Alright, I've kind of been neglecting gaming for the last couple days. Time to get down and dirty and state some of my opinions here...
Con - Shifts became a matter of "if you're caught in the game room not working, be ready to start working" so I wound up only getting about an hour of free play time in during the 61+ hours I spent in the game room. Basically, I had to leave the game room to get a break, and unless I went home or to con suite, I'd be quickly recruited to help Yojimbo with some odds or ends.
Con - We quadrupled our workload with only three times the staff, few of whom had experience as gaming staff, and less of whom had worked at Kumoricon before. We were open for 40% more hours running 50% more tournaments, and had 150% more positions working at any given time. Despite this, we ran only 2 more gaming stations than last year. Four times as much work for 10% more production. We were far from efficiently organized.
Con - the layout was haphazard. Especially considering that our space was VERY finite (only 200 sq ft. more than 2008, which had 400 sq ft less than 2007), a lot more consideration should have gone into placing tables. Rock Band had about 300 sq ft of wasted space next to it, and despite taking up a ridiculous amount of space, game check and bag check were cramped. Realistically, we simply can't operate that much entertainment in that small of a space.
Con - check out system was haphazard and poorly communicated to staff. Thus, it was inconsistent and ineffective.
Con (my fault) - DDR was not popular enough to merit such a high-priority tournament timeslot. We need an arcade machine in order to draw more people, or just nix the tournament.
Con - Rock Band's day 1 timeslot didn't give people enough time to form bands, and thus participation levels were very low compared to reasonable expectations.
Con - people weren't held responsible for skipping tournaments/dropping out. People need to be discouraged from entering a tournament unless they are certain they can be there for the entire tournament.
Con - no designated check-in times for tournaments. Should be on the con schedule.
Con - no designated times for qualifiers on con schedule. Qualifiers should not have to eat away from tournament time.
Pro - We had a lot of really great staff there this year. If we start planning a lot sooner, get organized a lot better, and (preferably) get better space to operate in, I think 2010 will put Kumoricon up there as a convention for serious gamers to consider attending.
Pro - we have a lot of really great equipment at this point. We can use that as leverage to get other cons to participate in equipment trades, and perhaps (winkwinknudgenudge) run a gaming-centric Alto Nimbus Entertainment mini-event.
That's all I can think of right now. Yeah, there's a lot of cons there, but that just means we can make gaming 2010 a WHOLE HELLUVA LOT BETTER. People enjoyed gaming this year. If we fix all the problems we had this year, I think that people--especially staff--will enjoy it a lot more.
