So I promised a review of the weekend, so here it is. There were some issues at the setting up stage but once we got everything in and organised the venue looked pretty good. That is about where it all went down hill. Attendance was not good. It seems the clash with Panzershrek and Board Games Round the Bays really hurt us. Many people who said they would come didn't show. The Dystopian Wars league, having mostly petered out anyway, didn't happen. Neither did the Apocalypse game, or even any real 40K games.
The Warmachine tournament was reasonably well attended and was enjoyed by those who were playing. But once it was over the players all cleared out, rather than trying other things. Both days we closed up at 6pm, despite having the place until midnight.
I know I sound harsh. But this was my event, a flagship experiment for future large club gaming days. So if I rip myself to shreds I can't get torn apart by others criticisms, right? However, overall the experiment was successful. (Experiments rarely fail in science, as long as you learn something from it.)
If I hadn't been as optimistic about the numbers, rented fewer tables, (We only set up 20 of the 40 rented and only really used 15 of those.) hired one of the smaller rooms and only until 5:30pm we would have broken even quite easily. I am writing up a report for the club exec, outlining the performance and with suggested improvements, so that we can decide if we want to run another one. The general feeling of the exec who attended was that it is still worth trying again, just with a view grounded in experience.
I should clarify: I consider the event to have floundered because of MY choices and actions, nobody else's. A big thanks to Mark One for advertising the event, along with others who spread the word. Now I am armed with knowledge and experience, the next one will be better.
I manned the door for most of the weekend, so I haven't got any photos. It also means I didn't get to play much but that is the curse of the organiser. Tune in this weekend for our regularly scheduled painting progress!
Good attitude John - live and learn. Good research on where to invest your time on a weekly club level if you want to plug stuff like Dystopian Wars. I'm finding clashes with other events to be a real nightmare - certainly a 'con' to weigh up against the pros of having a full gaming calendar.
ReplyDeleteIn theory, with the groups I have met there are enough DW players around to run a tournament specifically for them, about 16 by my count. As many as we had back in the early stages of the WM/H community, before your time.
DeleteI was frustratingly ill informed of the clashing events back when the dates were set, in December. An event as varied as this one intended to be has greater clash potential than more specific ones, there are decidedly few FOW players who also play WM/H, for example.