I’ve never organized a large face-to-face event, tournament, or convention (self-standing or otherwise). So I have no personal experience with the problems and tremendous workload each organizer faces.
But with that said, I still remain rather disappointed with the level of participation Diplomacy World gets from many events. In my mind, the best way to increase participation from outside the general area (and occasionally even in that area) is through publicity in popular, free locations. Diplomacy World certainly fits that bill, with each issue downloaded 10,000 times or more (between the Yahoo group,
www.diplomacyworld.net, and the Diplomacy section of my personal website) by the time the next issue is released.
The way I see it, if the event is an annual one, there are effective ways to keep the event in the minds of those who would have to travel to participate.
1. Create and submit a simple advertisement for the event, in time to appear in the issue BEFORE the event takes place. If your event is in early April, an advertisement in the Spring issue (which comes out the first week of April usually) isn’t going to do much good. The prior issue would be better. DW comes out quarterly: January/April/July/October.
2. If the organizers can think up some reasonable points, write an article about the work you’re doing preparing for the event. How will it be different then the prior years? What new obstacles do you face? Will it be held somewhere new? What criticisms or compliments from the prior year have caused you to look at things differently?
3. During the event. Take some digital photos. Then be honest with yourself. Will YOU have the time and energy to write a decent convention report? Remember, in Diplomacy World we want to read about the personalities, the off-board fun, the accommodations, the night life, the funniest moments, what family members who did NOT play did to pass the time…in some ways, the results are secondary. Read some of the con reports from prior issues to get a feel for what I mean. If YOU are not going to have time to write a con report, RECRUIT at least one person from the gallery of players. I email players and can beg until I am blue in the face, because I want Diplomacy World to be fun and interesting, but in the end this is YOUR event. Far too often, after the fact, nobody wants to write an article. How will people who did NOT attend see what a fun, worthwhile event it is unless you or someone else writes about it?
4. For the next DW issue (or few months down the road), write an article on what you learned from the event this year. What went right, what went wrong, what was unexpected? If you have trouble stretching this to a page, think about what advice you can give to others, to learn from your mistakes and your triumphs.
5. Go back to #1 and start over for next year.
Using this process, your event gets some form of notice and publicity, however small, in at least 3 issues per year. Both European and North American events can use this to attract more out of town (or out of country) players. Make your event a desired destination to those who have to travel more than an hour to get there!
Finally, a similar but scaled-down version can also be used for local clubs and even house games. If you’re holding a ftf game at home – especially if you haven’t done so before – some photos and a write-up may attract a lot more local Diplomacy players to the next one. Remember, there are SO MANY Diplomacy players out there who are in NO WAY part of the face-to-face scene. Use Diplomacy World as a way to find them and attract them. They’re out there…to butcher a popular phrase from Field of Dreams, “If you print it, they will come.”
I may put this in the next Diplomacy World, or a shorter/longer version, but for the time being I wanted to post it in a few newsgroups and see what kind of feedback it gets.
As always, you can contact me at
diplomacyworld@yahoo.comDoug Kent
Lead Editor – Diplomacy World
