Game Master Invitation for Council of Five Nations XXX (30)

Council strives toward the goal of "quality over quantity."  We're a medium-sized con (we expect 250+ this year), but we try to have top-notch events.  As with all the Councils in the past few years, our goal is a nice balance between role-play games, miniatures, board games and other stuff.  We thank you for helping make this happen, and for helping us maintain our high standards of event quality.

We're looking for good, popular games that will draw attendees in the door.  What’s hot these days?... that’s what we want.  Really obscure stuff, and games that haven't been popular for a long time, have generally not done well for us at previous conventions.  Also, the sexier your event description sounds, the better your chance of filling the game. 

This year, we’re moving to the brand-new Proctor’s Theatre Convention Center in downtown Schenectady, NY.  This will give us significantly more space for lower cost, and it’s a great space.

With the significant growth we had last year (our attendance doubled!), coordinating all the events was more of a challenge.  We’re splitting that up among several people this year.  If you’ve got a question about running a particular type of event, please contact the appropriate person below:

Role Play Games	Jason Murphy	murphsbox@hotmail.com	(518) 810-1270
Board Games	Eric Paperman	eric@swa-gaming.org	(518) 347-2158
Miniatures	John Rigley	jrigley@nycap.rr.com	(518) 573-8223
Historical Minis	Steve Keyer	TwoSoldierX@aol.com	(518) 459-4941
Other Questions	Dave Cheng	dave@swa-gaming.org	(518) 464-1977

In order to make it easier for parents to attend, we have a goal of offering a few kid-friendly games during these four time slots: Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning & Sunday afternoon.

So, if you've got a game that would be good for our younger attendees (perhaps ages 8-12), and you're good with kids, we'd love to have you GM for us. Please indicate "kid friendly" by checking the box on the online form.

For several years now, we’ve sent paper Invitation letters to our GMs via US Mail.  We’re not going to do that this year.  In 2006, 98% of our event submissions came via our web site.  We’ll be mailing out postcards to remind folks on our preferred GM list about the event submission process.

We've appended a copy of the Council Event Registration Form to the end of this file, and you can download as many as you’d like from our web site.  However, please note that we would prefer that you go to our web site and use the automated online form. Easy, free, and less data entry for us: everybody makes out great. 

No matter how you submit your event(s), please fill the form out completely.  You don't have to use this exact form, as long as we get all the info we need to schedule and publicize your event.  You can mail it back, fax it, email the info, or even call and dictate it to us; whatever is good and fast.  But again, we prefer that you submit your events online.  Please go to this web site:
   

Some game companies and retailers are donating prize support for select tournaments.  If we get something appropriate for your event, we'll let you know.  Otherwise, if you would like to supply and award a prize for your event, that is entirely up to you.  We’re not making a big deal about prizes this year.

To show our appreciation, running a game that is listed in the pre-registration booklet will get you free registration for the whole weekend.  You will still need to purchase tickets for events you want to play in (most games are $2).  Events not submitted in time for the pre-reg booklet will earn you a $10 discount on the registration fee.  Please understand our rationale – we feel that the best way to promote the con is to have as "full" a pre-reg booklet as possible.  If an event misses the pre-reg book, it's far less effective in helping us draw attendees.

Please make every effort to get your event descriptions to us by Sunday, July 15th.  We want to be sure to have lots of good events for the pre-reg booklet.  There is no guarantee events received after July 15th will make it into the pre-reg booklet.  However, if you don't get us your events by press time, we will still happily include them in the on-site schedule.  But remember the better discount if you get your events in early!

David Cheng
1700 Western Ave #512
Albany NY 12203
Phone: (518) 464-1977
Fax: (801) 751-9120
Email: dave@swa-gaming.org