Scale and Scope of Event
The Scale and Scope of your event will determine a lot about your planning process. In general, what you are determining here is how big you want your event to be, in several dimensions:
The other big stumbling block is the staffing decision. When people work together there is the potential for problems. Some questions need to be settled early.
Who is in charge? – is there a boss, who runs the group as an autocra? Is there a "core team" that runs the event, with assistants, democratic among themselves, but autocratic regarding the assistants?
At this point, I’ll offer some advice. I think the best model for running an event is a business. The core group responsible for the backbone of production should function as a committee, making recommendations, with one person as the chosen boss. Don’t choose the weak willed guy because he won’t argue with anyone, but don’t choose the strongest willed guy, unless you agree he’s the best choice, and everyone agrees to that. I’ve seen events run very well as a democratic committee, but that requires a certain kind of trust and chemistry that is uncommon. Beware of "false democracy" where one person controls a majority of what is theoretically a committee, and thus effectively acts as boss, without having to take the responsibility. The boss should be the boss.
In bigger events, divide up responsibilities, and work under the assumption that while the leader has the ability to make final decisions, GMs are considered to be competent in their specialty, and won’t be overidden – the tabletop GM makes final decisions concerning the wargame, the bank GM makes final decisions concerning money…and so on.
Who’s writing – assuming some elements of the event are written, who are the writers. Will they also be the lead GMs? In some cases, the writers may be 2000 miles away. It is important to establish who is a writer, and what their function will be at runtime. It is less and less the case that writers are automatically the lead GMs.
Who is the runtime staff – You need to determine how many staff you need for the event, and see to it that you have enough. A good basic rule at this time appears to be to have one staff for every 7-10 players, plus one staff person for every major system. Also, if you have cast, then by all means have a staff person in charge of cast. Remember staff are not only GMs – do you need a properties manager? Or a cook with kitchen staff? Do you need a musician? A dedicated special effects person?
Cast/Technical staff – Most events can benefit from "Cast." In concept cast differs from NPCs. The concept of an NPC is that he or she is a GM driven character. Cast are more than this. They are a pool of players to serve as extras, not only playing every type of person that the GMs wouldn’t want to hand out as full characters, but also filling in as stagehands to move props, food service staff to work refreshments and handle food, cleanup crew to tidy up the event space between and during playing sessions.
For marketing purposes I often make a distinction between "Cast" and "Technical Staff." Cast play NPC roles, and while they might not have as much time as a player, they generally enjoy themselves. Technical crew gets the ugly jobs – they dress in uncomfortable suits to play monsters, run special effects behind the scenes, go to the store for ice, help in the kitchen, and any other job I dream up. In some events it is not practical to make this distinction, in others it is all important.
Venue
The Venue is the "where" of the event…many people use the term "site" instead. The site should fit the event if possible. In some cases, you won’t have a choice about the site – at Intercon for example, you’ll be running in space assigned by the Convention. If you can’t get a venue to fit the event, you’d best write an event to fit the venue.
There are many different types of venue. Venues for four, or eight hour events do not need to have lodging space – venues for overnight events do. We’ll break the two categories apart.
General Questions – Is the space:
Approaching a hotel is a tricky business. I have found that the best policy is to be honest, but not scary. The worst approach is to dress in a three piece suit, quote optimistic figures, and lie about what it is you are doing. The second worst approach is to mention every nightmare problem in events.
We always use the term "interactive theatre" when describing what we do. We give a pretty accurate description of what that entails, however if asked for a comparison, for God’s sake compare it to "murder mysteries that run at some hotels" not to "Live D&D." Most hotel managers have heard of murder mysteries and know that they draw some money without having caused massive problems for the venues that hosted them. This is what they care about.
If a hotel has a spastic problem with events (this has happened, where the hotel staff is under the influence of a religious group that is actively antagonistic towards roleplaying events), just move on to the next. Likewise if they are too worried or too suspicious, you probably don’t want to use that site.
In the U.S., Hampton Inn and Days Inn have proved good chains for events. You want to pick a hotel in the range where you can run a small event and be a reasonable part of their business.
Here’s the math. In a 140 room Days Hotel, where your eighty players and staff have reserved three out of five function rooms and have forty hotel rooms, you are 28% of their weekend business and you are their major weekend function. They will tolerate some shennanigans – they probably have a very small bar, or none at all, so they aren’t upset that you aren’t drinking their liquor.
In a 300 room Hilton, you are only 13% of the weekend business, and you probably have less than half the function space. The Hotel also probably relies on an attached nightclub or bar for its revenue – destructive Fraternal Organizations may hurt the hotel more than you do physically, but they run up $1000 bar tabs that compensate. You don’t.
In a 600 or 1200 room hotel, they barely care that you exist…the problem gets bigger.
The lesson here is to aim for a hotel where you can book out most of the available space, and where you make an impact on their business. This doesn’t insure good treatment, but it may help. Also aim for a chain that offers midrange prices. Costlier sites are more worried about whether or not you may be bringing down the tone of the place by existing, and they’re more suspicious of things they don’t understand. They also may have a security staff. A typical Hampton or Days Inn has one night porter, and one or two night clerks. The clerks don’t care about anything but the desk, and the porter/maintenance man has plenty to do on his own. They won’t spend a lot of energy trying to see if you are doing something wrong. Only if you cause trouble will it come to their attention. A typical high-end hotel has a security person on duty. They are being paid to be nosy and neutralize threats. They’d rather annoy you, and have you be unhappy, than have something happen they didn’t expect, and have their boss be happy. The secret to job success for them is to neutralize a threat before it starts, and that means you. Paradoxically, I’ve noted that Northern hotels that employ a uniformed security officer give less trouble than hotels that employ a plainclothes security manager. A uniformed guy is usually a "grunt" who is often a tired cop, moonlighting and anxious to go off shift. A security manager is a man looking for a better job in the company, and out to prove himself. You figure out which one is more of a threat.
Hotels near airports are often very sensitive about noise and their lobbies. A lot of their repeat business isn’t organizations – it’s airline staff and business travelers, who are sensitive about noise complaints. Keeping a jet pilot awake at night is a bad problem. Airport hotels also tend to have bars, even if they are a chain that normally wouldn’t.
There is no universal guide to a hotel contract. There are a few pointers.
Don’t try to write your own contract. The hotel has a standard contract. Sign it. The hotel can probably screw you even if they sign your own contract, and that makes them nervous. Many hotels won’t even consider a contract other than their standard.
Most hotels seem to try to "get away" with something early on. It’s my opinion they are sizing you up to see how attentive you are. Be gentle but firm. Needless to say, always keep photocopies of everything. On the flip side, most hotels aren’t out to "screw you."
Hotels cannot build room blocks for you. Front desk and Sales staff are never that well coordinated. Invariably, even if you have an ironclad contract saying all of your rooms are together on the same floor, they won’t be. Accept this. If it is really important, you might get the rooms you want by actually booking the floor in advance with a credit card. Even this sometimes fails. Sales managers have been known to promise this – if you believe they’ll deliver, you’re naïve.
There are three systems to hotel pricing:
Pay for space – you can have as few or as many hotel rooms as you like, but you pay for the function space
Rooms buy space – as you get various numbers of "room nights" your space costs get cheaper and cheaper
Catering buys space – as you buy catering, your function space gets cheaper.
Friday Saturday Sunday
In hotel parlance, these are three days for function space. If you are in your room from 2 Friday to 2 Sunday, you are charged for two nights. However, from the hotel perspective, you owe three days on the function room for the same time period. Understand this, and if you can’t handle it, make it clear you need an exception. Some hotels will do it the other way, but you have to ask.
Function Rooms
The big pitched battle is almost always over food. If you want to serve your own food and refreshments, sign with a hotel that doesn’t have its own restaurant. If the hotel owns the restaurant, then they make revenue off its catering. The better the hotel, and the restaurant, the more of a stink they are likely to make and the closer they’ll watch if snacks "wander" into the function space.
Make sure the function rooms are big enough and try to check the air conditioning – rooms get hot with sixty people in them. Try and envision your event in the space. We’ll talk more about function rooms under space allocation.
Food
More and more events are expected to serve some food. In the early nineties, an event wasn’t expected to serve any real food or drink. A cocktail party might well not have any cocktails. Over five years food and drink began to creep into events. First, there were drinks served at "bars" – then as time went on snacks came out to supplement the drinks. Then some more substantial items began to supplement the snacks. Even four-hour events are often expected to serve drinks and snacks.
One really big influence was the Intercon "Con-Suite." Intercon established that players did better and maintained higher energy levels if they were able to eat and drink a fair amount at the actual event site.
Food service is expensive. It tacks a fair chunk onto the price of an event. If you are doing snacks and drinks for a full weekend event, your cost for 50 players will be about $250. Double that for 100 players.
Given this, why should you do food service?
Expectations – whether you like it or not, other events are doing it. If you are charging $55 for a full weekend, and other similarly-priced events are serving food, you better either server food, or have some other dramatic advantage that makes the players feel you are giving them their money’s worth
Player attitude and energy level – the single most important factor in how well your event will be received and how well it will go is the attitude the players come into it with. Food and drink are a big way to give the players a good attitude. More than that, players in dry hotel space (all hotels are dry) or out in the sun, tend to become dehydrated very quickly. If they can get their fluids replaced, and keep stoked on carbohydrates, their energy level stays up. If not, they may become irritable and lethargic – and an irritable and lethargic player is someone who can do damage to your event.
Pacing – a dinner break will stop your event dead for two hours. The time may be shorter if there are restaurants nearby, but remember that some players, possibly critical ones, are finicky, and might well be unwilling to eat in a nearby food court, driving some distance to another type of restaurant instead.
The only worse thing than no dinner break is an unscheduled dinner break. When everyone knows that the event shuts down at 5pm for dinner, the majority of your players will take about an hour and a half to gather their friends, change clothes, go to dinner, change clothes again, and come back. While some players will blithely go out to dinner costumed as Superman, some feel the need to change into "street clothes" even when what they are wearing is almost indistinguishable from normal clothing, or is formal wear that would appear eccentric, but perfectly acceptable, at any restaurant. Players will take time to gather into groups, and the bigger the group, they longer it will take for them to get served. Don’t count on having critical events within two hours of a scheduled "meal break."
If you don’t schedule a meal break, then at about 5pm, your players will start to wander off to dinner. At about 6pm, some others players will notice that there is "almost nobody" left playing, and will decide this must be dinnertime. By the time they get out, your first wave of players will be back.
This could possibly work well in some scenarios where you want a constant low level of activity, but more likely it will result in three hours of frustration and delay. About the only good reason to have an "unscheduled" meal break is if you don’t think the event you’re running is particularly good, or has enough plot in it, and you want to slow down the event so the players don’t burn plot too quickly.
Most players don’t get up and get gaming until 10am, and many events don’t even start until 10am. If no breaks are scheduled, players will be out to lunch from 12-2, and at dinner from 6-9. This means that a "day" of gaming is only about 9 hours.
What Meals to Serve
Some events need to serve all their players meals, some need only to serve snacks. An event at a hunting lodge might serve six meals, while an event run in a hotel adjoining a food court might only serve snacks.
Probably the most critical meal for players in a full weekend scenario is Breakfast Saturday morning, followed by Dinner Saturday night. Many events neglect Breakfast. A good deal is to run your event in a hotel that serves breakfast, like the Hampton Chain, or some Days Hotels. If you can’t do that, at least put coffee and donuts (or some other appropriate food) out. Players will often neglect breakfast, and the fact is that will make most players lethargic and cranky all day.
Dinner is also critical. A handful of players never realize they need to eat, and find themselves tired, and worn out early Saturday evening. Some may keep going, but they become irritable, and a likely source of trouble. They may also remember the event less fondly.
If you have a choice of meals to cater, make it dinner Saturday night.
The Way to Players Heart's is through their Stomach
Good food can cover for a lame or dull event. This is especially true at evening events where catering and party atmosphere may be almost as much the focus of the evening as the event itself. "At least they fed us well" is not the worst thing someone could say about your event. In the best of circumstances organized and catered meals allow play to continue with minimum disruption, and enhance the mood and atmosphere.
What to Serve
There is no solid guide to what to serve at events. The Intercon conventions have established a few truths in their con suite:
Have some food that can make a meal. Even if you aren’t officially serving lunch, a player may be either too busy to go out, or too poor to afford food. A big jar of peanut butter and jelly doesn’t break any event’s budget, and will keep a player going.
You can save huge amounts of money by shopping for your events at one of the major warehouse chains: Costco, BJ’s, Sam’s, etc. These clubs charge about $25 for a one year membership, which you will make back the first time you run an event. One of the biggest savings is on cups.
Players go through cups like Sherman went through Georgia – even a small event needs 150 or more at a minimum. It is hard to assign a strict number per player, but you can almost assume that each time a player takes a drink, he or she will use a fresh cup. Use 12 or preferably 16 ounce cups. Since the major reason for waste is players forgetting which cup belonged to them, get a "Sharpie" brand indeliable marker, and secure it (meaning tie a string to it) where cups are distributed. Most players will be amused enough at writing character names, or symbols on their cup that they will label it. The big advantage to 16 ounce cups (other than not having people snicker and call you a "tightwad" when you put them out) is that they hold enough soda that players can take it with them. This cuts down on traffic in your food service area.
Plates, napkins, and plastic knives and forks all cost a fraction of supermarket prices – and one purchase may last through several events. Other supplies and food are also more economical purchased in bulk quantities.
Soda is the one thing I never skimp on. If you put out 8 ounce cups (or God forbid four ounce cups), and generic soda, do not fool yourself into thinking people don’t realize that you are a cheap bastard. The vast majority of Americans drink Coca-Cola or Pepsi products by choice (this is a fact - check it out). If you don’t have their brand – they notice.
Many organizers use small cups and grocery store brands to cut back on consumption. This is just plain stupid. Serving people something that they don’t like is worse than serving them nothing at all. It may be true that "if they’re desperate enough they’ll drink it," but they will notice, and it will leave them with the feeling that the event was "cheap." In most cities, the major grocery chains discount both Coke and Pepsi products on a regular basis, frequently to rates as low as 77cents (against 69 as an average for store brands). Chains like Wal-Mart carry Coke and Pepsi for 99 cents. Eight dollars of savings on twenty bottles is not worth annoying eight in ten players. The breakdown is about 70 Coke/Pepsi 40 Diet 40 Other (Mostly Sprite or 7up with a few bottles of Root Beer, Orange, or Ginger Ale) – Make sure to have a few diet sodas that do not have caffeine – some players can’t have either. Allow for regional specialties - Mountain Dew or Mello Yellow are outstandingly popular in some areas, for example.
Intercon stocks about 150 two liter bottles of name brand soda for 150 attendees for two days. Thirsty players will easily consume that much. For a 50-60 player event, I would usually purchase 40-60 bottles of soda, using a similar breakdown to that above. If the majority of players are under 25, decrease the amount of diet soda. If the majority are over 25, increase the amount of diet soda.
Have something non-carbonated – this can be tricky since non-carbonated drinks tend to be luxury items that are sold at a real premium. Icewater may be the best bet, and if you really want to cut down on soda consumption, serve good sodas and icewater. Players will drink icewater to quench thirst, and switch to soda only for taste, and to recaffeinate.
It is possible that drinking non-carbonated beverages, primarily fruit juices, is an emerging trend among college students graduating after 1996. This corresponds to marketing information gathered by the major retailers who have introduced lines such as Fruitopia, and by the targeting of advertising by the Snapple company.
Serve drinks where everyone can reach them. I’ve been in a situation where GMs served drinks out of a bathroom that could only be accessed by going around the line for another food service area, squeezing by a corner where people congregated to talk, and going down a narrow hallway, where two people had to turn to pass each other. They told me I’d overestimated the amount of soda the people in their event would drink. I hadn’t. The fact that their consumption was so low was because no one could get to the sodas to pour them.
Alcohol
Discussion of Alcohol at events always elicits an amazing amount of unwarranted chaff. Four years ago the Internet FAQ for Live Action events said that "alcohol was never served." The influence of the "just say no" generation seems to be a clump of folks who honestly believe that "drinking and [name your hobby here]" don’t mix.
On the other hand, we have the British, who whether playing live-combat or theatre style events are capable of putting away quantities of alcohol that most of us would term "prodigious" without batting an eye.
Alcohol at events certainly isn’t a problem. I’ve served some alcohol at at least twenty events, and never had a problem. The few problems with alcohol at Intercon have sprung from after-hours drinking at private parties, not from drinking at events.
Obviously there are a few considerations. If you have minors playing, you need to have control over your alcohol service, so that minors don’t get served. On the entirely pragmatic level this usually isn’t an issue – minors are usually either nineteen year olds who can easily get a friend to get them a drink if they want it, or twelve year olds with parents accompanying who aren’t going to try to get a drink. If you have a very large number of minors, that might well be a good reason not to serve alcohol at all.
I’ve never seen a player drink themselves sick, or behave particularly badly because of alcohol. For most people it’s an inhibition reducer, and that’s a fine thing to have when you are playing an event. As anyone who has ever roleplayed knows, the problem is not that people might "get too into their roles and become their character" or any other such tripe. The problem is that most people aren’t actors, and that conveying any sense of their character is hard work.
The flip side is that alcohol is a dehydrant and a depressant. The first means you better have plenty of water and other beverages available. The second means it may take the edge off a tired player’s energy level. In general, in all the circumstances I’ve seen, players drink lightly and responsibly.
Obviously it’s safer to serve alcohol to people you know than strangers. If you’re running an open event with alcohol, then designate someone as bouncer. I’ve never had to bounce anyone from a party, but when running the "Second Circle of Hell" open events, we have had to lean on players (though usually just because they were rude and stupid, not because they were drunk.) Still, it’s best not to be caught unprepared – make sure you have someone tough enough to handle trouble quickly and efficiently should it arise.
Caffeine
The final thing to remember when you are thinking about beverage service is caffeine. The fact is that a good number of LRPers are caffeine addicts, whether they think of themselves that way or not. Not getting their regular afternoon soda may be the source of a sudden crash in energy level that a player doesn’t understand. Make sure you have caffeine available, or you may watch some of your most experienced players suddenly fizzle for no readily apparent reason.
Staff
In the old days, there were GMs (who sometimes called themselves "Gods" in order to make it clear who was important and who was not), and there were Players. With only a handful of GMs running events, players took what they could get and were grateful. LRP was really not much more than tabletop, done standing up.
Slowly things began to change. Competition forced GM groups to behave more like professionals, and less like prima donnas. Players demanded better service, and less `tude. In order to meet these demands, GMs took on "assistants"
Today, there is a bewildering variety of potential ways someone can be involved in a LRP event. My favorite breakdown is into GMs, Cast, and Technical Staff. In describing staff roles, I’m trying to get away from the concept that the "GM" is the important figure, and everyone else is just an assistant. It may be true that the GM calls the shots, much in the way a Director calls the shots in a theatre production. But without makeup artists, production managers, and stage managers, the Director would be doomed.
GMs – are responsible for running the event. GMs are either "specialized," or "floor" GMs. Specialized GMs run a specific mechanic or event. One typical example is that in an event where there is a "wargame" being played out on a map to symbolize combat happening somewhere away from the event location, one GM might be tolled off to run that mechanic full time.
I favor a mixture of one GM for 7-10 players, plus one GM for every specialized mechanic. Some groups will tell you that is "GM heavy" but I disagree. On the other hand it may be better to have less GMs than to take on GMs that you don’t trust, or don’t think are competent, or don’t have time to train.
Cast – are players who take their orders from a GM. These are also called "Non player characters," but I don’t care much for the term. It derives from tabletop events, where these characters were run by the GM. In modern theatre style LRP, the characters certainly are played, and the designation doesn’t make as much sense.
Cast are a wonderful pacing control – possibly the best ever invented. I’ll talk more about cast in discussing runtime proceedures.
What kind of roles you have for cast may differ from event to event. Sometimes cast are used to portray a string of minor, unimportant, characters, sometimes to make a guest appearance as some important character, sometimes they are seeded into the regular player mix as a "GM Shill" in order to drive a specific event.
Cast are good people to assign to play characters that must die, or make some tragic mistake, in order to drive the event.
Technical Staff
Technical staff covers a myriad of duties. In some events, where there are some strong cast characters who play the entire event, and others that appear only to play "monsters" or "visitors" I tend to consider these "short term" cast members "Technical Staff." Likewise cast roles that aren’t much fun and involve a lot of work – such as being a working butler, or maid.
People who are definitely technical staff are dedicated food-service and preparation staff, makeup artists, or props, sound, and special effects staff.
These are the unglamorous roles that lie at the heart of an event, and can make it come to life.
If I have one word of advice – pamper your technical staff. Make sure they know they’re important, and make sure they have the tools to do what they need. Then stay out of their way and let them do it. Always be ready with a word of guidance, but never try to micromanage. The sound systems guy needs to know where the sound needs to go – but he doesn’t need you to stand and supervise his setting the sound system up.
Figuring costs
Before you start to put your event together, you need to calculate some costs. It helps to have run previous events, but here’s a basic guide as to what you need to include – these things may not all apply to every event, but likely some of them will:
____ Venue costs
____ Sleeping rooms for GMs
____ Any staff or cast salary
____ Sleeping rooms for cast
____ Paper costs Photocopying
____ Printer supplies (including color cartridges)
____ Paper
____ Binding
____ Folders or envelopes
____ Any stickers or buttons
____ Badges (and badgeholders)
____ Properties (props can get expensive – try to borrow, or retread old props before buying)
____ Beverages
____ Snack food
____ Catering
____ Your Bottom Line
Setting the Price
There are different philosophies on what to charge players for an event. In general, I charge about 25% above what my calculated costs are – that’s enough to comfortably cover some overruns. I’ve also lost a lot of money on events, so I’d advise going a bit higher.
Some groups and individuals run to make a profit. There’s nothing wrong with this, but generally I don’t bother. The fact is that putting an event together is a herculanean task, taking hundreds of hours. No sane price is going to pay for that time.
A thousand dollars worth of revenue would be a huge profit on an event. Yet among five GMs, it would only be $200 apiece. Running for profit encourages keeping staff size small to maximize profits, and this trend is contrary to the trend towards a larger staff to serve the players better
If you openly declare that you are running for profit, many players and other GMs won’t go out of their way to help you. After all, you’re basically asking them to help you make money for yourself. I’ve seen several groups in the terrible position of being "for profit" and having to explain that since they never had actually made any money or were likely to, they really did need help. It’s easier not to be in this position. Unless you have a strong business plan, and some real chance of making a decent sum of money, declare that your group runs at cost, and spare yourself the grief.
If you mean for your group to be formal, you should consider yourself to be a "non-profit" group. People have a lot of misunderstandings as to what this means. Most groups, by default, are "non-profit" organizations. They don’t have shareholders, and any money they make gets rolled back into the organization, rather than paid out to stockholders. It is fine for a non-profit group to reimburse members, or others for expenses, or even pay them for services, or pay them a salary (so long as it’s reasonably fair).
A non-profit group that isn’t going to be making more than a few thousand dollars a year doesn’t need to incorporate. This type of group is legally defined in most states as an "unincorporated association." Many small clubs, fellowship organizations, and what-have-you operate for years as unincorporated associations. If you feel it’s important, you may want to file for incorporation in your state. This is generally a fairly simple process that will cost you around $120, and a couple of afternoons.
The real nightmare of non-profit organizations is trying to get status as an IRS 501( c ) (3) charity. However, there probably isn’t any overwhelming reason for your group to do this unless you are expecting a lot of donations (admission to your events, by and large, could not be counted as donations under current tax-law).
Neither running at cost, or being "non-profit" means that your income and outgo have to be exactly the same. It’s fine to carry over money at the end of the year, and it’s fine to reimburse yourself, or others for travel. If you did have a $100 per person profit, it would be perfectly fine to reimburse your staff for their time – two ten hour days of work makes $100 well below minimum wage.
Nobody begrudges the GMs a small return on the event. I’ve occasionally made a hundred bucks or so back…however since my food and gas for the weekend cost more than a hundred bucks, that hardly constituted a profit.
There are a lot of advantages to running "not for profit." The biggest advantage is that your players readily perceive that you are trying to build an entertainment with them, instead of put on a show for them. Nothing wrong with putting on a show, and you’ll end up doing it anyway. But if your players feel they’re part of the experience, they’re more likely to give it their all.
On a GM level, it can help with staff, cast, and properties. People are a lot more willing to reach out and go the extra mile for a group that is running at break-even. Favors in the way of props, equipment, and help are more likely to be forthcoming
Player vs. Cast rate
There are a million different plans on how to divide up payment for an event. The bottom line is that income has to cover the cost of the event. The true cost. One big question is whether or not to charge cast:
Pro: cast often get almost as full an event experience as the players. Players resent cast, especially if they play powerful or important people, getting in for free. Since they tend to be friends of the GM, they may see free cast as no more than subsidizing the event so the GMs cronies can play for free.
Con: if your cast are paying, they expect to be given an experience worth the money. If a cast role fizzles, or you need them to suddenly change horses and do something else (including play a different character) they’ll likely be offended. If cast are getting in for free, they generally understand they are part of the team, working for you and there to do what you ask of them. This doesn’t mean they want to be abused or treated poorly – they’re still donating their time after all. But you have more leeway in what constitutes "fun" and in what kind of work assignments you would give them. I think it’s important to show your cast that you don’t ask them to do anything you are too proud to do. Take a stint once in a while at cleaning dishes, picking up cups, and if you’re idle, throw your shoulder in to help your cast out. They’re doing these things because you can’t be everywhere at once, not because you’re better than they are.
When considering whether to charge cast, you need to decide what cast roles will be like – are they just player characters with some GM guidance, or are they butlers, lackeys, and dust boys. For this reason, I often use the "Technical Staff" division – Technical Staff are free, and cast get a minor discount.
Split Rate
It’s getting increasingly difficult to run an event for under $70-80. Players expect food, a good venue, and other amenities, but their pocketbooks aren’t getting deeper as fast as their expectations are rising. This is especially true with couples. An event that is $80 to an individual is $160 to a couple. This can lead to last minute registrations, which make life hard on you.
A solution is to offer a split rate. Register your players for an advance fee of half or even a quarter of the full price, with the remainder due at the door. From a marketing point of view it’s great. You get the commitment, they don’t have to shell out the cash ten months in advance. It makes some events possible for people who couldn’t make them otherwise. I’ve done well with a split of $35/45 on an $80 event.
Getting some of the money at the last minute may also make things easier on you. You know the hotel is covered (just make sure you deposit the checks first thing Monday morning). You know that you won’t foolishly spend all the receipts on "really cool props."
Setting the date
Setting a date for your event can be tricky – and even the best-laid plans gang aft agley.
For starters, determine how much lead time you need to promote and produce the event. It’s fine to be an adherent of the school of "have it in the box before you advertise it," but don’t think that means you can run with a shorter lead time. If the roleplaying community is used to a six month lead on events, you’ll have a hard time filling in three weeks. And even if you do, you may have caused more inconvenience than your players decide your event was worth.
How far in advance is far enough depends on your social circles and geographic area. For a small event, in an area where few events are run, six to eight weeks is probably enough time to schedule an event. On the other hand, for a major full length event, a date should be solid at least twelve months in advance, preferably eighteen. Eighteen months is the "look ahead" for Intercons, incidentally.
Find out what else is scheduled before you decide on a date. Often it is good to pick two dates – a "primary" date, and a back up date that you can switch to if something comes up. It isn’t unheard of for two full length events to announce for the same date – with no intention of "walking" on each other. If that happens, and you’re already in a position to offer to change, there is very little harm done.
If I seem to be mentioning the LARPA a lot in this section, I am. The LARPA exists as a networking organization for GMs – what better source to use when trying to schedule an event with minimum competition. Start by consulting the LARPA calendar – it’s a little known fact that if you’re an LARPA member, and you e-mail a question about a particular date to calendar@ilfinfo.org, the calendar editor will usually let you know if anything is going on that date that hasn’t been published yet. It isn’t foolproof of course – a group might not have sent the information in yet, or it might not have been processed – but in general the calendar editor works hard to be helpful, and it’s one way to head off a potential conflict.
Talk to other GMs in your area too. Usually, you will know at least some of the GMs. Think about informally announcing your event at some social event where a lot of roleplayers will be gathered – they’re likely to be able to advise you if you’ve hit a bad date.
I "preannounce" dates, using the LARPA and other private mailing lists, before printing flyers. If you’ve committed a horrific blunder, you’re likely to find it out that way, before you’ve officially announced a date.
What you should try to avoid scheduling opposite is up to you. Some GMs try to avoid social events like parties, others feel that it’s a buyer’s market and everyone can make their own decisions. Basic Marketing suggests that you first decide who is likely to play your event. If many of these individuals come from one or two social groups, then try to avoid social events linked with those groups! If many of your prospective players are college students, then don’t schedule a run during finals. Use logic and common sense, but don’t assume what’s important to you is important to everyone else.
I advocate doing a lot of research on scheduling and setting up a date, but I’m reluctant to change it once it’s set. Someone is always running a party somewhere, and often players do have to decide. An event can take quite a beating from a variety of social events, none of which, in themselves, warrant changing the date of your event.
Other events are a different matter. Once a date has been set, and fairly advertised, it’s up to other GMs to avoid your event. If they feel like running opposite, then you have to decide whether to stand or fold. The decision depends on how much of a similar market the event opposite you draws on – in some cases only a few players may overlap, and you can continue with apologies to them that you couldn’t change your date. In other cases, you may find yourself in a head-to-head battle for registrants. Such a competition is seldom won. If you must compete, be a gentleman. Don’t put players on the spot about which event they are playing and don’t say unpleasant things about the other group that is producing opposite you. The first will leave a bad feeling with a player who might be a potential customer at some unopposed event in the future. The second makes you look small, and is just as likely to make your potential customers avoid your event as the other one.
As events become more common, conflict will be unavoidable, and it will be more important to be fair and decent when opposing another event. Unfortunately players are often more militant than GMs, but don’t encourage bad behavior, and set a good example.
Holidays
If you are running on a holiday weekend, think very carefully about the effects. Needless to say, it isn’t brilliant to expect a big turnout when opposing Thanksgiving, or some other Holiday where many people are expected to travel and meet with family. Remember if your players are college aged or younger that the fact that they are militant atheists may not alter the fact that they are financially tied to mom and dad, and must pack up for a Christmas visit like everyone else. Even older players often have family obligations focusing on the "big" travel holidays. In addition, you place your players in extra risk of life and limb if you put them on the highway over a holiday weekend.
Finally, remember that Canada and Great Britain have different holidays from the United States.
Some holidays are better than others. Recent experience has taught me that more people than you might think have planned activities on Memorial Day Weekend. However Intercon has done quite well running on the Columbus Day long-weekend. A long weekend can make for an interesting event, allowing more time, and a full Sunday of play. There’s a backlash to this as well. Don’t assume that most of your players will have a "long weekend" off. A disproportionate number of younger players work retail positions where "President’s Day" is one of the biggest days of the year, and time off is impossible.
In general, unless you have a clear idea of why you are running on a holiday – avoid it.
Potential Traps
Get a good calendar before you schedule, and check for Jewish Holidays as well as Christian ones. Even if only a handful of your potential players are Jewish, they’ll resent your scheduling an event over Passover, and their friends won’t think much of you either. It’s only a courtesy to check dates that could cause trouble for other players. Use some sensibility, and if you aren’t sure how important a holiday is to a certain religion or social group, ask. Remember too that some social groups have inflexible traditions, or obligations to social events on days like St. Patrick’s Day, or Memorial Day, or Fourth of July.
As the community enlarges, it may be important to take other holidays into account as well – there are not many Islamic players in the local community I am familiar with, but that may be different in different areas of the country, or may be subject to change as the community becomes more ecumenical.
The Dreaded Wedding
In an ideal world people wouldn’t get married…at least not opposite your event. In the real world, it is a fact that even longtime members of the roleplaying community will blithely smack a wedding down without the slightest regard to other events, even if they are a year or more into the planning cycle. Weddings are suddenly "real life" and everything else – no matter how much money may be riding on the line, or how many man hours of labor may be involved – is just "gaming" after all.
Even without the blissful ignorance that goes along with matrimonial planning, you may run afoul of one of these dreaded beasts. Stand aside or get out of the way. Do not fight them. When it comes to events, the wedding is the nine-hundred-pound gorilla. It does not brook touching, it will destroy or smash any obstacle in its path and those who would fight any other event tooth and nail will leap to its defense. Weddings involve the drafting of a number of individuals into the "wedding party," and these individuals are lost to you. Flexibility is not an option.
Weddings have a "shotgun" effect too. They not only tend to blast a powerful hole in the weekend for which they are planned, but may have a scattershot impact throughout the month – a bewildering variety of showers, bachelor parties, etc. accompanies the wedding, and while these may be slightly more flexible than the wedding, often they are not.
Remember as well, that the wedding need not pertain to the local community from which you are drawing your player base. A wedding involving two non-players can still suck away a huge chunk of one or more of the local social groups. This is in many ways worse, because the happy couple very truly have no obligation to your schedule whatsoever, and have an excellent claim on the attentions of your audience.
The only thing to do with a wedding is "put up or move." If the wedding is peripheral, you may lose a half-dozen players you would have liked to have, but be otherwise unscathed. If the wedding is central to your community, you may have to consider moving your date – even if that means bad feelings, losses in terms of cancellation fees, refunds, and lost advertising costs. The bigger your event the more likely you will be able to bull ahead – but you can’t compete.
Announce before you sign
Announce your date before you sign a hotel, or related contract. First
announcement is almost always the time when unexpected trouble surfaces,
and it is drastically easier to issue a retraction, and change the date
before you’ve signed with a hotel. As a side note, I don’t tend to discuss
site arrangements until they are made – in the distant past someone who
didn’t much care for me talked to a hotel I was negotiating with, and convinced
them not to close a deal with me. Such spoilsports are unlikely
in today’s more civilized atmosphere, but it’s still probably a good idea
to play your planning close to your shirt. On the converse, I encourage
you to share the details of your contract once it’s signed. It helps other
GMs get the same contract, and if you are seen as the source of repeat
business for the hotel, your rates might go down.
Copyright 1998 , Gordon Olmstead-Dean. You
may reprint or cite, providing the source is attributed.
Some of this material has appeared previously in
identical or substantially similar form in the LARPA Periodical
Metagame