Well, I Enjoyed It

[Phil Masters]

Thanks to the organisers - a good convention.

[Sutekh]

It was the best UK Games Expo so far, in my opinion. I ran Dark Ages: Vampire, Munchausen, All Flesh, Hunter, and then Hunter again. Each game was fully attended and all of them ran excellently. The atmosphere both at the Expo and at the Strathallan next door (with all the free-to-play board games) were superb.

I'll probably recap the Expo in more depth on my YouTube channel but needless to say I had a fantastic weekend, spent a ridiculous amount of money, and got on with everyone I met.

Excellent Expo!

[thenovalord]

It was of great awesomeness

Big and Beautiful

every gamer should go at least once

GM reward scheme was very generous

watching daleks reverse while going beep-beep, will never stop being funny

Very child friendly con as well

Magners on tap

fav con of 2011 so far

[Wintergreen]

Definitely great fun.
I think the Pathfinder Society team all enjoyed it and the feedback so far is that all the players did.
So congratulations to the Expo team for a well-run, fun con.

(even though I was nearly run over by a dalek after getting distracted by Catwoman!)

[ncmreynolds]

It was my first time at Expo and it worked really well for me. The event calendar was a bit trad for me, but I managed to find some things that weren't Pathfinder to play.

The trade hall was great and more varied than elsewhere while the lookalike/cosplay people added some colour to the sea of gamers and seemed popular with the kids. The Matt Smith-alike was really good.

Pre-booking games with no fee isn't ideal though IMO. Especially if somebody tries to run a multiple slot game.

We had people in slots 2 (free) and 3 (paid) of the three slot Dresden Files game who wanted to get into slot 1 (free) but couldn't as it was full. Except it wasn't, two people who'd booked the first slot were no-shows. We filled one space in the first slot with somebody whose game (in the same room) didn't run (also due to no-shows) but then had to kick him out for the other slots when pre-booked players turned up.

I'm guessing there's a good reason the free slots are free (venue?), but I worry that because they're free people don't value them. I didn't notice any problem with no-shows in the paid slots.

Or maybe I was just unlucky with the free one on Friday.

[thenovalord]

rpg is free on friday, so yeah risk of no show

i had one no show in a fri evening game

and the pre booking is efficient, and i personally like it c.f to the carnage at other cons

[ncmreynolds]

and the pre booking is efficient, and i personally like it c.f to the carnage at other cons

It feels to me like one of those 'great when it works' things. It gives you a real degree of certainty as a player, which I like and muster only scales so far.

However the chaos of muster does mean it's easier to scoop up floating players from the crowd if you get no-shows. Mostly because you become aware of the no-shows straight away, as opposed to you all sitting round wondering where the missing players are and giving up on them after fifteen minutes.

I hate no-shows, it is IMO epicly rude.

It has also been pointed out to me that there is no simple cancellation system on-line, it needs manual intervention from the organisers. Which may be a contributory factor to the no-shows.

[thenovalord]

yeah

next time id contact the organisers beforehand if you are gonna run multi slot game

expo has an (excellent) gm reward scheme so i guess they need to know where they are

I ran 5 games and got free accomodation, 5 quid cash each slot i ran, and 35% of voucher at a number of trade stands

It is a very professional con, and im not sure the scrummage of muster would 'fit'

rpgs are not the main thrust even though i imagine more than 25 rpgs ran per slot

pre sign is also excellent for those bringing younglings

[ncmreynolds]

It is a very professional con, and im not sure the scrummage of muster would 'fit'

Yes, you definitely couldn't muster. It just felt like there needed to be some kind of way to handle or deter no-shows. The obvious one to me would be to charge for every slot and just adjust the slot charge downwards appropriately so the costs are spread across all of them.

Does anybody know why there are some free slots, it seems to be related to which venue they're in?

Anyway, it's not like it's my con the organisers can do whatever they like and on the whole it seems to work well.

[dpmcalister]

I believe (and could be completely wrong - it's been known to happen before ) that the free slots on Friday are in a bid to encourage people to come down for multiple days.

[w00hoo]

Was a date for next year announced? Specifically wondering how the moved Bank Holiday will effect things as it's sounding like something I should try and make time for.

[Kaiserjez]

When I first saw the incentives for GM'ing I thought about running some games but I had other stuff I had to be doing on the date of the con. I'll deffo be looking at it for next year though.

[NeilFord]

The Cubicle 7 crew had a great time, as others have said, a very well run event.

I'd forgotten the Friday slots were free, that will be why we had a number of no shows. Oh well.

Looking forward to doing it all again next year.

- Neil.

[ncmreynolds]

I believe (and could be completely wrong - it's been known to happen before ) that the free slots on Friday are in a bid to encourage people to come down for multiple days.

Saturday night is free too, which is why I suspect it's something to do with them being run outside the Clarendon suites. Or maybe it's just that evening games are free, I dunno.

[Phil Masters]

I don't like the idea of charging for game sessions. I get that sometimes it's how the budgeting model works, or space is really expensive, but I'm used to relaxed cons where people turn up, pay at the door, and just run and play stuff, so charging just goes against the grain. No offence to con-runners who do so; it's just not what I'm used to.

But yeah, I can see that it might help deter no-shows. I'm just not used to those either. Why sign up for a game and then not show up?

I was especially bemused by the no-shows I got on Friday night. I hadn't had any sign-ups for the game online; I went along at 6:30 and there were still none, but I left the game open just in case; then at about 7:30, I was told I had three. Which was great, and enough to run with, so I went along to the room ... and only one person showed up. So two people had signed up within 90 minutes of the game, and still not showed up. Weird.

(Okay, so the tickets showed the wrong floor number - but we kept going up to the other floor to make sure that nobody was waiting and looking confused, and the front desk knew about this.)