Dreamation 2004

[Helvetian]

I was in attendance at last years Dreamation, and was looking forward to the next one. Not hearing any mention of it, I assumed it had tanked. So now I see that there *was* another one and, somehow, I was not informed. I know that though I by no means qualify as a major prescence, I was in the organizers' files somewhere, as I ran a couple games for them (Fudge and Talislanta, if you're wondering). I would have expected an e-mail announcement at least.

I'm very sorry you didn't receive a flyer, and also somewhat surprised. A mailing went out to the entire Double Exposure mailing list, which was a lot of addresses.  It may be that your address was wrong in our database?  We also had flyers at every gaming store in the region that one of our staffers could get to with them.  If you'd like to PM me your address, I can ensure you get information on DEXCON 7 in July and Southern Exposure in September.  And if you are still interested, I can also schedule you for tournaments there.  I'd love to have both Fudge and Talislanta better represented.

Rebecca

[Dregg]

It may be less than charitable to make this the subject of my first post, but I have a minor snit to field:
The theoritical talk about getting attendees to play your games is good, but it is of little value if poor effort has been put into getting attendees in the first place. Again and again the most significant failing I see at conventions (even the one I used to help run) is an inability to contact the base that would be interested in participating on a general level. These are not trade shows after all, but mass entertainment events and should be promoted as such.
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I think advertisment was a possible issue, dreamation had a very nice attendance but most of that was an old fan base that came there to play in the Avatar system, or just hang out and play old favorites. Granted they might want to get a better way of saying "Hey we're cool, come to our con!" Non RPG events seemed to get alot of attention, if you were running a Card game  demo or events, there were people there to play... If you were running an RPG Forgetaboutit...
Conventions really IMHO have to make thier annoumcements at other conventions. The People who go to Con A will find the same pleasure out of Con B, but if no one knows about Con B...
I currently help Coordinate 2 conventions and believe me I use both as a way to relate to gamers that fun can be had at both.
I also look at it in the sense of as a Indie Press designer, I need to get the word out as well, if No one knows my game exsists, who is going to want to play it. Chapter 13 Press had a fan table at Dreamation and I did not quite work out in the way I hoped, but I think I need to look at some of the great stuff BW does at conventions. Now that is what I call a company who knows how to get them selves out there. Within 1/2 hour of playing a demo of BW I bought a copy.