Non-Magic Events

[Michael Whitehouse]

Magic has been a great thing for Worlds Apart in that it has brought home to bacon. Unfortunately, Magic has also served to make non-Magic players disappear. POOF. That is less good.

Magic events only run Wednesday, Thursday, and some Sundays, but when there are Magic leagues, Magic is running all the time. This turns off non-Magic players. Most notably, this tends to lead to there being very few women in the store.

The first solution to this, I imagine, would be to try to bring back board game day. Saturday afternoon sounds like a reasonable time to move it too, since it gets squished like a bug on a windshield when Magic events run on Sundays. So, the first question is would people want to come to board game day on Saturday afternoons, like 1:00 PM.

Also, what other regular events could we run that would be more enticing to non-Magic players? If you are not in the store all that often, what could we do that would encourage you to spend more time here?

[lazy-ninja]

I personally cant do saturdays at 1pm. I have a D&D game at that time. 

Nothing to say we cant run more than one also... The sunday afternoon/evening is a good time when magic isnt running

[Michael Whitehouse]

Sunday is a good time when Magic isn't running, but conditionals on weekly events tends to result in weekly events that people are not attending, because board gamers would not keep track of when Magic events are running. I think that if we had one regular board game time, then that would spread to other board gaming at other times.

[azurejade]

I think I agree that moving the regular board game slot makes sense... it's not fun to show up for board game day and discover a magic event. 

Saturday afternoons probably makes the most sense as a time slot, in that it's a time where there isn't anything else right now and it's on the weekends, so people are more available.

I think that in addition to bringing back board game day as a generic hang around playing board games thing, it is nice to have specific scheduled events. Like the time that there was a huge Twilight Imperium game, or the Dominion tournament that's being planned. I think it could also be fun to have themed board game days, like classic games (Chess, Go, etc) or commercially-branded games (I know the store owns Star Wars Monopoly, and I've got D&D Clue), or tournaments of a specific game. I liked having a game of the month way back when... it doesn't have to be anything other than a 'hey, the store thinks this game is cool. If you haven't played it, you should try'.

[Michael Whitehouse]

You have many good points here. Perhaps have Board Game Day be every Saturday and the first Saturday of the month could have a special theme. We also should consider a board game of the month again. Even if it is just having the box on a special shelf which says "Game of the Month: Play It!"