Absolutely none of which does anything to "better concentrate fire on supporting (and bringing in more) existing wargamers" at a con that is decidedly not wargamer friendly.
I mean, look... I get that it's an uphill fight and all, but I've been submitting and running events for a decade. I was an exhibitor for 3 years. I brought in, what... 8? 9? companies that hadn't been there in forever and have a few others I'm still working on. I talked GAMA into even giving us a wargaming program to try, and I've either written or posted upwards of 100 articles about the show, not counting all the social media discussion
before the show each year.
We tried a kids' program that didn't quite pan out the way we hoped; sometimes that happens.
We also tried an open gaming area for others to come play in our space, and it didn't quite take off, but we also never went back to it.
So it's not like I haven't been trying to "better concentrate fire on supporting (and bringing in more) existing wargamers" going back to 2005....
I've got a call early next week with John Stacy to talk about option on how we can make the show more wargamer-friendly and bring the grognards back into the fold, and Paul & Ian know my number by heart that when I call the office, the greeting isn't "Thanks for calling GAMA" but "Hey, Brant, what's up?"
I get that one course of action is packing it in and walking away.
I know that we were operating under a vendor-centric model w/ the John Ward regime that probably isn't sustainable anymore, and we likely have to jettison.
We've also learned that over the past 5 years, we're unlikely to
convert a ton of wargamers, so what can we do to support & encourage those that are there, and/or bring crossover wargamers (or lapsed ones) back into the fold?
And how can we do it without burning ourselves out?
Yeah, we can channel our inner Frenchman and wave the white flag.
I'm not quite ready to do that yet, but I'm also not going to pretend I have all the answers, and I'm willing to take all sorts of suggestions on what we
can do and we don't want to do.
I totally respect the position of those of you that aren't interested in working Origins anymore.
I get it.
It's a lot of work and if you're not enjoying it, then what's the point?
I totally understand it and I appreciate all the hours of effort and (especially) the small personal fortunes y'all've sunk into being there to wave the wargaming flag and proclaim the gospel of wargamedness.
It really does warm my heart that y'all believed in the program enough to be a part of it, and while it saddens me that you guys might want to do other things, I absolutely get it.
I'm also not ready to give up the ship yet, and I'm looking for ideas of other ways to steer it, and hoping to get some good dialogue going with GAMA about how they can calm the waters for us (is that enough naval metaphors for y'all?)
And I'm willing to do all of that while also kick-starting our own wargaming weekend that might grow into more of what we all want, which is a chance to game and carouse with our friends we've made along the way.