Thank you everyone who made Big Bad Con such an success. There is no way it would have happened without all of you coming and making it awesome.
I’m going to break from the voice of “The Wolf” for a moment and tell you that this event was like my birthday, Christmas and New Years all at once. I being in an environment of people gaming and enjoying themselves. Throughout the con I heard laughs, shouts, and huzzahs that told me, without a doubt, people were having a great time. Being part of the event that made that happen was a privilege and an honor for me.
I learned a lot this year and have a lot to consider about how to run Big Bad Con 2012, but one thing I can say for sure, it will happen and it will ROCK!
Today The Wolf rests, and enjoys the “Fantastic French Toast” from Cafe du Soleil.
Excellent con. I had a great time! I’m interested in different game systems and there was quite a variety. I hope you continue that trend. The massively popular RPGs, like that one that begins with a “d” and ends with a “d” are always available at conventions. It’s nice having a venue that focuses on all those other RPGs. There are tons of really fun ones out there!
You did an amazing job organizing the whole thing. I’d talked it up with some friends and a couple of them signed up in advance. Three more joined at the last minute and all of them got into games! Haven’t really talked with them yet, but only heard positive things, when I ran into them at the con.
Thanks for all your hard work!
Thank you Julie, it was great having you at the con, and congratulations on winning the Role Playing Award at the table, Matt was very impressed!
Grow or die but I like where you head is at about controlled quality of gaming growth.
On a personal note, as a RPG guy, we’d like all that room space the LARP’ers asked for and didn’t use. 🙂
Heh, heh, heh. After the con, Gil, Matt and Nik thought up a plan to have a 20 person LARP with all the characters playing tabletop RPG players…don’t think I’m not on to you guys 🙂
What an excellent con, maybe the best I’ve been too. I have no beef with boardgamers, etc. but the intimate, roleplayers only feel of this con really went a long way.
Again, great con, looking forward to the next one!
Thanks Aaron, me as well!
Congrats! I’m glad it went well and I wish I could have attended.
Yeah, sad I didn’t see you Adan. Hopefully you got some good fencing in. See you next year at BBC II. Heck, see you in two weeks at EndGame Minicon!
You did a great job, Sean. Already counting down the days until next year!
Thanks Joey, and me too. Can’t wait to make BBC II even better.
I’m so glad you had a great con! As someone who occasionally organizes stuff, I am eager to hear your numbers and lessons learned (after you have recovered).
Certainly. Here are a couple ball park thoughts, more once I’ve collected and collated the data.
Attendees: ~215-220
Profit: Yes, at least $300 going to Doctors Without Borders
Lessons learned:
Food was only mediocre.
I need to proof the schedule/program better (a few table/room mix ups).
Attendance is lower on Friday than expected (stack games on Saturday and Sunday).
Pipe and Drape works great for dividing up rooms for cons, but does make the room much warmer. Next year I’ll see if I can get the Fire Doors opened so we get some ventilation in the rooms, perhaps with caution tape across them so nobody goes through them.
I need a wait list function on the website booking app.
I need a better way for players to drop out of games once the con starts (not sure what to do with this yet).
Don’t schedule all the WWII games in the same time slot.
4, 6, and 8 hour games are all desired, but some folks have strong preference to only have 4 hours games (not sure what to do with this yet either.
If I grow the con significantly by adding other games (board, card, YP, etc) I can probably put the gamers in private rooms (good), but that means loosing some of the “boutique con” personal touch (something I need to evaluate)
For the purposes of printing out badges, I need to make the online cut off date earlier. I spent from midnight (when reg closed) till 9AM making the badges (which had the game schedules on it) because I was cutting it so close. Next year, I need to give myself a week instead of 3 days.
I tried to make a mixture of scheduled games and Games on Demand in the open gaming room so I would have a couple of “sign up at the con only” games on the roster. That led to some confusion. Next year, I’ll just have pickup GMs volunteer to run games in open gaming and list who will be running games rather than trying to schedule anything specific in advance.