Timetable thoughts

Auckland Chimera
#1

I must be getting old, those late nights were a killer for me. Think I saw a few other exhausted players on Sunday too. I don’t think that planning to be up past midnight two nights in a row works for everyone - for some people it’s no problem, for others it’s a real challenge. As a teen I used to regularly stay up all night, but as you age your body clock changes. And some people are just never late-nighters.

I probably haven’t considered all the possible issues, but would shifting the timetable forward an hour work at all?

Friday
Induction - 7:00pm-8:00pm
Round 1 - 8:00pm-11:00pm

Saturday
Breakfast - 7:30pm-8:30pm
Round 2 - 9:00am-12:00pm
Lunch - 12:00pm-1:00pm
Round 3 - 1:00pm-4:00pm
Dinner - 5:30pm-6:30pm
Flagship briefing - 6:30pm-7:00pm
Flagship - 7:00pm-11:00pm
Voting and all-in-debrief: 11:00pm-11:30pm
Extended debrief/partying: 11:30pm-late

Sunday
Breakfast - 7:30pm-8:30pm
Round 5 - 9:00am-12:00pm
Lunch - 12:00pm-1:00pm
Round 6 - 1:00pm-4:00pm
Cleanup - 4:00pm-5:00pm
Debrief - 5:00pm-5:30pm

Aside from shifting everything forward an hour, there are a couple of other things I think could help to reduce the late nights.

One is for the Friday induction and the Saturday debrief to be held to as strict a timetable as the games are - the Friday game started at least half an hour late this year, meaning games had to run to 12:30am if they wanted their full time, and the Sat night ran until 1am or so I think, including the debrief. If we’re strict with games, we should be strict with inductions/debriefs too. The allocated time ends, the induction/debrief ends.

Another thought is that the Saturday night voting could be electronic, to make the counting instant.

Finally there could be a quick flagship debrief & prizegiving for everyone ending at 11:30, and then an opportunity for people to leave, followed by a longer debrief and/or social mingler (depending on what the GMs feel like in a given year) for those who want to stay up late.

I guess there is potential for the opposite problem, with night-owls who can’t get up early. But a 9am start isn’t exactly early - it’s on-time or even late by most workplace and school standards, and most people are used to fitting in breakfast before that.

Just my 2c.

#2

Hi Ryan,

I don’t have a problem with most of the proposed changes, but there are a couple of issues. First, if we moved breakfast forward an hour what time does this mean the cooks have to get up? Second, on the Saturday I’d rather have the 1.5 hour break between dinner and the flagship rather than between round 3 and dinner (some people may have costumes that aren’t convenient for eating in)

With the flagship aftermath, would it be possible to do the prize-giving on Sunday morning. This would take the pressure off everyone to hang around while the votes are counted.

#3

Possibly an uncooked self-serve breakfast could be available first. That might not need the cook, just an attendant to put things in place and make sure people have paid?

#4

What I wanted more than anything this Chimera was -time-. 50 min in between rounds to eat, change and help others with costumes/props just wasn’t enough time, and I started each game in a somewhat stressed and frazzled state.

This may open another can of worms, but what if the “best” prize-giving was phased out?

Recognizing each-other’s hard work and the energy/skill they bring to a role or costume is fantastic and I hope always a part of cons, but it seems to create a lot of work to tally and count the votes, and then the prize giving has the potential to take up time that some people would rather use for sleeping/socialising/cleaning/changing etc…

Spot prizes are quick, easy and pull from a broader “pool” as it doesn’t require a certain degree of skill/money/experience - and the shout-out/favourite moments threads provides a wonderful and very public means of giving that more specific recognition to people whose costumes and RP you think deserves recognition.

#5

Agree with you, Ryan, although I do think that the team did a really good job with all the time constraints that they had and Anna lived up to her reputation of Herder of Cats. :smiley: But I was so exhausted in the last 10 minutes of the Gordion Knot that I had to go sit down in the corner with all the dead people for fear of passing out.

It does seem that at least the Friday night should start earlier. It felt like a seriously long meet-and-greet session which started at 7:30pm and lasted till 9 so perhaps announcements and muster could start an hour earlier? I tend to want to talk to people more after the game anyway so I would have loved some time to mingle after rather than before.

I second the idea of the electronic voting, or at least having a list somewhere with all the characters and the corresponding players as I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was who, being n00b and all!

But in the end, big ups to the Chimera team - for having to get 130+ people organised the way you did, I have to say I was impressed.

#6

I actually really like the quick pace of Chimera. This is the pace I prefer to live my life. There really was a ton of time to have a shower, chat between games, cart around props and costumes, eat meals and drink coffee etc. Just not all of them between every game.

But it may be worth looking at games optionally displaying a “running time” like DVDs do, so people could optionally play in some shorter games if they felt they needed to have a cup of tea and a lie down afterwards.

At the conclusion of the Gordian Knot, I think we could have cranked the music up and partied while people did their voting. It would have taken a little longer, but if you’re partying, that’s a good thing, right?

Then we could have done the awards a bit like a talent show :slight_smile:

#7

If there was a way of doing voting electronically, I’d be down for this!
I found last year, the hardest thing was getting names/numbers for the voting.
This year, I made some notes during the game for costumes and roleplaying, so I knew my votes as it finished up.

The timetable does work well in its current form. getting up earlier can work for some people, my dog wakes me up at 6am without fail 7 days a week, so weekends I’m generally up and about around that time, even away from home. The people that would be affected the most, are those that stay up late, but that’s their choice.

I think the only thing that really went wrong this chimera, was the food being late. Now, I don’t envy the cooks job at all. I realise that cooking for 80ish paid people can be a mission. But in saying that, these are my opinions I think the croissants were a bit of a big job for breakfast. big bowl of cornflakes/ricies, a couple of pitchers of milk, fruit from a can, etc are all good, no-cooking breakfasts. scrambled eggs/bacon/sausages/hashbrowns are all easy meal options that wouldn’t take long.

Also, again, i’m not a cook, so just suggestions - a staggering of serving could work. esspecially if space is a premium in the kitchen.

#8

I’d like to echo people on how impressed I am with the organisation of Chimera, with Anna & Rowena, with Hannah’s team for the flagship. If I was running it, everything would run three hours late and dinner would consist of vegetarian hotdogs for everyone. So please take my comments in the spirit of Kaizen (a Japanese philosophy of continuous product/service improvement), not criticism.

In terms of workload for the cooks, it might be less of a killer for them if a separate volunteer early-morning breakfast team took care of laying out simple self-selve breakfasts, leaving the cooks to do lunch and dinner. Less early mornings, more energy to play evening games for the cooks.

#9

I think it would help if Friday’s proceedings were moved an hour earlier. I don’t really think there is any room for messing around with Sat and Sun, though.

Agreed. Breakfast needn’t and shouldn’t be a complicated affair.

[quote=“amphigori”]This may open another can of worms, but what if the “best” prize-giving was phased out?

Recognizing each-other’s hard work and the energy/skill they bring to a role or costume is fantastic and I hope always a part of cons, but it seems to create a lot of work to tally and count the votes, and then the prize giving has the potential to take up time that some people would rather use for sleeping/socialising/cleaning/changing etc…

Spot prizes are quick, easy and pull from a broader “pool” as it doesn’t require a certain degree of skill/money/experience - and the shout-out/favourite moments threads provides a wonderful and very public means of giving that more specific recognition to people whose costumes and RP you think deserves recognition.[/quote]
It doesn’t realllly help at all hearing that the same people who are always the best… are still the best. It basically reinforces that no matter how much work or money I put in, it’ll never equal the results of the people with actual skill, so what’s the point? Better to put in just enough effort to avert harming other peoples’ game experience, then stop and save the hassle.

#10

The point of the awards isn’t to make anyone feel bad - but I appreciate that it can cause some frustration. If it helps, realise that it’s not that anyone is “best” - but that they got a higher number of votes (think if it as the “crowd favourite”). Best is a very subjective term.

#11

At the last Kapcon game, they had a GM’s choice award for Unsung Hero. Basically people who had flown under the radar, so were unlikely to get crowd favourite, but had had really solid performances. I liked it.

#12

Hi guys, thanks for the thoughts - feel free to keep discussing, I just wanted to throw a couple of things in there. The first is that I think Ryan makes valid points, and I will be making some amendments to the timetable for next year.

  1. Friday - the meet and greet, and the very late start, is comes from my experiences at other weekend games when there was just no way to get the show on the road before 8:30pm. Even Teonn’s last game, which is also striving to improve its efficiency, started an hour later than the hard and fast start time. When designing the timetable, I wanted to give everyone a chance to get there from work/university, all chilled out, no dramas, have time for a chat and a mingle before diving into games. Clearly, if I’m having to fend off hordes of larpers from turning up early, I may not in fact have this problem any more. Friday will probably have a slightly earlier start time next year.

  2. This year, I felt like I was running behind schedule too, and part of the reason the musters and such ran a little late was because of the sheer volume of people to get into one place and I seriously underestimated how difficult that was, given the distance between the two areas of Motu Moana. Next year, I will have some loud noise making device and give a five minute muster warning, and a muster start warning that could be heard all through the camp without the need for runners. It also helps when people (and I know a LOT of people did this) take responsibility for time management and not only turn up when they know muster is about to begin but encourage other attendees to do so as well.

  3. Post-Flagship - yes, this sucked. I’m really sorry - we were vote counting as fast as we could but it was literally a case of deciphering handwriting, real names vs character names vs character numbers. Next year the voting system will be better, unless there’s vast agreement with amphigori that we don’t prizes, in which case there won’t be. I was aiming to wrap up at 11:30pm on the nose and clearly I missed. We’ll get it right next year!

  4. I’m not convinced we need to change the Saturday and Sunday timetables. Sure, I might be at work by 9am Mon-Fri, but I also don’t have to paint myself blue for work…

#13

[quote=“Krintar”]
It doesn’t realllly help at all hearing that the same people who are always the best… are still the best. It basically reinforces that no matter how much work or money I put in, it’ll never equal the results of the people with actual skill, so what’s the point? Better to put in just enough effort to avert harming other peoples’ game experience, then stop and save the hassle.[/quote]

We have never had the same person win flagship prizes, or main-con prizes more than once :slight_smile: In 2008, Dave Luxton won flagship costume and Dave McIsaac won flahgship RP. In 2009, it was Muppet winning costume and Adam winning RP. In 2010, it was myself and Michael Carter winning costume and Beth St. Claire winning RP. This year, different again. It’s a misconception that the “same people” win every year. I have the list of prize winners from every Chimera to prove it :wink:

#14

I have had a bit of time to think about Chimera and the logistics that surrounded it. What I have to say is my opinion only, and like what others have said, given in the spirit of friendly commentary

Friday Night - For me this was too long a wait for the first game. My energy levels were sagging and I felt like the time allowed for meet and greet was too long. I would prefer that the game starts earlier and you then have the option of staying up a little longer to socialise if you wish afterwards

Saturday - A 10am start time was nice, but ultimately a luxury I think. I would value a start time of an hour earlier with an extra 30 mins in between rounds.

Flagship Larp - The Larp was awesome and I enjoyed hearing about all the different things that went on. However at the end of a long day I would rather of had it finish straight away, votes tallied and results done at Sunday Morning Muster, A party to follow on where you can froth about your favourite moments. There was even decks laid out by Craig :slight_smile: .I would like to see the content from the story writers published rather than a Q&A. Much like we did for Al-Shirma at this years Kapcon. That if you are interested you can have a bit of a read.

Sunday - This is probably my biggest suggestion for the con. I would like to see a longer game run on Sunday rather than 2 short games. Start later like at the regular 9.30-10am and have a game that goes on for up to 6 hours ala day game-esk. To me this is a nice change of pace, food can be incorporated intot he game, and you would finish an hour earlier. This would mean more time at the back end of the con to tidy and do prizes etc.

Food - I do not envy the cooks. I hope important lessons were learnt from this weekend. I appreciate Elle and her army of helpers doing the best they can but I feel this needs to be raised in an open forum. For me this is a definite lo-light of the con. The menu was ambitious in my opinion and it firstly did not meet my expectations from the outset in terms of what I thought I was getting, nor was it delivered in a timely manner. There were definite issues of quantity as well for those who missed out. Simply unacceptable when they have paid for the meal.

What I would like to see is what others have touched on already. An easy continental type breakfast seems to be a clear winner in terms of prep. Lots of fruit and vegetables throughout the day to snack on, and a good simple meal in the evening. Could be BBQ, or boiled vegies or whatever. But I stress that the food does not need to be high cuisine, rather filling and nutritious. Any thing else is a luxury in my opinion. I come for the friends and RP rather than the food so if it is basic I am not going to complain :wink:

EDIT: Seems my typing while working has meant I missed a few of the posts above. Please take into account before reading :slight_smile:

#15

I agree with people on the need for an earlier start on Friday night. As for the rest of the con, I don’t see any real problems with the current timetable. I found the start time worked OK, and I had no problems eating / cleaning / changing between sessions. Yes, things were tight for me last session - but that was my problem, not the cons.

Shifting everything forward an hour just swaps late nights for early mornings, while moving mealtimes to less usual hours. Not so good.

As for the flagship wrap-up, I specifically didn’t attend that bit because I expected it to go on for too long, so I can’t really comment. But its worth pointing out that attendance isn’t mandatory, and if like me you value sleep over answers, then there is an easy solution.

#16

Ants brought up some points i’d like to echo in regards to the Food.

As a traveller from Wellington, it’s a lot easier to pre-pay for food. In previous weekend games and chimera, the food just wasn’t up my alley, or filling enough.
This year I held out for a menu and decided after seeing what was going to be served, I would still go for the pre-paid food option. I may have an over active imagination, which is why I didn’t bother brining it up before, but the food was a big let down. As I said before, I don’t envy the cooks. But I found myself hungry for most of the weekend, each of the meals left me needing more. I realise its hard to figure out how much each person would theoretically eat, and I know there were some production issues with some of the meals, but the serving size per-person just wasn’t enough, at least for me.

I just hope its taken as constructive criticism and not as malicious personal attacks on the cooks. The food was good, wasn’t burnt or raw, it was well seasoned etc, but just not enough.

#17

I just wanted to add that if we want to move to electronic voting, I could put a webpage together. I’ve done something similar for work with customer surveys.

The only issue is that we’d need to have laptops, ipads or maybe even phones set up as voting stations.

We’d also need to put some controls in so each person can only vote once for each game they’re playing in. Maybe a unique pin/id code for each player.

Anyway just ideas, Anna let me know if you’re interested in introducing something like this and if you’d want me to put it together and we can hash out ideas.

#18

I’m not fixated on specific timetable changes… so long as Fri and Sat night can wrap completely by 11:30pm, whatever timetable will achieve that is all good with me. And by “wrap completely” I mean “provide a clear opportunity for people to leave.” It can be embarassing to exit a room with 100 people in it in the middle of a big sit-down talk, without a clear indication that it’s okay to go.

#19

As Ryan says, the sit down at the end of the flagship was not mandatory, but unless you got out at the small window at the beginning it is a little unlikely you are going to walk out in the middle.

#20

As the person who did pass out (if anybody missed it) I’m rather relieved to hear that other people were also feeling the effects. An option to skive off immediately after the flagship would have been appreciated, because by that time I didn’t really care who won what, just wanted to find a dark corner and curl up in a ball. Obviously I appreciate that everyone else was in a better state at that stage, but if the prize-giving for the flagship was left until sometime on the Sunday, it would also take time pressure off the vote-counters.

I concur - I still haven’t found out quite what was going on with Stannis Tier Austri as that wasn’t covered in the debrief on the night.

I know the logistics on this are horrible, but I would like to float the idea of snacks at the flagship, just to keep everyone going that bit longer. 6+ hours is a fairly long time to be on your feet with no energy intake. I know my blood sugar levels were a bit on the low side by the end of the flagship because I’d had them taken twice before I was discharged from A&E - availability of food might have helped.

Which brings us to the food. Yes, it was late, but the problem was with the kitchen facilities. 3/6 of the elements on that stove top don’t work properly or at all and the oven also seems to be unreliable. I guess that needs to be planned for in future.

My two cents :slight_smile:
Kirsten

P.S. Thanks to whoever it was who called the ambulance. It probably wasn’t necessary, but I appreciate the concern. :slight_smile: