Convention Schedule Survey

Re: Simplistic presentation of the question.

FYI: The PHP-Nuke "Polls" module is pretty stingy on the length of text it allows for each response. The two options are both within a few characters of the maximum allowed.

It's two days before Council, so I don't have time to write more here. The SWA Leadership Team will be discussing this to death as we plan for 2006's Council and beyond...

-DC

i agree with erics last post. i would hope that this con will always have more events for potential gamers to be interested in but, the chances are increased with more slots. i would also like to suggest that some conventions offer late night slots on friday and saturday nights.

Something else occurred to me.

Amateur psychology hour here:

Case A - two five hours slots saturday, only one I want to play, one five hour slot sunday - nothing that I am really amazed with = not going to the con.

Case B - three four hour slots on saturday, one I want to play, one maybe and one where I can find something to pass the time...two four hour slots on sunday..one maybe and one to pass the time = probably going and having a decent time playing the other games.

In both cases the con really only has a single game that I am excited about...but in case B I go, case A I don't. I'm not saying my preferences and quirks of con selection are universal...but I think there is something to it.

The five hour time slots put a LOT of pressure on the selection/variety of games...it makes it more important to have something to appeal specifically to a given gamer each slot..the four hour schedule has more more "slack".

Thank you for starting the discussion on the latest survey. I voted in favor of the 4 hour slots as soon as the survey was posted, for much the same reasons as stated above. I felt that the survey description was overly vague as well, but did not have the impetus to start the discussion. Nothing is black and white, and neither is this. In my opinion, in order to grow we will eventually need to go to a different schedule (not necessarily 4 hour slots, could be 2 or 3 hour "blocks" that build into flexible slots), but it is a matter of when, not if. Here's my nickel on the reasoning:

4 hour slots : Pros
a) more time slots allow for more events
b) flexibility for event length
c) an extra 2 hours of Sat. gaming and 3 hours of Sunday gaming (using the proposed schedule)

4 hour slots : Cons
a) 1 hour less of Friday gaming (using the proposed schedule)
b) 9am start time may keep people away, as may 11:30pm end time, leaving one "family/work friendly" time slot on Saturday
c) more events = more volenteer GM's
d) more events may lead to wider distribution of attendees and more events not running (or running poorly with too few players)
e) more time slots means more volunteers needed for registration staffing

So, if I am correct and the matter is when we go to different length events, we need to address the Cons of the 4 hour slots so that the change will not do more harm than good.

Con (a) can be settled easily by making the Friday night slot 5 hours or, when we grow to a point where it is feasible, starting Council at 2pm or 3pm on Friday.

Con (b) may or may not be a problem. From my experience, attendance at Gameathon morning sessions is noticeably lighter than the evening session. Even 11am may be too early for some gamers - pushing it up 2 hours may make for a slew of games not running, especially considering the later end times from Friday and Saturday nights. Solving this may require finding out how much of a problem it may be. Not everyone can be hardcore.

Con (c) can really be a problem if we have more event slots to fill. We already have online GM signups and plenty of advance notice, yet we still generally require phonecalls at or after the deadline before committing to GMing an event. We can't expand the number of events without not only expanding the number of volunteer GM's, but also having a cooperative system running smoothly where the 50% increase in event slots are filled efficiently.

Con (d) is a great concern. Until Council grows to the point where attendance can keep 50% more slots close to full, the risk of "watering down" the events is real. Our stated policy is "quality over quantity", which we adhere to quite well. If attendance doesn't grow with the number of events, many of the events may only get a few players and who will actually benefit from that? The potential backlash could set us back considerably if attendees go away disappointed.

Con (e) is probably not a big concern at all, but it does add to the logistics of expansion. We seem to have little problem getting a volunteer staff together and I wouldn't expect that to change too much with the growing pains.

So, to summarize my opinion, I believe that we should look to expand the number of events by changing our schedule structure in the (hopefully) not so distant future. We should first look to ensure that our current schedule is as full as possible before we look to make more events to choose from. One way to do this is to interact here in our virtual community and establish the wants and needs of our membership and Council guests. That's not happening yet, and until it does I feel that expanding the offerings is high risk/low reward investing, which is never good sense. We have a form for requesting games that members and guests would like to see run at our events. It has been around for a few months now but we have only received one or two request so far. Any games that do not run at an event are wasted opportunities for growth and development. Until we get the proper feedback, the best our GMs can do is guess which games would be successful at an event.

To grow, we need to grow as a group. Four hour slots (or similar length blocks) are the way to go, but to get there all of us need to chip in and provide constructive feedback and information so that event organizers can make the events more successful. Desire and drive are there, but information is the key.

Okay, enough horse-beating for now I guess.

I've said it before, but it can survive being beaten to death again I guess.

I greatly prefer the 4 hour time slots - part of it is simply standardization. It is still the most commonly used time block in conventions, so would be more familiar to regular con attendees.

Also, 5 hour slots have, in my council experience, been too long for most games/minis scenarios and yet not long enough to allow a replay or to accomodate the epic board/miniatures games such as Diplomacy, Civilization or a refight of Waterloo.

Further more, the specific current schedule, while convenient and "laid back" for locals, contains a lot of wasted time if you are coming from out of town. There is absolutely NO way I would drive to an out of town con with the schedule we have currently.

I could go on - but that's the jist of my opinion on it.