Origins 2008 Pizza Party Debriefing Notes

From RabbitWiki

• Emily took great notes and posted them to the Origins planning list. This page is an attempt to capture what was in those separate emails into one place. The only editing I've done is to bullet point each separate point made, and alphabetize the subjects listed.
• If you feel there's another/better way to organize this page - go for it!  :)
• If you took notes and/or want to edit this page and/or add in thoughts, PLEASE do so. Then consider posting the link to the Origins list for discussion of the changes. --Carol 20:05, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

Contents 1 Events 2 Space 3 Top Rabbits and Tourney Directors 4 Tournaments 5 Werewolf

[edit] Events

• We should schedule Giant games at the bottom of the elevator again - people miss it.
  • Adam Richlin: I hosted as many giant events as I could... about 11 events. Every time there were 1-5 teachers that stopped by to inquire and play. They seem very curious about using Icehouse pieces elementary/middle school level classrooms. Maybe a "teacher's night" event where we cater to them for a couple hours of various demos?
  • Please bring back the martian coasters giant boards! Those were so much fun!
  • Beanbags beat cups for zendo... we often ran out of cups.

• We should post the time that the lab closes in more prominent places - possibly in the lab report and someplace visible in the Lab or at the door to the Lab.

• 10:00 and 11:00 am games are sparsely attended - consider not scheduling anything here and have it be open demo time instead. Perhaps next year we could have Icehouse 101 and 102 demos again - either in this time or right before the IIT. Could Rabbit Training sessions go in this time slot as well?

• Having Wednesday evening until 8:00 pm as set-up time and keeping the Lab closed until then was a good idea.
  • Although it was odd setting up Wed, when the convention was already underway... if GAMA continues to push a full schedule of gaming on Wed we may need/want to rethink when we start things in The Lab.

• Have a Zark City tournament as a floating tournament?

• Are the floating tournament meet-ups worth having? Probably not - we can use that time to schedule more/other tournaments. People seem to be able to find other floating tournament players without much trouble.
  • I (Kristin) really enjoyed the Volcano meet-up and it got me started on playing in the tournament. Although I understand nobody showed up at all to the Homeworlds meet-up... but it does get these games listed in the program book and on our schedule.

• Should we run Treehouse as a floating tournament next year? The ribbons are already made up and Shane is willing to take charge of it.

• We would like a more formal check-in process for Rabbits as they arrive rather than having the Coordination have to do it all. Maybe not packets, but perhaps rabbit envelopes with schedules and everything else in it to pick up.
  • I (Kristin) like the idea of doing packets/envelopes again. Should we do the rabbit photo's on the badges again? Did people like that?

[edit] Space

• Overall, people seem very happy with the set-up of the Lab this year. The distribution of table sizes was good and having the room key was also very good. People generally liked the center door being the main entrance, the placement of the TR table, and the number of smaller tables.

• Unevenness of some tables did cause problems for a few events. is it possible to get tables all on the same level if they are grouped together? (I think this came up with one of the Chrono tournaments)
  • it all depends on availability from the convention center - we can try asking earlier next year, and emphasize that having 4'x8' tables instead of two 2'x8' tables is important to us.

• The labcoat checkout procedure was a resounding success - we got ALL of the coats back this year!!
  • Having everyone wear their coats whenever they want, and not just while working was a BIG success. I (Kristin) heard over and over again from other industry folks about how significantly our presence at the show had increased this year. (When in reality the only change was that more of our Rabbits were wearing their lab coats outside The Lab)

• There was a request for more cubby space - next year we should move the cubbies that were inside the curtained off area outside so they are more accessible and available. Perhaps we can use the cubbies to build a wall where the curtain goes - this may not be workable as the cubbies are more stable against a wall.

• We should probably have some way of washing the jam knives if we are going to have clean/dirty buckets to keep them in. The Clean/dirty knife jars did help, as well as the crumb-catching board.
  • Never, ever leave knives out in the kitchen. Ever.

• Should we put the tables closer to the wall to help with stability?
  • after moving the cubbies out from behind the kitchen, we could turn the kitchen unit around against the back wall, while keeping the curtain where it is now - but to do this we would need something else to hold up the bamboo pole and curtain, since it hangs on the back of the kitchen unit.

• People felt like the Looney Lounge was a little underused this year. If there was a smaller/shorter wall divider people would be more likely to see and use the space. More pillows have been requested. If the rugs don't make the trip next year, MANY more pillows are requested. We do need some way to define the space if the carpets don't come. Someone suggested getting a brightly colored piece of canvas to cover the area and taping down it's edges.
  • We might also want signs or something to let people know what the space is for. Since it's set apart, they might assume it's for something specific that they don't want to disturb.

[edit] Top Rabbits and Tourney Directors

• Top Rabbit and Tournament Directors should be at the desk most of the time, rather than off running demos or whatnot. The TR should be at the desk spot closest to the door so he/she can catch people as they come in.

• We need at least 2 demo rabbits between 4:00 and 6:00 pm. This seems to be the busy time. Perhaps we should consider having a 'on call' rabbit phone list. Top Rabbits are confused by the instruction not to pull people in labcoats to demo games if they're 'off'. This leads to having no people available to demo and people feeling bad about refusing to run demos even though they are hanging out in the Lab with their coats on. This leads to people feeling overwhelmed. What we need is some way to indicate ON or OFF duty that doesn't involve wearing a labcoat.
  • One idea was proposed to have badges for the rabbits with a 'can demo ____ game' on one side and something on the other side to indicate their off duty status.
    • a problem with a double sided badge like this is that such a badge does not always stay facing the way you want it to
  • JP adds these example: [[1]][[2]]. The company who made the badge holder is Marco Promotional Products. The link to the specific badge I had can be found here.

• The signs on the demo tables were a good idea and we should use them next year. Being able to move them from table to table was very useful.

• The Tip Jar seemed to work out well this year - we got 54 open gaming tickets and we should do this again next year. (Note to scheduler: please put an extra event on the scheduled event list so we have some way to notify GAMA what all these extra generics at the end of the convention are for).
  • The Tip Jar also helped assist in converting people over to BE Ribbons and didn't harm the Lab atmosphere at all.
  • There was no need to be overzealous in collecting for the Tip Jar either.
    • Yay! I'm so glad this worked! -Kristin

• We NEED NEED NEED to see what the convention policy for unattended children is and post it (or our own policy) prominently at the entrance to the Lab. We should also see if we have a few Rabbits who are willing to take Giant pieces and dice down to the Childrens room once or twice a day (possibly scheduled?) to run things on the kid's track.
  • Kids w/o Parents: Should we get parents phone numbers when they come into the Lab to clear this problem up?

• TRs and TDs all liked having the message book - we should do this again next year.

[edit] Tournaments

• We should not overlap the schedule between Zombie (or whatever the new Fluxx is, honestly) and 3.1 - we run out of tournament seating when they do. No overlap between Zombie and Stoner Fluxx, either. Zombie takes significantly longer than 3.1 to run and we should keep this in mind when scheduling tourneys for next year, espeically since Python Fluxx is likely to take even longer to run than Zombie.

• Since Zombie is longer than regular Fluxx, the "ante-in" style (Everyone gets two stones to start; if you can't ante-in in the next round, you're out) for the tournament seemed to work better and also cleared up any Ungoal issues.

• Uberchrononauts needs a 4 hour time slot. Splitting up the the Chrononauts tourneys into three separate slots worked well.

• Nanofictionary needs less time than it was scheduled for, as did Aquarius.

• Starting the IIT at noon made it a little difficult for the players to get some lunch. Perhaps we could move the slot back to 1:00 instead. Also we should consider scheduling the IIT in a 6 hour time slot rather than having separate slots for the Prelim and the Final. (This might help avoid problems with the blackout period).
  • but overall, moving the IIT away from the Sat Eve time slot was well received
  • Should there be an one more extra judge next year for the IIT?
  • 4-person Finals only need one judge for future tournaments

• Martian Chess at 10:00 AM is perhaps too early, although Carol (who won) loved having it at this time!

• People miss the collecting stickers to get a flower. They want some motivation to play everything and they want to be able to work towards something. Perhaps next year we can have a BE ribbon or oher ribbon or something like that with check boxes for all the games "I Played _____ in the Looney Lab" to give to people.

• Andy vs. Everybody should perhaps have a ribbon saying "I Beat Andy Looney!!" or "I Beat Andy at ______ !!" to give to winners in AvE. Also, 10PM is too late to start an AvE slot - it runs too late into the night. 10 AM also seemed too early for AvE as well, as it wasn't as well attended as the later AvE's.

[edit] Werewolf

• The larger and pre-set-up space for AYAW this year was very convenient and good. However...

• There were some space problems with Werewolf this year. The Tabletop room has very poor acoustics and the lighting is too bright and painful on many people's eyes.

• We should have a large Looney banner for the Werewolf space to let people know where we are and to attract people wandering by. A corollary to this is that since it is in the Tabletop room, there are fewer walk-by players. Perhaps we can have more signs around the convention to counteract this.

• Could we run AYAW for a full 24 hours if we had the space? Yes, we think we can but probably not next year. maybe the year after that.

• Alternate space ideas - the breezeway, a space in the hallway roped off, a dedicated room. With any of these options, we'd need space for a maximum of 6 villages running at the same time.

• Split rooms would not work for AYAW.

• Approximately 50% of AYAW players didn't have BE ribbons. Some players did later convert to BE Ribbons.

• It is hard for the players running Werewolf to re-collect tickets/generics at midnight and it is hard for them to keep track of who paid for a 2 hour block or a 4 hour block. Perhaps handstamps would be a way to keep track or this. Or perhaps we should charge for a 4 hour block at the beginning?

• There needs to be a rule/policy/iron clad law that children under the age of 12 who are NOT playing are NOT allowed in the AYAW area. Unattended/unaccompanied children will be taken to security. (added into the wiki by Carol, was not in Emily's original email)