Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Everything You Wanted to Know about Little Egypt Wars

but were afraid to ask.  This is an assortment of responses to comments that appeared on the surveys we handed out at the con.

Attendance:  A major complaint was not enough people.  We agree and would like to see more people attend.  This weekend saw a lot of festivals in the area, including the Murphysboro  AppleFest and Golconda's Shrimp Fest, plus Cape Girardeau had Pathfinder in the Park.   Attendance actually only ran about a dozen people less than 2010's event and most of those not attending this time, according to our records were judges.

Dealers--Yep, we would like to see more vendors attending.  However, Carbondale is a relatively isolated area, a good two hours or so from the closest gaming store.  Most aren't willing to drive this far for a one day event.  We did have actually have three attending:  Terry Richardson selling Magic singles, Kevin Collier selling painted 40K miniatures and Scott Reed with HeroClix, Yu Gi Oh singles and assorted RPG books and trade paperbacks.  Hopefully you bought something from them as them making sales is the surest way to encourage them to come back and tell others that this is a good event to set up at.   Even if they don't have exactly what you want, spending a few bucks and buying HeroClix, an old trade paperback or a miniature is the best way to show you appreciate them coming and encourage them to spread the word so you have a better selection next time.

Food--From our conversations with them, the Knights of Columbus, who cooked onsite the first couple of times, didn't do much better than breakeven on sales here, so they didn't give us a yes or no on the spring Egypt Wars until about a week or so before the con, which didn't leave us any time to find another food vendor.  We tried a couple of other groups but couldn't get a clear answer for them, so decided to contact Fat Patties. This was Fat Patties first time dealing with this type of event so they had some bugs to work out and have said they will re-design their offerings for next spring, including offering hot food onsite.  Incidentally, the reason Diet Mountain Dew was only available in bottles was because the con-com requested that Fat Patties make sure they had Diet Mountain Dew available, as we knew how popular it would be.  Unfortunately, FPs distributor did not have Diet Mountain Dew available as a fountain drink, so it was bottles or nothing.

Advertising-  We will be posting notices about next spring's EW (scheduled for April 14-16, 2012) on more sites, included Board Game Geek as suggested.  Any other suggestions for places to post are certainly welcomed.

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