Well, it's almost here. I just signed the contract for the hotel, and am happy to announce that Board Game Bash will be on August 7-9, 2015 at the Austin Marriott South.This is a pretty long post, so I'll give you the tl;dr bullets right up front:Ticket prices are going up to $55 for pre-registration and $65 at the door.We have a room block at the hotel with discounted room rates, and it would be great if you stayed there (mention Board Game Bash at booking).Parking is included at no extra charge.Based on the survey results, there will be no raffles.Mystery Grab Bags will be smaller, and only offered to Early Bird pre-registrants.The hotel will offer cash-and-carry food.Entry ticket sales may be cutoff to avoid a lack of tables.Volunteers and event runners get free admission to the convention, so if you'd like to run an event or volunteer to help out, fill out the form to submit your application.Now, the much longer version:I've always held that I wanted the convention to be transparent, so that you know where your entry fees are going. I want the convention to be both accessible and affordable, but, at the same time, I don't want to pay a bunch of money out of my own pocket to run it.So the first thing you'll see is that ticket prices for pre-registration are going up to $55. That's a $10 increase over the previous year. The reason for this is hotel costs. For whatever problems we encountered at the previous hotel, we apparently got an excellent price on meeting rooms over there. The research I did on my own was looking like prices would be more than tripling for meeting space, so I brought in some professional help to see if something better could be found. I'm glad I did, because the event planner did find us a pretty competitive rate. Unfortunately, that rate is still just under triple what was paid last year. Hotel expenses were, by far, the biggest single expense of the convention. That's even more the case this year.So that brings in what can be done to compensate for the additional hotel costs. The first thing was that the Marriott offered us a room block. They've given us a very fair rate of $118 per night. Now, I know most of you are locals, and can just drive home, but if you'd like the convenience of a hotel room, booking it with the Board Game Bash room block will give the convention credit for your stay. Basically, we need 100 room nights (50 rooms at 2 nights per room) booked for the weekend, otherwise, the convention (namely, I) will have to eat the cost of unsold rooms. So if you're coming from out of town, or north Austin, or just want a good place to stay, booking a room will help.Second was the survey that was recently put out there. Thanks to everyone that participated. It was super helpful getting all that data, and pretty enlightening. Let's take a look.The first thing that came out was that you guys apparently hate the raffles. The scale was rated from Strongly Disagree (which corresponds to a -2) to Strongly Agree (which corresponds to a +2). Here are two of the questions, along with the average response:-1.56:I get really excited about the door prize raffle.
+1.45:The door prize raffles are a nuisance.So that's a pretty damning reaction to the raffles. So they're gone. They may be replaced with something smaller that won't interrupt gaming, but they may just be crossed off and forgotten. That will be determined as planning gets further along.The raffles were easily the most revealing thing. The rest weren't quite so obvious. An expense that I looked into was the Mystery Grab Bags. In my head, they're a fun thing to get at registration that are a nice item that you could only get at Board Game Bash . In reality, it looks like you guys kind of like them, but don't really get too excited:-0.48:I don't really care about the Mystery Grab Bags.
-0.91:Getting a MGB is something I really look forward to.So something slightly in favor of them, and something slightly not. This tepid response is indicative that the time and money spent on them is probably not worth it. The custom dice got a few shout outs in the comments. So I'm revising the grab bags in two ways. First, they're going to be reduced. The dice will still be included, as will perhaps one or two other mystery items. But I'll probably ditch the snacks, the free game, and the tchotchkes. I didn't get the impression that anyone was terribly excited for the games, and those were a progressively bigger and bigger hassle to hunt down. Now, if there is a game company out there willing to donate games in exchange for advertising, send over an e-mail! I'd love to offer something to attendees that they'd actually want!You guys also seem tepid about the convention running through the night:+0.07:It is very important that the convention run 24 hours.That is something to take into account next year. Removing the overnight issue would open up some other venues in town. However, there are a lot of attendees still playing at midnight or 2 AM or later, and most venues wouldn't allow for that late of an event. A midnight closing time is probably the best we could get without some additional crazy costs, so I'm still of the opinion that just doing 24 hours is easier. This question did have one of the higher standard deviations, so I think there's some contention. I'm sticking with 24 hours this year, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise for 2016.On to some of your comments. There were three clear front-runners in the "worst part" section of the survey: parking, the food policy, and not having enough tables.As to parking: I heard you loud and clear. I've been aware of the parking issue since our first year downtown. I tried to work something out with the hotel so that attendees could get parking, but I think some of us are still having nightmares about that. By last year, I gave up, and left you to find parking downtown on your own, which you hated. I don't blame you. I hate parking downtown, too. So a location that offered ample parking was a top concern. And we have it. The Marriott has both surface parking and a garage, so you should all be able to park at no additional charge.As to food: Allow me to assure you, take whatever frustration you had about the food policy last year, and add an order of magnitude. That's still less than my frustration. I'm happy to say that the Marriott isn't nearly as hostile as our previous venue. They seem excited to offer a cash and carry option at reasonable prices, and offer it for all three meals during the day. They even seem open to feedback about what should be offered. I think that's great, and I hope you guys do, too. They also don't have any kind of clause in the contract about attendees bringing in snacks. I'll encourage you to get food from the hotel, because it's probably pretty good, but that restriction should be gone. (As with any venue, TABC is pretty strict about outside alcohol. So you can't bring that. We can't be filling their trash cans with wine bottles and beer cans, or pouring things from liter bottles. Nobody wants to be the booze police, so don't give me as the organizer or, more importantly, the hotel reason to be by getting caught with outside alcohol.)As to tables: Even though the size of our crowd was known in advance, our previous hotel simply did not have enough tables to accommodate our needs. While that meant that it was relatively easy to walk around the main gaming room, it also meant that people were left wanting when it came to finding places to play. This year, I've made sure that the hotel has enough tables, but I'm also looking much closer at the space and what will fit in it. So there are two options: I've put in notice that if registration goes gangbusters, that we'll be interested in expanding to some additional meeting rooms that the hotel has. So if those are available, we can grow into those extra rooms. Second, if those aren't available, or if they're too expensive, then there's a reasonable chance that I'll have to cut off registration. So there's a possibility that we'll sell out or won't be able to do tickets at the door. Pre-registration is more important than ever. I'll be sure to post updates if things look like they might be sold out.That's the gist of it. If you made it this far, then congratulations. That was a lot to read, and I appreciate your dedication to Board Game Bash. If you'd like to take that dedication a step further, I'd love to have you as a volunteer or event runner. It's easy work, you get free admission to the convention, and you make it a better event all around.Thanks! See you in August!
