Batman
24 Feb 09, 03:27 PM
Gents,
Some of you know & can feel my pain. You have run events before & have delt with the presures of preperation. Others may have no idea what we go through, so I am creating this thread to, hopefully, give a little insight for the players that add to the stress.
Event planning starts with an idea. A concept for the game & how it may flow. From there, you choose a location and secure a date. With the location in mind, you now start tayloring your concept to fit the geogrophy of your event location & thats about the last you will see of "easy days" untill the event is over. "WHY?" you ask? Well, partly because of Murphy's law, part because of outside influence & largly because of the verry people you will be entertaining at your event... Please let me explain.
1. Posting your event: Concept planning is just about over. You dont know how manny players will actuialy show, so you cant FINNALIZE it, but you are ready enough to post your event & let the masses be aware. This is where the stress starts because you have to post enough info to thward the initial onslaught of questions, while keeping in mind that you still cannot finnalize the planning. People want speciffics on how the game will go & you don't have them yet. How could you? So you do the best you can to answer whatever questions you anticipate & then you write & re-write your post a couple times before making it public.
2. PM inbound: This is where it starts to just be anoying. Even though you answered everything you COULD answer in the post, people start bombarding you with PMs. SOME of these PMs (20% or so) are questions you DID answer in your post. The rest are asking for the details you cannot answer for yet because, as stated, you dont know who all is coming & what you can budget for. Even if you said flat out in your post "this is just a heads up of the date, details will be posted soon", people will want them NOW. So you start off trying to be as nice as you can & give them as much as you can, but they still want more info & you don't have it yet.
3. Registration: There are 2 ways to go about this. You can either
a. Pre-register the event, allowing you to have knowlege of who is coming at least a little while before game day, thereby allowing you to budget & plan better for the actuial exicution of the event. Here is the downside, players want to know what they are paying for & you dont have hard answers. You can tell them "well, we hope to do this" but that only satisfys about 33%. the remaining 2/3 of your players may be skeptical & you may even loose players for it. People will be pissed that you can't tell them EXACTLY what they are getting for their money. Those that do show though will get a great show because you were able to plan every detail, down to the last penny, but there may not be as manny as MIGHT have showed if you took option B.
b. Let players just show up. The second option means that you either have to plan on a low budget & minimize the props & equipment used because if numbers are low, you eat the cost, or risk it all. The upside is you can plan all of the details well ahead of time, because there arn't manny. You don't have to worry about vehicles, pyro, role players, ect (unless you have a source to get them for free). The downside is that you then wind up with an event that may be a fun day of airsoft, but frankly, it was noting special.
Whichever route you go, people will be pissed. You will get PMs, e-mails & sometimes even phone calls telling you what you "could have done better", even from people who have never been in your shoes.
4. Forum antics: So, now you have made your decision on how to handle registration & the budget is stressing you. People are bugging you for more details & you have anounced almost every detail about the event, because you are getting to the point where you have a better handle on the numbers you will see. Problem, people would rather ask questions of you, then read the answers to those questions. The bombardment has turned from 20% questions you have already answered, to 80% questions you have already answered. (keep in mind though, 20% are still good things that SHOULD be asked) You still try to be nice, but the stress you are under starts to show in your posts. People start thinking your an elitest jerk, even though you are just trying to make them see the error of their own ways. You ask people over & over to read what has been posted & they still dont. You dont even want to look at your PM inbox anymore.
5. Help a brother out: Remember that guy that played with your brother that one time, at that one place, with that one team? Yeah... He is now a "long lost friend" and wants a favor. He wants to be able to bring "X" or "sonso" even though "X" is banned and "Sonso" is underage. And don't think this is limited to the guy you met 4 years ago. Some of your actuial friends, guys you traveled to national events with, will ask you for stuff. If you say no, your a jerk. If you say yes, everyone else will think your a jerk. So you take the hardline on the rules & risk loosing players, but at leas the ones that show will be happy.... Even though they have no clue.
6. Clock is ticking: Now we are really close to the game date. Things are STARTING to feel better, yet worse. You have the paperwork part done, but now its a question of time. Do you have enough time to get all the props ready, the vehicles checked, the field walked & double checked for hazards. Field maintenance, player kits, medic kits, first aide packets, maps, OC briefs, CO briefs, did I say maps? Did I say.... Crap.... Are you forgetting anything? People are paying a lot of money for this, I hope it doesn't flop... (see what keeps you up at night yet?)
7. Game day: Okay, it's here. You got NO sleep last night because you were preparing in your mind already, but you got stuff to do now. Get all the stuff on field & in possition, make sure all of your OCs are gainfully employed (I thank God on this one. My team absolutly ROCKS come game day & helps a lot before hand too, but I am a detail oriented person so I still worry), make sure players are showing up, happy, everyone is problem free, barrel socks are on in the safety zone, goggles are on on field, did you remember the zipties for the chrono station? Does the Chrono have batteries? (little problems do show up here.... Lots of them!) At this point, you are a fireman. You are running from place to place, addressing all the little details that Murphy presented you & putting out all the little fires before they become big ones. YOU ARE STRESSED & then it happens.....
8. THAT GUY!: There he is everyone. Bow down & kiss his but. He is the king. He is important. He is too important to read the forums, your website, your posts. He didn't take time out of his bussy schedule to PREPARE! Why should he? He's OBVIOUSLY better then the rest of you! He showed up with his own cammo patern, unauthorized equipment, underage, whatever... He is now the guy who is pissed and yelling at you because it is somehow YOUR fault he didnt take time out of his bussy schedule to know what the hell was going on. "What do you mean I need a barel socK??! I have this little cheep plastic cap!" he says as you point at the rules, where you specificly said it had to be a barrel sock or device with locking mechinism. But it's your fault he didnt see that part. Maybe there is even 3 or 4 of him.
9. Gameplay: For every "that guy", there are 4 of his cousins. The guys that did prepare, but didnt worry too much about the rules... They will make it up as they go along. Now that the game is underway, luckely your only problem is dealing with them & keeping the game moving.
10. THANK GOD IT's OVER.... Wonder what I'll cook up for the next one.
This is all just a taste. Smaller events = smaller headaches, but headaches just the same. Please guys, keep this in mind the next time you are PMing a game host. Thanks
Some of you know & can feel my pain. You have run events before & have delt with the presures of preperation. Others may have no idea what we go through, so I am creating this thread to, hopefully, give a little insight for the players that add to the stress.
Event planning starts with an idea. A concept for the game & how it may flow. From there, you choose a location and secure a date. With the location in mind, you now start tayloring your concept to fit the geogrophy of your event location & thats about the last you will see of "easy days" untill the event is over. "WHY?" you ask? Well, partly because of Murphy's law, part because of outside influence & largly because of the verry people you will be entertaining at your event... Please let me explain.
1. Posting your event: Concept planning is just about over. You dont know how manny players will actuialy show, so you cant FINNALIZE it, but you are ready enough to post your event & let the masses be aware. This is where the stress starts because you have to post enough info to thward the initial onslaught of questions, while keeping in mind that you still cannot finnalize the planning. People want speciffics on how the game will go & you don't have them yet. How could you? So you do the best you can to answer whatever questions you anticipate & then you write & re-write your post a couple times before making it public.
2. PM inbound: This is where it starts to just be anoying. Even though you answered everything you COULD answer in the post, people start bombarding you with PMs. SOME of these PMs (20% or so) are questions you DID answer in your post. The rest are asking for the details you cannot answer for yet because, as stated, you dont know who all is coming & what you can budget for. Even if you said flat out in your post "this is just a heads up of the date, details will be posted soon", people will want them NOW. So you start off trying to be as nice as you can & give them as much as you can, but they still want more info & you don't have it yet.
3. Registration: There are 2 ways to go about this. You can either
a. Pre-register the event, allowing you to have knowlege of who is coming at least a little while before game day, thereby allowing you to budget & plan better for the actuial exicution of the event. Here is the downside, players want to know what they are paying for & you dont have hard answers. You can tell them "well, we hope to do this" but that only satisfys about 33%. the remaining 2/3 of your players may be skeptical & you may even loose players for it. People will be pissed that you can't tell them EXACTLY what they are getting for their money. Those that do show though will get a great show because you were able to plan every detail, down to the last penny, but there may not be as manny as MIGHT have showed if you took option B.
b. Let players just show up. The second option means that you either have to plan on a low budget & minimize the props & equipment used because if numbers are low, you eat the cost, or risk it all. The upside is you can plan all of the details well ahead of time, because there arn't manny. You don't have to worry about vehicles, pyro, role players, ect (unless you have a source to get them for free). The downside is that you then wind up with an event that may be a fun day of airsoft, but frankly, it was noting special.
Whichever route you go, people will be pissed. You will get PMs, e-mails & sometimes even phone calls telling you what you "could have done better", even from people who have never been in your shoes.
4. Forum antics: So, now you have made your decision on how to handle registration & the budget is stressing you. People are bugging you for more details & you have anounced almost every detail about the event, because you are getting to the point where you have a better handle on the numbers you will see. Problem, people would rather ask questions of you, then read the answers to those questions. The bombardment has turned from 20% questions you have already answered, to 80% questions you have already answered. (keep in mind though, 20% are still good things that SHOULD be asked) You still try to be nice, but the stress you are under starts to show in your posts. People start thinking your an elitest jerk, even though you are just trying to make them see the error of their own ways. You ask people over & over to read what has been posted & they still dont. You dont even want to look at your PM inbox anymore.
5. Help a brother out: Remember that guy that played with your brother that one time, at that one place, with that one team? Yeah... He is now a "long lost friend" and wants a favor. He wants to be able to bring "X" or "sonso" even though "X" is banned and "Sonso" is underage. And don't think this is limited to the guy you met 4 years ago. Some of your actuial friends, guys you traveled to national events with, will ask you for stuff. If you say no, your a jerk. If you say yes, everyone else will think your a jerk. So you take the hardline on the rules & risk loosing players, but at leas the ones that show will be happy.... Even though they have no clue.
6. Clock is ticking: Now we are really close to the game date. Things are STARTING to feel better, yet worse. You have the paperwork part done, but now its a question of time. Do you have enough time to get all the props ready, the vehicles checked, the field walked & double checked for hazards. Field maintenance, player kits, medic kits, first aide packets, maps, OC briefs, CO briefs, did I say maps? Did I say.... Crap.... Are you forgetting anything? People are paying a lot of money for this, I hope it doesn't flop... (see what keeps you up at night yet?)
7. Game day: Okay, it's here. You got NO sleep last night because you were preparing in your mind already, but you got stuff to do now. Get all the stuff on field & in possition, make sure all of your OCs are gainfully employed (I thank God on this one. My team absolutly ROCKS come game day & helps a lot before hand too, but I am a detail oriented person so I still worry), make sure players are showing up, happy, everyone is problem free, barrel socks are on in the safety zone, goggles are on on field, did you remember the zipties for the chrono station? Does the Chrono have batteries? (little problems do show up here.... Lots of them!) At this point, you are a fireman. You are running from place to place, addressing all the little details that Murphy presented you & putting out all the little fires before they become big ones. YOU ARE STRESSED & then it happens.....
8. THAT GUY!: There he is everyone. Bow down & kiss his but. He is the king. He is important. He is too important to read the forums, your website, your posts. He didn't take time out of his bussy schedule to PREPARE! Why should he? He's OBVIOUSLY better then the rest of you! He showed up with his own cammo patern, unauthorized equipment, underage, whatever... He is now the guy who is pissed and yelling at you because it is somehow YOUR fault he didnt take time out of his bussy schedule to know what the hell was going on. "What do you mean I need a barel socK??! I have this little cheep plastic cap!" he says as you point at the rules, where you specificly said it had to be a barrel sock or device with locking mechinism. But it's your fault he didnt see that part. Maybe there is even 3 or 4 of him.
9. Gameplay: For every "that guy", there are 4 of his cousins. The guys that did prepare, but didnt worry too much about the rules... They will make it up as they go along. Now that the game is underway, luckely your only problem is dealing with them & keeping the game moving.
10. THANK GOD IT's OVER.... Wonder what I'll cook up for the next one.
This is all just a taste. Smaller events = smaller headaches, but headaches just the same. Please guys, keep this in mind the next time you are PMing a game host. Thanks