Wingstock

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Fri Nov 10, 2006 4:55 pm

Admin discussion on Wingstock.

Current projection: Summer 2008

Ideas:

Airsoft - whatever we do, let's section off areas where rampant gunnage is allowed. Anything outside and you get punishment, etc... this'll make it safe for babies and people who don't want to be irritated.

Bands - bands. Metal. Rock. Anti-genre. No prissy shit.

Raves - raves.

Limited ticket availability - sell 1000 tickets, no more. Give some away, too.

Anything more?

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:31 pm

Are you looking at actually getting everyone from Gundam Wing together?

If so...should I come, I DJ

Zhelir Darkfall · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Zhelir Darkfall** on Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:13 pm

<3

LAN section, amigo. Xbox 360/1080/whatever the hell's out, PC, yadda.

As well, if not only purely for the sight of Ashish breaking down crying in joy, Dew Kegs?

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:28 am

Agreed... DJ job assigned, man. We'll figure all this out lata'.

LAN party for sure. 24 hour rockage, plus game room.

SinfulSoul · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **SinfulSoul** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:28 am

If you could get the black Mountain Dew, I would bend over and let you rape me all night. I never got to try it and I would kill for it. A Dew keg would be worthy of a few hours of rape though. I'm all for that. Chicken would be good too.

I wanna rave, I want to slaughter you n00bs to a techno beat with a chain saw, and I get the 100 inch Samsung T.V all to myself.

Aaaand... I think we need a better name. Good brownie points for the effort though, just my opinion though. What does everyone else think?

I'll think of a more objective oriented list later when I have more time.

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:56 am

Sin, I right my own techno and I DJ at a club downtown sometimes.

PLUS! We still have the Black Mountain Dew in Canada : P It's pretty good.

Sorry Eric, but I also agree with the name change.

Zhelir Darkfall · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Zhelir Darkfall** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:36 am

Personally, I love the name. But hey, I'm just one man. >_>.

Similarly, if you could get ahold of a shitload of that Smoothe Mountain Dew, I would worship you. Only place I've ever seen it is in a hotel in Canada.

SinfulSoul · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **SinfulSoul** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:13 pm

*Sob* I've never had the glory to actually see it. My pathetic life has been shattered and the pieces scattered into oblivion. Grant me salvation! I must have it!

I was thinking about other big expos like the Penny-Arcade Expo and Blizz Con and what have you. I think maybe we should just make something simple like that. Call it Wing Expo or Wing Con. I think Wing Con sounds a bit better. If you want to be different, maybe something like... "The Underground" or the "Underwing" and get a big underground room somewhere.

We could help sponsor it by selling modified G-strings and call them G-wings. Basically the same thing but with wings on the side straps.

Which brings me to another big point. How are we going to pay for all this? We'll need to get sponsorships because I doubt entry fee will pay for it all. To get any good money-holding sponsors, we have to make this event large enough.

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:48 pm

Very good point Sinful. I'm going to Europe this year and university that year so my funds will be fairly depleted. Obviously I'll come up with my own plane ticket/gas and such.

Yeah I can definately pick up a few cases of both MD's. Heh, just remind me next year : P

Plus if we're serious about a rave we're going to need some sound equipment, just speakers and a board. I'll be using my computer for the most of it, as well as crazy lights and what not...*cough*drugs*cough*.

Also, how long are we looking at making this? Like 2 days sort of thing? Because unless I have a car that I can sleep in, this is going to be expensive.

Although it would be spectacular to finally meet some of you in person.

As for bands, all the bands that I'm in right now won't exist come that time, but should I have any in Uni I'll let you know.

For anyone that wants to jam I play Bass Electric and a little bit of Drums.

Zhelir Darkfall · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Zhelir Darkfall** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 4:18 pm

If dance lighting is anything similar to theatre lighting, count me in on the light crew.

Similarly, I think our users would be willing to pay a fair amount to get in, given it's only going to be us. That coupled with sponsors and individual equipment donations ought to be enough to get something worth while.

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:40 pm

Yeah that I can deal with. We just need to come up with a person per person count. I can do a little bit of lighting as well, that I am trained in. I've been doing lighting for my high school on the side for 5 years.

I MIGHT, MIGHT be able to get some sound equipment from friends, not much, but some. If I am still talking to a few friends here. That's a pretty big if, but should we be able to hunt down sponsors (I have no idea who) I'm sure we could weasel some equipment out of them.

I'll be happy to pay my fair as long as it's not too much.

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:51 pm

I have a good set of PA equipment and amps and such. If we can all pool together our stuff, we should be able to find enough shit.

We'll likely have vendors, and sell spots for some exorbitant price. ~$500?

We'll keep it small, sell tickets at one, two, and three day passes, and run the event for three days. (Friday, Saturday, Sunday.) Set prices around $15, $25, and $35, respectively? I'm not sure. We might just do an all weekend pass for ~$50, or less, $30?

If we can sell 1000 entrance passes, $30/pop - that's $30,000. I'm sure that'll cover some of the costs, assuming the space at a convention center isn't too expensive.

Promotion is something we'll have to do BIGTIME - this would all depend on us selling all the tickets. Secondly, from a CFO position, limiting tickets may or may not be a good idea the first run. We also don't want to get too large, and lose the homely feel.

What're everyone's thoughts?

SinfulSoul · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **SinfulSoul** on Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:56 am

Entree fee isn't something we should worry about right now. It's first most important to add up expenses, and only then do we add up our sources of income. Expenses are something we cannot negotiate much on, however revenue is something we have more control over. Establish the constants before the variables, as they say in Math.

Anyway, if we are going to make this big enough to have sponsors, we will need to consider renting out a hotel lobby area. We have to find a large easy to get to and well known establishment that isn't going to be as ridiculously expensive as a convention center. A brand name hotel should do the trick. They may offer discounts to our customers and therefore carry on the business we bring in for them an additional discount on the big room area thing. We will need to choose a time period in which we can maximize the chances of availability of our target group.

Now, to get true sponsorship, we absolutely must advertise. That is the only way to get enough people to invest the time and money to go there. Local vendors will obviously be the first people we should go to. We also need to keep in mind that if we're planning on doing a full sound and light gig along with gaming system setups, staff members will have to arrive a day in advance and probably leave one day late.

So, lets start with the easy stuff first. What city and state? What time period? And what is our target audience? Is it JUST Gwing people, or is it an entire roleplaying community that spans much farther than Gwing? I don't think Gwing is going to get 1000 members dedicated enough to fly out of their way. That might happen the year after if we promote ourselves enough at the first convention.

Anyway, thoughts?

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:08 pm

Our best time peroid as Eric suggested in the first post, would be summer. I am personally thinking End of July, perhaps the last weekend, or the first weekend in August. Not many people are away in my experience.

As for our target audience I think it should include all RPers, Online and LARPs alike. Perhaps even MMORPG's.

Heh, just because I love it I think cosplay should be allowed of course. : ) I could be a DJ wearing my Gambit costume ^.^

And as for the state, well...I don't really know much about America's Geography, but NY is too big I would think so we should have it somewhere close to that. Maybe Columbus? Or Philly? Maybe that's just best for me.

SinfulSoul · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **SinfulSoul** on Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:42 pm

Great, so we'll say late July for now. Now I think the way Eric was trying to gear this was that it wasn't so much just a RP thing, but more of an all around gaming experience thing. So we'll obviously need to setup game system booths and what have you. At the same time we'll need a location that will give us a large indoors area next to a large outdoors area where we can setup paint ball and what have you.

Location is going to be the big thing. It has to be somewhere where a there is plenty of business and people know about. Weather needs to be good too. My guess would be somewhere in Florida. It's got a good location, but I think things are going to be a bit excessively expensive there. Maybe on the other hand we should try the Vegas area, or other places out west known for big technology-related events like San Diego or the LA area. Another good spot would be Chicago, but as we travel more north east we get further away from the video gaming scene and more into the role playing or board game convention areas.

As for support, I think our best bet is to join up with some other big names to help do a lot of the publicity for us. Right now I can already tell there is going to be budget problems if we try to handle this on our own. This might be a downer, but I think the first time around we might have to tag along as a party attached to some bigger name. I know CAD and other popular web comics run their own little thing and eventually got pretty big (Penny Arcade?). CAD has Winter-Een-Mas coming up, we might be able to get hold of Tim Buckley to help support us and maybe offer him an invite to attend. That way we can pull that fan base and target a large population of gamers from around the world.

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:12 pm

We'll most likely be taking out a loan to pay for the up front costs, and making our profits to pay it back.

The locations that have most seriously come under consideration for reasons of administration ability have been North Carolina and Michigan. If we take it to Florida, we'd be directly competing with MetroCon and several other major conventions.

A locale would need to be somewhere where a person can be around nearly full-time, to take care of any issues that arise in scheduling, setup, administration, hiring, teardown, etc. etc. We'll be renting out a convention center, and most likely set up booking with the accompanying hotel. Any cheaper space would be awesome - a church, a community center. Depending on our target crowd (remember discussion about not growing -too- large, losing the homely feeling), we'll need a place to sleep within walking distance. If it has an outdoor space, great.

I've been glancing around, checking our options. NC would be great, since that's where I'll be, and I know the area best. What can everyone else present as options?

I personally know Morisson Poe, the band that played the theme song for Perfect Dark Zero. They have an awesome fan base, and should drag a small crowd wherever they play. I'm pretty damned sure I can get Jeanie to play for us. They're currently East Coast (here in NC), but may be open to travelling.

Another thing is guests - we need some guests to attract desire and more crowd - I'm thinking along the lines of authors, pro gamers. We might have a voice actor or two - Vic Mignogna is someone who we can talk to as well. Though, this would be opening the door to anime fans, which is something that also needs to be considered.

We can also submit the story to the local news stations, maybe they'll pick up on the story and report it on the nightly news or something.

...and work just got hella busy. I'll end here.

Zhelir Darkfall · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Zhelir Darkfall** on Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:46 pm

Well, it's not a whole lot, but if it's held in Southwestern Michigan I can be of assistance -- specifically, if we can't find anyplace for an airsoft/paintball arena, I'm pretty well knit in the community around here, and can easily get ahold of 10+ acres of woods/field terrain.

I'd recomend checking out the Grand Rapids/Byron Center area, can probably find something for a decent price there.

Gabriel Faile · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Gabriel Faile** on Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:28 pm

Well either Michigan or NC sound good. Its not to far for me and for the southerns on the site. As for big names I like the sound of Tim Buckley, I've been a fan of him since the beginning, as well perhaps as Brain - http://www.nuklearpower.com(8-bit theater), and maybe even Hawk and Anath from AppleGeeks.

Other than that, as for Voice actors perhaps Scott...something or other. He does Duo and a lot of other Character's voices. He would be a wonderful candidate.

Remæus · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Remæus** on Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:59 pm

The Grand Rapids Convention Center was scoped as a possible location.

SinfulSoul · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **SinfulSoul** on Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:20 pm

Population of about 210,000 with an average family income of around 44,000. It might do, but the tourism in that location is limited and the place is known more for automobile and furniture manufacturing. They're going to have lot of automobile museums and such because they were known for housing the distinguished residents of Gerald Ford and his wife. They have a lot of other celebrity ties too, even three Olympic table tennis stars. Tightness. They also have a lot of big highways for easy travel, transport I don't think will be a problem and overcrowding shouldn't be an issue. They also have their own airport that provides a shuttle service, which is important. There is also a direct train service that goes back and forth between Chicago, so we should be good to advertise in Chicago. Same thing goes for Detroit. With two major cities to advertise in, we should be able to pull outside visitors in to help support costs.

I scoped out the convention center there and I must say I'm quite impressed. That is a great looking building. I'm worried about cost, but that will definitely more than do. If we throw down a few ping pong tables, we'll definitely get some local people up in hizzle. What I'm more worried about is the price of all the T.V's we're going to need to support multiple gaming stations. The other thing is we're going to need at least one projector and we're going to need to rent out a stage. Chairs are important too.

Oh by the way, there is a Civic center as well that has two floors. That might be a little bit less expensive and better suited to our needs to support around 1,000 people.

Wingstock

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Wingstock

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