(I suppose I could have put this in the Playtesting forum, but...)
Protospiel South 2010 is going very well!
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spyderella/sets/72157624036248577/
Things of note:
* 65 registered attendees! I was worried that we'd over-fill the room, but it's comfortable and no-one has complained.
* I was worried that there'd be very few women here, but 10% of the attendees are female. That's not splendid, but I'm happy it's not lower.
* A stereo playing very quiet music is very nice.
* Great vibe! Lots of people playing their games and playing other people's games.
* Gave out little gifts to each playtester attendee. Worked well, felt great!
* Had an anonymous donor provide six tickets to the Alamo Drafthouse (Thanks, anonymous donor!), which we gave out in three two-ticket blocks. That worked nicely.
* Food worked just fine. I was worried I'd get too much or too little, and I'm just on the edge of the "too much" side, so we're in good shape.
Improvements for the future:
* Need a bigger location for next year. I think I'll try to get a room that'll seat 100.
* Provide soda and snacks (free or at a reasonable price).
* Form an LLC or some such to limit liability from accidents (None yet!).
* Get badge names as people register!
More later. Very pleased!
Howdy Dralius,
I'm very grateful to you for letting us use the Protospiel name. We strove to make a convention experience that would live up to Protospiel's reputation. It sounds like we did, and that makes me happy.
We had approximately 67 attendees. Of those, approximately 20 to 25 attended solely to play games. When possible, we recognized them with tiny special gifts.
If you have any more questions about how Protospiel South 2010 went, I'm happy to answer them publicly. If you prefer to ask privately, feel free to. In the interest of helping other people understand how to prepare for and run conventions, I'm being fairly open about how we organized and ran Protospiel South 2010.