Conventions: Organization models and best practices

#1

I go to a few conventions in and near DC, including:

  • Camp Nerdly, a DIY camping & gaming experience for about 100 people per year, held in May in the woods outside Washington DC. Last year, several Gauntlet folks game – which was great!
  • Dreamation, medium-sized con in New Jersey, part of the Dexposure series of conventions, held in February.
  • WashingCon, a growing board game con in, you guessed it, Washington DC, now with RPGs and LARPs held in September
  • BGG, which was new to me this year. It’s giant – thousands of people in a hotel, with an emphasis on checking out and playing board games. This is way over in Austin in November.

The experiences I’ve had at each of these varies so greatly that it seems weird to classify them as the same type of event. Nerdly is family & kid friendly, the leadership of the organization shifts each year, and there is no staff. Or, rather: it is staff-full, as everybody is responsible for chores and the fun.

It’s such a different experience from the other cons, which all seem to have consistent leadership. Of those, Nerdly is the only one I know that is family & kid friendly, with meals made on site by con-goers and without entrenched leadership or power structures.

Due to Nerdly being my first con experience, it is what I expected when I started going to other cons. Luckily, my second one was Dreamation and the leadership there is … forgiving. Still, that model seems natural to me.

What cons do you enjoy most? What models of organization do they use? How do find size and organization intersect?

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#2

I basically hate enormous crowded places full of noise and with limited room to move around. Conventions in general, even quite small ones, can be a bit stressful for me.

I find it can be very hit-and-miss gaming with strangers: you never know if they want what you want from a game, or if you’ll be tripping over each other in various ways.

My absolute favourite convention experiences are where I’ve brought together a group of people I know to roleplay. That’s pretty well outside the wheelhouse of what you’re describing, because it’s maybe 20 people (as opposed to 100 or more) who all know each other (pretty much). It’s relaxed, sociable, quiet, and with a lot of gaming.

I’ve also very much enjoyed Revelation, the PBTA convention we have here in the UK. Partly that’s because it’s small (I think about 30-40 people?), and partly it’s because people’s preferences tend to much more closely align than other RPG conventions I’ve been to.

I very much see the value in big conventions, and I’m interested in how we can make them more intimate and welcoming, and increase the hit rate of people’s gaming experiences. I think we did some good stuff with Indie Games on the Hour at Dragonmeet, though as an organiser I didn’t necessarily get to properly experience it from the attendee end.

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#3

Big Bad Con in the bay area is excellent, probably the best-organized gaming convention I have ever attended. They work very hard to make people feel welcome and generally be inclusive. The space is a pleasure to play in. It attracts interesting, cool people. They are data-driven and try new things every year to improve the event.

@William_Nichols I really like the Camp Nerdly model, which has been very resilient. Being decentralized has a lot of advantages, and it has been interesting to watch it grow and change. When we started the event I never would have imagined it would become so family and child friendly, but that’s what the people want! It’s cool to see it adapt as lives change.

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#4

I think that you would fit right in at Forge Midwest, assuming you were in the States during that time of year. :slight_smile:

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#5

@Jmstar: I’ve wanted to go to Big Bad Con for years now. Traveling from DC to the West coast for a con has as of yet proved untenable. Heck, so has Minneapolis.

I’ve tried to bring in the congame they use to work, without success. It’s part of wanting to instill a culture of game playing, rules rather than rulers, and transparent accountability.

Suffice it to say, my pitches to management have not yet met with success.

Regarding Nerdly: I absolutely adore that we’ve got such a successful kid’s group. I’ve only been with Nerdly a few years, and am amazed to see how Ira – among others – has changed and grown. The community can probably do better to serve the kids and parents, but there’s not a lot of con models with families to look towards.

The Kitchen remains a super interesting challenge for some, and super intimidating for me. I’m really pleased that the distributed leadership model means folks can focus on the challenges they find most interesting.

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#6

I hear you on not digging thousands of people. So:

  • Nerdly is really a hundred people, and after pitch session we scatter throughout a camp site. So you are outside or in rustic cabins, and can always just go for a hike or take a nap. For a few years, my wife brought her hammock!
  • At Dreamation, I really interact with a couple dozen people. The rest become background, but most of the time is spent in a hotel.

Personally, I don’t love the hotel model of conventions. It’s the standard for a reason, but I love seeing experiments with other ways of doing it.

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#7

I am a big fan of the ‘con inside the Con’ that Games on Demand at Origins has fostered. It’s a largely-autonomous indie game event that you can make into your entire Origins experience if you want. You get the rest of the big con to explore if you want, with the relationships and intimacy of a much smaller event during play.

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#8

@JimLikesGames I have never successfully found GoD and I’m pretty sure we’ve been at the same con.

This is probably because, at Dreamation, I wind up struggling through the reg process and get into a whole bunch of larps.

I’ve heard good good things about GoD. It seems wonderful, and I hope to find it sometime.

#9

Games on Demand has never really taken off as a model at the Double Exposure events. They tried this year but … baby steps. Come to Origins or Gen Con to see it honed to a keen edge. It also runs at PAX shows with a very different feel.

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#10

It’s definitely its own thing at Origins. A huge factor in how a lot of shows go down is whether they’re for-profit or not. GenCon is, Origins isn’t. Double Exposure shows are, House Cons aren’t, Big Bad Con is explicitly a charity event sponsored by a Kickstarter.

Games on Demand arose as a vector for getting indie tabletop RPGs into the big mainstream cons. It’s not really a thing at DE shows because those events run as scheduled games, and have since the early Forge era.

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#11

Any insight into how well that’s working out for them?

#12

Jim that’s a really good point. I think the model is more flexible than you give it credit for - there’s a successful GoD track at Big Bad Con, where the same games are going off on the schedule - but it boils down to what niche it is filling and why. At Origins and (ESPECIALLY) Gen Con, scheduled games are extremely hit and miss* and, understandably, there’s no institutional love for weird little indie games. So at these huge shows, GoD is like a breath of fresh air and a gathering of the tribe all in one.

*As in I will never play one again because I have never had a positive experience in one.

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#13

Isn’t Big Bad Con sort of ALL ‘Games on Demand’? You don’t pre-reg, right, it’s pitching games each slot like Nerdly, no?

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#14

That is totally incorrect. There’s a massive pre registration phase conducted in stages. GoD is four tables in a room the whole con.

#15

I was going to be really curious about how Nerdly’s pitch sessions that work mostly well for 100 were adapted to a bigger con. Now I know: it isn’t.

#16

Speaking of: Wanna come to Camp?

mailchi.mp/b3b8fcd168b0/nerdly-xii-registration-open

#17

Ah, OK, thanks. I misunderstood the stages pre-reg thing. I’ve never really considered going because of the travel and expense from the Northeast so only glanced at the KS. How scalable is it, do you think?

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#18

I honestly don’t know how well it will scale. The current version of BBC is data-driven, but also heavily reliant on Sean Nittner as an indefatigable juggernaut. I love the way they look at the data to make incremental improvements and corrections, but i wish Sean would delegate even more.

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