Policy re Flakes and No Shows

nzLARPS
#41

[quote=“Mandos”]I suggested a while ago using game signup software that allows the GM’s to easily see who has and hasn’t paid for a game. Pretty sure it had an option to display that to other signups.

Using this would allow a number of benefits from giving a printable list of people who paid/didn’t easily add something the track attendance and also from the players side it allows then to have a personal calendar of larps they are planning to attend which might stop a few people from missing ones if they have a busy schedule.

I can reset up the demo site without too much hassle if people want to look into it as an option.[/quote]
SOounds like a great idea ! :slight_smile: Can you please setup a quick demo site so we can see how it could work ?

#42

SOounds like a great idea ! :slight_smile: Can you please setup a quick demo site so we can see how it could work ?[/quote]

Will take a look, I think all the software is already installed so it should just be a config thing.

#43

SOounds like a great idea ! :slight_smile: Can you please setup a quick demo site so we can see how it could work ?[/quote]

Will take a look, I think all the software is already installed so it should just be a config thing.[/quote]

Ok That was a bit easier than I thought. It was all already set up and just needed adding to the menu’s.

The site is dragonquest.org.nz/larp/ and is a site I set up to cover the Teonn site if their issues a while ago had continued. The booking feature has a fake Teonn game set up there.

In the backend it is an easy click to mark someone as paid and another click to get a .csv download with the following

Booking ID Name Email Date of booking Time of booking Booked spaces Status Paid Will you be playing a returning character?

1 356A192B79 Player A Email address A 02/17/2012 12:00AM 1 Participation assured No
2 DA4B9237BA Player B Email address B 02/17/2012 12:07AM 1 Participation assured No Yes

The questions at the end are fully configurable the returning character was an example one I added.

If any of the GM’s want to take a look at the backend PM me and I can create additional admin logins or I can post screenshots.

I am happy for the site to be used for LARP’s and it is easy to set up other larp sites like the Teonn one, I have forum software and other stuff on there as well and it runs Joomla so there are lots of free apps to do whatever people want.

Addendum :

Have had a bit of a play with it today and set it up so that people no longer need Admin access to create and maintain Larp Events. If people want to create some test LARPS and see what functionality there is for LARP management please create an account and then PM me the username and I will set you up with access.

It has a built in calendar and statistics and other stuff. Currently things may look a little cluttered as I have enabled everything I can find in order to let people look around.

Addendum 2: Allows signups via smartphone. Tested.

#44

I absolutely love this as a tool

Awesome

#45

[quote=“Ants”]I absolutely love this as a tool

Awesome[/quote]

Cheers for that. Learned a heap about the way it works this afternoon and I am slightly happier with it as a tool that I was when I suggested it. You will not have seen the backend bits but it is amazingly easy to see if people have paid or not and to update them when they do.

The only thing I cannot get it to do is put someone on a waitlist until they are marked as paid, but will keep looking.

#46

Any other comments or feedback? Will this help for payment tracking?

#47

Hi everybody,

I would like to tell you about my experience back in France. I used to be on of the two only GMs of my community (a remote French Island with 800 000 inhabitants), and faced the same problem of no-show are people canceling at the last minute. As you discussed before we also didn’t want to black list some players for canceling late. However we also had this problem with people not coming or canceling usually the night before. We took a couple of measures for that :

  • first of all pay in advance a part of the fees (5 dollars), it really made a difference as people tend to be more committed once they payed 5 dollars (even it the player is a CEO earning 10 000 dollars a months, and this is a genuine example…). I believe it is more about commitment than money itself. However, it was a bit of a nightmare as bank transfer were hard to organise in France, much harder than here. So we had to see each player individually and it was very time consuming…
  • Second of all, every time a new comer in the community subscribed to a LARP, we exchanged a couple of mails with him/her explaining the troubles of having no show or cancelers. Just saying that it might end up canceling the whole party and leaving the cost of food/consumables/venue rental on the shoulders of the GM. And as Bryn said we used appropriate words (as I can’t do in English) to sensibilise them without scaring them.
  • Third of all two day before we called every player asking if they had questions, and if they really are ready, needed advice or pieces of costume that we might be able to provide. It was also time consuming and costed some money (Eventually one of the GM called the players from his work after hours to cut down costs). But it was nice as you have a personal discussion with each player and can be sure that key characters have understood the key points of their character. It is also a good way to have a chat with the new players. This is probably hard to organise for LARPS bigger than 60 players (the biggest we organised). Another argument we found for calling people is that we called them before buying the food. so that if there is a flu epidemy we can postpone it without having started any expanses.
  • fourth of all, we kept a list of players who cancelled or couldn’t attend (it was made easier as we were only two GMs, so it was more something informal like "So how was the LARP ? Well very well unfortunately Moshe didn’t make it. Ow ok!). And when a player came to often in canceling we just gave him secondary/optional roles that can be remove at the last minute.
  • fifth of all, we tried to gain 10 to 30 dollars per LARP to fill a bailing found in case a LARP is cancelled so that the GM won’t have to pay for the expenses of the cancelled LARP. Turns out we only used it once and took 20 dollars out of it.
  • And finally. If the LARP needed 2 GMs we tried to have 3 or 4 because it helps with the flow, and if a player with a critical role doesn’t show we can have a GM playing this character.

Overall it was really (I mean REALLY) time consuming but in the end, for the last 10 LARPS we only had one no-show for a secondary character and could play the LARP without him and two cancellations for various reasons but we knew it in advance and could find a solution.

#48

That all sounds like really sensible advice and solutions - I suggest we try something along these lines before we start up an official list of cancellers and no-shows.

#49

one of the major advantage of having people registering in advance is that you can also create a who is who page with pictures so that you will recognise “your best friend” at once when you see him/her.

#50

One of the nice things baked into NZLARPS is that it provides this kind of financial security, at least for larps that are run as projects of the society.

However, it’s still something you don’t want to happen often. Even though the organisers are no longer footing the bill for a cancelled event, it’s still a waste of the money accumulated from the community. Better for those funds to be spent on gear, services, etc.