T-Minus Nine Weeks to the Con!
With TsunamiCon clearly on the horizon, it’s time to take a moment to inhale sharply the sense of excitement and apprehension. What adventures await the unwashed masses as we descend upon the hallowed halls of the historic Scottish Rite in downtown Wichita? What stories will we have to tell our children and our grandchildren?
Well… for that matter, you could just bring them along. *grins*
TsunamiCon planning is in full swing, and we’ve had some very exciting developments in the past week or so. So let’s get to it:
As per our agreement with the venue, Venue 332 at Wichita Scottish Rite is an official corporate sponsor of TsunamiCon 2016. They’re easily as excited about this event as we are, and they’ve taken additional measures to try and elevate our event. We now have access to pretty much the entire facility… and that means more than enough space to suit everyone’s needs. To keep the noise levels under a bit more control. To move our entertainments and cosplay contest into the auditorium and our VIG Lounge into one of the coolest rooms in the house…
… Which brings us to our VIGs. If you have ever considered taking part in our VIG program, now is an excellent time. These specialty tickets are still available for a short while, and they are a fantastic way to get the most out of the convention. You get all the swag, you get to hang out in the lounge and graze on the victuals and hobnob with the other VIGs, and more, depending on your level of involvement. It’s a great way to show support for your local convention, and it’s a fun way for us to show you how much we appreciate your patronage.
Innovative gaming experiences! Sounds cool when I say it like that, doesn’t it? We have some very cool things happening this year, including the reappearance of Allan Grohe’s phenomenal ALIENS tactical miniatures RPG. We also have some original LARP-like events happening this year, like Shaun Duncan’s original scenario The Purge, which plays out throughout the day on Saturday, and a hilarious live-action event based loosely on Monty Python’s eponymous Arthurian reenactment. And finally, we’ve added the extraordinary Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator to our schedule for this year’s convention, which allows you and your friends (or you and a group of complete strangers, for that matter!) to take over the bridge of a starship for a unique and very personal gaming experience.
And all of this if FREE with your TsunamiCon badge!
So let’s get started, shall we?
T-Minus Nine Weeks to the Con
With TsunamiCon clearly on the horizon, it’s time to take a moment to inhale sharply the sense of excitement and apprehension. What adventures await the unwashed masses as we descend upon the hallowed halls of the historic Scottish Rite in downtown Wichita? What stories will we have to tell our children and our grandchildren?
Well… for that matter, you could just bring them along. *grins*
TsunamiCon planning is in full swing, and we’ve had some very exciting developments in the past week or so. So let’s get to it:
As per our agreement with the venue, Venue 332 at Wichita Scottish Rite is an official corporate sponsor of TsunamiCon 2016. They’re easily as excited about this event as we are, and they’ve taken additional measures to try and elevate our event. We now have access to pretty much the entire facility… and that means more than enough space to suit everyone’s needs. To keep the noise levels under a bit more control. To move our entertainments and cosplay contest into the auditorium and our VIG Lounge into one of the coolest rooms in the house…
… Which brings us to our VIGs. If you have ever considered taking part in our VIG program, now is an excellent time. These specialty tickets are still available for a short while, and they are a fantastic way to get the most out of the convention. You get all the swag, you get to hang out in the lounge and graze on the victuals and hobnob with the other VIGs, and more, depending on your level of involvement. It’s a great way to show support for your local convention, and it’s a fun way for us to show you how much we appreciate your patronage.
Innovative gaming experiences! Sounds cool when I say it like that, doesn’t it? We have some very cool things happening this year, including the reappearance of Allan Grohe’s phenomenal ALIENS tactical miniatures RPG. We also have some original LARP-like events happening this year, like Shaun Duncan’s original scenario The Purge, which plays out throughout the day on Saturday, and a hilarious live-action event based loosely on Monty Python’s eponymous Arthurian reenactment. And finally, we’ve added the extraordinary Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator to our schedule for this year’s convention, which allows you and your friends (or you and a group of complete strangers, for that matter!) to take over the bridge of a starship for a unique and very personal gaming experience.
And all of this if FREE with your TsunamiCon badge!
So let’s get started, shall we?
The TsunamiCon Experience
A few years ago, our convention was one of a handful of newly-minted localized gaming conventions popping up across the country that were being run – not by independently wealthy entrepreneurs who could afford to throw $10,000 into a black hole on a whim – but by ordinary folks living paycheck to paycheck who had a clever idea and a will to persevere. We saw a hole in our local hobby community that we desperately wanted to fill, and we found an opportunity to fund our convention in an as-yet unconventional way. We crowdsourced it.
With a collective holding of breath, the local and regional gaming community took to Kickstarter to help fund our tabletop gaming convention here in Wichita, by purchasing tickets and swag ahead of time and providing us the necessary startup capital to make it work. By the time November rolled around, we had a working model for a local gaming con and were ready to greet the masses. And we were pleasantly surprised to find that our premiere event blew the doors off of our immediate expectations. In fact, compared to many other Midwestern gaming cons that had launched in the previous handful of years, our first event was a virtual barnburner.
TsunamiCon is a tabletop gaming convention designed to provide local and regional casual and dedicated gamers alike to ruminate with like-minded folk and enjoy the labors of their hobby for three days straight. Our management team is comprised largely of dedicated RPG enthusiasts, but we owe much of our success to a rabid enthusiasm from the local hobby boardgaming community, which had virtually exploded overnight in the previous two years. Local game masters and demo teams brought a variety of gaming opportunities to the con, and we watched in awe as peoples young and old, from here in town and far away, streamed into the building over the course of the weekend and sat in on the fun.
At TsunamiCon, it’s easy to find gamers interested in sharing the joy of their favorite games. Some involve elaborate tabletop displays, some little more than books and dice, some are played with cards or meeples, and some with little more than your imagination – we even have live action experiences that give you an opportunity to more fully immerse yourself in a role for a couple hours. To round out the weekend, we’ll have party games, live comedy entertainment, a diverse marketplace, fantastic on-site concessions, geeky panels and cosplay events, and more! It’s a way to step out of everyday life for a couple days and become drenched in the pomposity of fun and positive vibes.
To elevate the experience further in Year Three, we selected a venue that will take your breath away and leave your head spinning. Join us this October 7th, 8th and 9th at the beautiful and historic Wichita Scottish Rite Center in downtown Wichita. Advance discount tickets are available now.
An Un-Conventional Marketplace
Before I ran TsunamiCon, my experience with gaming conventions was admittedly quite limited. I had a great deal of experience organizing other kinds of large-scale events – concerts, faires, home and leisure shows, wedding and trade shows, etc. – but one of the things that drove me to start a gaming con here in Wichita was that we would often see gaming and gamers at local and regional fan conventions, but the gaming was something of an afterthought. Like a fun thing to do for geeky attendees, but all the convention did was supply the space and maybe organize someone to manage it.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
A game con, however, is clearly a different animal. At a fan convention, the focus is exhibitors and guests. A hoppin’ con is filled to the gills with vendors, plying their trade, selling unique items and collectibles, and generally adding to the substance of the event. Oftentimes, convention organizers can even offer their space at a premium to bring in small vendors, because they are dedicating enough of their overall space to make it easy to cover the costs.
A gaming convention, however, is about gaming. This presents a unique challenge… the majority of the available space absolutely must be made available for gamers who come in, sit down, and spend an entire weekend at the table. This is another huge difference in this kind of con, as most smaller fan conventions attract attendees who browse for a couple hours, maybe meet a guest or catch a panel, and otherwise are just there to socialize and/or show enjoy their cosplay craftsmanship (whereas larger fan conventions have attendees attempting to pack as many panels, autographs and photo ops into three or four days as humanly possible).
So herein lies the challenge. As a merchant at a gaming convention, you have access to a fairly broad audience. But their interests are primarily oriented toward the activities at the con. So your wares, your presentation, and your salesmanship have to compliment this arrangement to be successful. Some opportunities are quite obvious… if you sell games and gaming accessories, it’s a good venue. If you sell collectibles that will appeal to gamers and genre aficionados, you’re also in good company. And if you’re a game designer, publisher, or demo team… you’re definitely in the right place. That being said, you still have to play the long game. Clearly, you get a mix of impulse buys and carefully considered selections, since they often have all weekend to decide.
It can also be enterprising to make the process of interacting with you about having fun. Use dice or games of chance, have drawings and giveaways, engage passersby with the enthusiasm you have for your product or craft, and so forth. One of the advantages over a fan convention is that there are fewer exhibitors, a more select market, which virtually guarantees that almost every attendee who walks through the room will take a look at your wares and perhaps stop to visit or ask a few questions. And it’s important to note that the smaller size of the marketplace is not a detractor, as your customers are there for the gaming.
It’s a unique experience, and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know our vendors over the past couple years. I am certainly pleased at the number of returning vendors, and I love seeing everything from homegrown games and handmade items to top gaming merchandise and collectibles.
If you are interested in joining us, we still have a handful of vendor booths available for TsunamiCon 2016. Reserve your space now by pledging on our Kickstarter page.
Secrets of the Tsunami
About four years ago, shortly after running our second local Tsunami GameDay event, I floated the term “TsunamiCon” onto the world stage via the auspices of our RPG podcast Metagamers Anonymous. It was kind of intended to get a rise out of my co-hosts, who were already reeling from the high-energy output necessary to make a GameDay happen… and my insistence on treating a day of tabletop gaming for 20 or 30 people like a major event. Everyone laughed nervously and rolled their eyes a bit, certain that ol’ Erik was just reaching well outside the bounds of reality.
Liz runs a World of Darkness game on a Sunday morn at TsunamiCon 2014.
Even if you’ve never run a major event, or even contemplated it, there are a few things which you can reasonably assume:
- It’s complicated. There are obviously a organizational details and planning exercises involved, and you have to know where to start.
- It’s questionable. Just because 30 people show up to a free GameDay, what makes you think you can get a couple hundred gamers to pay for the privilege? And doesn’t advertising cost money?
- And it’s expensive. Clearly, it takes a solid wad of cash to put something significant together.
The first point is inevitably true, and this is where my radio background has served me well. I’ve helped organize – and often spearheaded – numerous events over the years, from concerts to cooking shows to variety shows at the local park. I’ve also been firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to marketing, so I’m no stranger to the art of promoting an event. And as for the cash… well, I wasn’t the first to use Kickstarter to fund a convention, but I definitely felt like a pioneer.
The real secret of my success is in that first paragraph, however. I figured it out a long time ago, when I was touring the Midwestern bar scene as part of a blues band. You see, real blues fans are kind of an exclusive crowd. Sometimes, you’d land somewhere and pack a tiny club with enthusiastic locals; at other times, you’d be lucky to have half a dozen folks in the audience. But both kinds of gigs had something in common… the audience was full of people who loved the blues. So whether you played for six or sixty, you got up there and jammed out like it was the freakin’ Hippodrome.
Shaun runs a private game for VIGs.
In short, any event worth doing is worth doing to the best of your ability. Last year our attendance ran at about 220 people, not counting volunteers, guests, and staff. Not particularly large by convention standards, though given that a gaming con is about hanging out all day long playing games, it sure feels busy. And I’ve had a chance to visit with other small convention organizers, and you guys’ll be happy to know that our numbers for the first two years compare very well indeed. But my point is this… even if you’re game con has only 200 people, it’s your job to treat it like there are 2000.
Details are important to me. Impressing people with a world-class experience is important to me. Not just because I want them to come back next year, but because I want the folks in our gaming community to feel like they’ve had a chance to do something awesome. To have an experience that’s both fulfilling and memorable. To be fair, we struggle to raise enough capital to have a convention at all… but I could easily sink another $10,000 into our con just to make it shine. Just to make the experience that much better for everyone involved.
So the secret is this… If you want to do something BIG, do it right. If you find yourself looking at the details and going, “that’s just too much work”… buckle up and do it anyway. Don’t cut corners, don’t over-promise and under-deliver, and don’t shy away from a cool idea just because it sounds complicated. Take risks, and understand that the reward is the undertaking itself. The rest will come in time.
Oh… and back my Kickstarter, would ya? Thanks.
TsunamiCon 2016 Kickstarter is LIVE!
Needless to say, a lot of work goes into managing a Kickstarter campaign: building the page, doing all the math, figuring up reward levels and stretch goals, finding a way to express everything your project IS in just a handful of words and graphics. Your selling an idea. Selling a dream. A concept that hopes to capture the imagination of enough eager contributors to fund your project and make it a reality. This work starts weeks – or even months – before you ever see a page on their website.
Today, TSUNAMICON LLC launched our third Kickstarter campaign for our third annual tabletop gaming convention in Wichita, Kansas. Despite our best efforts, the cost of running a con seems to go up every year… or at least, the amount we need up front. Consequentially, our Kickstarter goal is the dead minimum we need to pull this off in 2016. That’s a sobering realization, to say the least. Our advantage, however, is a strong gaming community and two excellent events under our collective belt.
Today I urge you to check out our Kickstarter page. Peruse the reward levels and find a way to support the con. Pledge now, and you’ll be charged when the campaign is over. Simple, effective, and so important. Then SHARE. Send everyone you know to check out the Kickstarter page and urge them to get involved. It’s a fantastic event that brings joy to our community and gives us a chance to spend three freakin’ days playing games with family, friends, and total strangers, and generally enjoying life.
Final Days for Early Deals
As we march toward the launch of our upcoming Kickstarter campaign, you have a few days left to get your early VIG tickets at the pre-Kickstarter price. This price goes up once we launch the campaign! As a VIG (Very Important Gamer), you get your weekend pass, exclusive convention swag, and access to the VIG Lounge – a sanctuary where you can retreat from the noise and excitement at any time and graze on some of the complimentary snacks and soda we keep on hand. It’s a fun way to be part of the con and get the most out of the experience. It’s also a great way to show your support for your hometown game con.
The GOLD VIG level includes some additional perks. Every year, we run some exclusive gaming events on Sunday just for our Gold-level VIGs. These are original adventures penned in house and run by one of our management team, and you get a chance to check it out before it goes to publication. Additionally, we’ll invite you to an exclusive dinner on Sunday night with TsunamiCon staff, guests, entertainers, and the cast of Metagamers Anonymous.
Finally, if you want to secure a booth in our TsunamiCon Marketplace, we’re extending our 10% pre-Kickstarter discount for a few more days. TsunamiCon is a fun venue with a crowd that generally shows up on Friday afternoon and evening and sticks around for the whole convention, giving you plenty of opportunity to ply your wares when they wander away from the gaming tables. Many of our returning vendors are also game designers who enjoy numerous opportunities throughout the con to demo their games and spread the word to the local community. If you’re interested, or if you have any questions, drop me a line at sales@tsunamicon.org.
Be watching for our Kickstarter announcement very soon!
Announcing TsunamiCon 2016!
There are numerous challenges associated with running a grass roots convention, but nothing so daunting as securing the venue and the dates for the upcoming year. As TsunamiCon continues to grow with the gaming community in and around Wichita and draw larger crowds from outside the city, this part of the process will become less stressful, but at this point we still have to approach each event much like it’s our first, negotiating with venues and raising capital to get things started. Happily, we have managed to secure an amazing venue for TsunamiCon 2016.
This year’s event will be hosted October 7th, 8th and 9th at Venue 332 at the Wichita Scottish Rite Center in downtown Wichita. This is an exciting move for our little organization, as we move away from a strictly hotel-oriented environment and attempt to forge a new relationship with a truly breathtaking venue, suffused with a historic and immersive atmosphere that will be sure to delight gamers with its old world charm.
The location is excellent. If you’re a Wichita native, you may have driven past the Scottish Rite numerous times without even really soaking it in. It’s located at First and Topeka, just a block north of Douglas and east of Broadway, and offers ample free parking in a lot situated just north of the building.
TsunamiCon LLC maintains the same dedication to producing a quality convention experience that you have come to expect, and we will be working with VisitWichita to establish housing opportunities with nearby hotels. As always, our focus will be on the gaming, with a large banquet hall for the games, an attached annex for this year’s vendors, and other rooms we can use for special events.
We currently plan to launch our primary crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter at the end of April. Until that time, you can help us raise our starting capital (and lower the Kickstarter goal!) by purchasing your VIG memberships and vendor booths early. Meanwhile, follow us on social media and watch the website for updates on upcoming promotions and special events.
Let’s make 2016 the best convention yet!
Let the Games Begin!
We all know that the beating heart of any game con is the big damned room where the magic happens, and this year we don’t aim to disappoint. Schedules are going up, which means it’s time to start planning your weekend at TsunamiCon! We have piles of new games being posted on our event schedule, as well as a host of game demos courtesy of Cardboard Carnage, Tabletop Heroes, and our own TsunamiCon game wardens! We’ll update the site with new event information as plans are finalized, so continue to check back with us and be sure to sign up for some games.
To get started, you can list a new game or sign up to play HERE.
Highlights include:
- D&D Adventurers League and Pathfinder Society. There are numerous games scheduled for each system throughout the convention, starting as early as Friday morning and running through Sunday afternoon. Don’t miss out! Reserve your seat at the table now!
- Warmachine/Hordes Steamroller Tournament. Starts on Sunday morning at 10am and runs through the afternoon.
- Star Wars Xwing Tournament on Saturday afternoon.
- Duel Grounds’ new Cthulhu Deckbuilder game demos.
- Numerous games and demos from volunteer GMs!
Additionally, this week on our Facebook event page, we’ll start highlighting different gaming opportunities for the con and make announcements as new events are posted. TsunamiCon is weeks away, and we plan to make the most of it!
Where To Begin…?
TsunamiCon 2015 is fast approaching! You’re ready for 3 solid days of gaming goodness this October, so how do you get started? Let’s start with the basics:
We will assume you already know what TsunamiCon is: a three-day convention that provides attendees with the best variety and highest caliber tabletop gaming entertainment Wichita can offer, with demos, tournaments, and gaming experiences to serve the needs of hard-core hobbyists and amateur gamers alike. We expand on this core product with related activities and entertainment, including cosplay contests, miniature painting, live geek comedy, and so much more.
If you need to know more, you should definitely poke around the website and see what the convention is all about. In the next couple weeks, you’ll start to see new gaming and event schedules appear, with tournaments, demos, organized play, casual gaming, panels, cosplay, LARPs, and more! If you want to run some games, all the better! You can submit your game now on our Submissions page. Note: If you plan to run a couple games, you can get a nice price break on your weekend pass.
You can find the basics on our Registration page, including the hours of the con, links to buy tickets and reserve your hotel room, and a general rundown of what you can expect as a TsunamiCon attendee. Finally, follow us on social media for regular updates. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter! And if you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, let us know! It’s your home town game con.