Asilomar Wants to Host Your Gaming Event August 2, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, In Person.Tags: Asilomar, Asilomar Conference Grounds, Gaming Conventions, Golfland, Haunted Conference Rooms, Moneterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, Pacific Grove
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Or so I hear.
The Asilomar Conference Grounds site is a very nice place in Monterey County, California. Located in the city of Pacific Grove (where I’ll be able to afford to retire if I get my wish) it offers nice facilities in amongst the trees, is walking distance from ocean, and is a relatively short drive from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. There is also some golf course near by, but they don’t have an arcade or anything like Golfland.
Merrill Hall at Asilomar
The whole area is pretty nice. Ask Tipa.
Anyway, a friend of mine who works at Asilomar heard from the director of marketing for the facility that they are looking to attract more “gaming” events.
Why gaming events?
Well, the same company that runs the grounds for the state, Aramark, also runs the Anaheim Convention Center. And you know what happens at the Anaheim Convention Center. BlizzCon.
So I have to think that might have influenced them a bit.
However, Asilomar is not the same scale as Anaheim Convention Center or Moscone Center. You couldn’t host BlizzCon or GDC there.
But for smaller events… say anything from some out-of-town buddies wanting to host a LAN party or a weekend D&D campaign to something on the order of SOE’s Fan Faire… Asilomar would be an appropriately sized venue in my estimation. And the place has a rustic feel to it that would certainly add to any medieval focused event. Plus I heard that one of the conference rooms is haunted.
That is the preamble. Now to the actual point of this post.
Said director of marketing is not exactly tapped into the gamer community and would like to know where to start. I wouldn’t consider myself tapped into the community either, at least not for planning events like this. But I have all of you readers. Somebody out there must know something… and the rest of us have opinions which we’re always happy to share.
So I would like to open this up for comment. You might consider the following questions as a guide, though if I have missed something, do not feel constrained by them.
*What should Asilomar do to get noticed and considered by those planning gaming events? How should they be reaching out? (Remember though, Asilomar is being run for the budget strapped State of California, so “spend a lot of money” probably isn’t an option.)
*What sort of gaming events should they consider trying to attract?
*Is there anything special the facilities should offer? They do tech industry outings there, so they have good internet connectivity, but what else should they have?
*What would you want to know about from their web site or brochure before you would consider planning an event at Asilomar?
Thanks in advance for anything you have to offer on the subject.
Statement of interest: I am not in anyway affiliated with Asilomar or Aramark nor am I being financially compensated in any way for putting up this post. I am doing it as a favor for a friend. This post was neither vetted nor approved by Aramark or any of its representatives. All views and opinions expressed are my own, especially the part about the haunted conference room, which I quite possibly made up. Somebody from Asilomar will read the comments on this post. How they use any information provided, or if they use it at all, is entirely up to the management of the facility.
Home :( I miss Monterey so much. The whole family does.
I know I’ve been to Asilomar at least once; it’s a popular place for conferences and stuff (but they used to hold TED at the Double Tree downtown; went to that once, too).
If I were throwing a gaming shindig, I would naturally assume that anyplace in PG was going to be entirely too much money. It’s a place for rich people to spend their money lavishly, no place for normal people to go.
I’d probably rent out some rooms in CSUMB. Cheap, even nearer to the airport, right on the beach pretty much, and cheap.
Looking at how much land they have, maybe they could try and attract larpers? I would think that outreach through blogs/forums like this would be a good way to raise awareness.
Re: LARPers, the SCA used to hold tournaments in a park in Seaside, and there used to be a long-running Vampire: the Masquerade game that played along Cannery Row. At night, of course. LARPing is (was) alive and well in the Monterey area.
Jack’s Peak would be great for LARPing, and it’s free and just up the hill from a really nice California cuisine outdoor-indoor restaurant, Tarpy’s.
I don’t have anything against Asilomar, but if you’re going to do something fun for a family, it shouldn’t cost you a lot of money.
So they have a problem, real or perceived, that they are too expensive to be considered for this sort of recreational event.
One idea might be to host something midsized and popular (an eGaming event for whatever league?) for free, to get the name out. Then in future promotions for smaller players, they can show what that event did and use the name recognition.
I have been to a technical conference at Asilomar once, about 20 years ago. (Remember, I’m 3000 years old). I had the impression that holding a LAN party there, or a weekend boardgaming party would just be way too expensive to consider for a gaming type of budget.
I’d be happy to be wrong about that, though. I love the property.
@Tipa – the prospect of playing the game on Cannery Row might actually be enough to get me to play Vampire: The Masquerade. Or maybe not, but it’s tempting.
I read through a bunch of reviews of Asilomar on Yelp, and ran across one other issue. Apparently the center has a very strong policy towards food brought in from offsite. As in, they will kick you out if they find you eating it on the grounds.
This sounds like a deal-killer for most gaming cons that I know of. There are plenty of folks who will eat in the hotel restaurant, but plenty of others who want to get something cheap, or something late-night, or just bring snacks bought in bulk at home. Snacks at the tabletop roleplay session are kind of part of the ritual.
Hi,
I owned a game store from 1990 through 2000. We sold sci-fi, fantasy, historical, RPG’s, miniature, and board games plus a whole lot more. I had a booth at Gen Con from 1995-1999, and ran a small con for three years in a row and also helped plan a few others.
There are a few things that have to be answered before the site can be considered for a gaming convention. What is the closest population center and how large is it, and what are the costs associated with the facility. Milwaukee WI and the surrounding area has a population of 1 million plus. Gen Con drew about 20 to 30 thousand people each year. The cost of a 10 by 10 foot booth was 1500 dollars for the four days. The cost was worth it because of the amount of people that attended. The floor space was huge with hundreds of dealers. The cost of a four day pass was 45 dollars back then. I think it’s much more now, but when it moved to Indianapolis I lost track of it. Most shows lose money the first few years, so anyone thinking of running a con will have to take that into account. People won’t travel far for a show unless it has a track record. The con I ran attracted about 100 people the first year and about 200 people by the third year. We made money because the cost of the facilities was relative low. I think for the two days it was about 600 dollars.
Depending on the cost the company should try to market it to game manufactures or distributors. From what the comments said it sounds expensive, which might be a turn off for small retailers or someone just running a small con.
Currently the game industry is in a down turn and not just because of the economy. More and more people are turning to the internet for their gaming needs. Almost half of all gaming stores in the country have gone the way of the Dodo according to my x-business partner who still owns a hobby game store. It’s pretty bleak right now. The con would have to appeal to a wide audience from that area. Dragon con, Gen Con, and Origins draw a good amount of people because they have been around a number of years and cater to a variety of interests.
I would tell your friend to have their marketing people send info packs to a number of companies in the area and see what sticks. They could advertise on their website that they are gamer friendly. Like I said before most cons don’t make much money, so if the facility is too expensive they won’t tap the gamer market, and to be honest they may not want to. Bizzard draws the huge numbers because their player base is in the millions, most other game companies won’t.
If I owned a facility that was trying to bring in the gamer market I would start researching what other convention centers that had game shows charged and see if it was worth the effort. I guess if a show did sci-fi fantasy games, computer games, comics, and other media they might be able to do okay, but then again maybe not. Anyways I hope this helps.