Hello all
I've recently been roped into helping out a con I have attended for the last 15 years (They called my "sure I'll help" bluff.)
The Convention is called Conquest and it's held in Melbounre Australia over easter.
In 2004 we got about 400 odd people, which we want to build on, and already have some ideas about doing so. However in the early years of the con it had around 800 people attending.
One of the problems I see us facing as our numbers hopfully climb back up is the prize giving at the end of the convention.
At the moment it runs for a couple of hours and we know that much longer is a realy problem for people to sit through.
So I was wondering how do the bigger conventions is say the USA deal with prize giving?

I cannot speak for other cons, but I-CON in NY uses various Methods to get the support to the Masses. This Year I used a tried, true, and stolen Idea of handing out prize vouchers. Basicaly what you do is give the GM's vouchers to give out to thier players for 1st and second prizes. Then the winner can save up and trade in the vouchers for nifty prizes. It works nicely. For the GM's I usual have a raffle or just give them siomething related to the games they run and how many hours put into the con's programming.

UNY-con prints its own commemorative coins which are given out in a controlled fashion, usually one to the "winner" (or whomever the referee designates) at each session, and a few here and there. The coins are good keepsakes, but are also honored as worth a dollar each by all the vendors (who can cash them in with the convention for a dollar each).

A lot of the people I saw get them said they were keeping them, so the con didn't have to pay out so much as it distributed.

--M. J. Young

Personally, I think prizes are not a prime motivator for people to attend cons. I think they act as a nice perk for those who do attend, and definitely reinforce their repeated attendance. But they don't necessarily draw in hoards of new attendees. Unless you're giving away a car or something.

Ubercon, a very successful newborn local con, has an interesting structure. Events gave away voucher/tickets and participants could redeem them at any time at the prize booth. Prizes ranged from M&Ms (a very popular item!), to brand new copies of boardgames and roleplaying games. The prize booth was mobbed at the last Ubercon.

But Ubercon also gets folks in the door using a number of points. Advertising -- both print and radio! --, a slick website (crucial!) and via a very diverse event base. They have LAN games, console games, movies, boardgames, rpgs and a dealers room. Even if you have just four PCs networked together, and only two Xboxes, you are providing a draw for more people to attend. Those people then filter into the other events and become hooked on the meat of the cons -- rpgs and boardgames.

hope that helps,
-L

Thanks for the feedback guys.
As I thought, you handle things completely differently to how we do it down here (But that's why I asked in the first place.), so I've copied your replied and I am going to post them on the BB for the con orgs to see what they all think.
I like the idea myself. I can see some interesting side benifits from going about it that way, so well as a few small problems.
I also gather from the responces that you tend to give out more "Awards" than we do.
Generally speaking each RGP game will get a trophy for each member of the best team, and a certificate for the best player of each character in the game.
Freeforms get 2 tropies per session, (Normally GM's choice and Player's choice.)
All the awards are handed out at the end of the con, when everyone gathers in a hall to annouce the winners.
The big draw back with this method is of course time. The plus is that all the prize giving is done in front of everyone, so you get the crowd responce value.
Anyway thanks again.
Pagrin :-)