'd really like to get a look at the pictures. Hopefully the "official" photos will be up soon and others will post links to the pictures they took.
I really liked the location for the most part. As a boardgamer, one big room works much better for me than a bunch of small rooms. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow much room to expand.
Obligatory food grumble: Yeah, that was pretty rough. I played in a 6 hour game on Sunday and I didn't have much of breakfast that morning and I was really feeling it by the end.
Focusing on the part I helped with (the scheduler) here's what I would do differently for next time:
1. Instead of allowing the event organizers to pick table locations, leave it up to the admins to place events. I think the idea was that we get everything up there then shuffle things around but things just got too complicated and too full too fast.
2. 4 hour time blocks instead of fine increments. Most other cons do it this way and now I know why. It wouldn't necessarily mean that you couldn't have two smaller events inside the same time block or an event couldn't run for more than four hours, but I think it would be nice if most events started and stopped at the same time.
I think that would allow things to go smoother.
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I had a blast, which makes a big difference to me, as this was my first con EVER!!!
I love the flexibility with the schedule and placement of games during the con. I had four more people than expected show up, and it saved the day when Chris was able to coordinate a switch of tables to accomodate those last minute additions! Kudos to everyone who made it run smoothly!
The location was great, one thing I would ask for next year is maybe some dividers between tables or a few rooms off to the side we can reserve. Running an RPG can get a bit stressful when some of the players can't hear what's going on over the standard din.
I enjoyed the scheduling aspect of the con. It was nice to be able to choose when and how long I wanted to run my game. I would have liked to see a 15-30 minute buffer between games, in case something runs long, as it sometimes does.
But, as experiences go, this was a great one! Even if nothing changes, I've already expressed my desire to show up and run another game next year. Maybe I'll be able to fit more than ten players in next time!
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Whew! We made it. :)
I wasn't able to do much gaming this year, but I can tell you the view of gamers getting along and playing a massive amount of games all in the same room was a beautiful sight from the registration desk!
My greatest experience of the Con was closing time on Sunday afternoon. As I was tallying up the sheets and closing out the credit card machine I turned around to see that the entire hall ... was empty. Only gamers would put it out there all weekend long gaming then turn around and volunteer to clean it all up afterwards. We had a FANTASTIC crew of volunteers this year. Your efforts are much appreciated.
I would say that although it was fun to see all of the gaming in one big room and be able to walk around and look at the variety of things being played, it was tough as a RPG GM to hear players and describe a scene with the ambient noise going on in the room. Not sure what we can do about that ... but we'll work on it. That I can assure you.
Reinkenstein
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I slept thru Monday as I had SOO much fun this weekend!
GameCon Spokane was such an amazing success!
As Mike and Dave said, we owe the thanks to the volunteers ... the GMs, the awesome Security, the tireless people in Hospitality, etc etc.
Clean up (and set up) went smashing, I would say the most effiecient I can remember.
The estimate at close was 301 con members and 5 preregistered for GameCon 2011.
Send us your good stories and your pics so we can get them up this week.
BigC@GameConSpokane.org
Good Luck and Good Gaming!
Do we have any sort of numbers on what we were able to collect for the Spokane Food Bank?
Chris has been playing phone tag all week. They are busy people! We'll post the official numbers as soon as we get them :)