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Board Game Breakfast Segment #1: Starting a Game Group
Hello there, Dice Towerers (Dice Towerites? Toweronians?).
Ugh.
Hello there, viewers, I’m Chaz Marler of the Pair Of Dice Paradise podcast. I’m very grateful to be invited onto the Board Game Breakfast show!
As you know, there’s a lot of excellent news and discussion about board games on this show, so I wanted to present a two-series about the other ingredient in gaming: the players. Specifically, finding those players.
See, in my case, I found myself coming home from work to inevitably work on more work. I desperately needed a vacation from my vocation, so about six months ago I started a board gaming group in my town. More games, new friends, fewer spreadsheets.
So, when starting a gaming group, where should one begin? By spreading the word!
Now, because I usually end up spending my disposable income on meeples and tattoo removal (don’t… don’t ask), I needed to start with the most cost-effective method possible of spreading the word: the simple tear-off flyer. Many locations have bulletin boards where you can post your flyers: community cork boards at local
grocery stores, libraries, church and college campuses, comic book shops and, of course, game shops.
This may sound low-tech, but in my game group, 11% of its three-dozen members were obtained as the direct result of flyers that I distributed in this way.
Turning to the interwebz, there’s many places online to publicize your game group. I’m not just talking about social media sites like Facebook, Google+ or Yahoo Groups (another 4% of members), but also more targeted efforts like submitting your group’s info online to your local newspapers’ event calendars (2% of members), or using BoardGameGeek.com’s “Find Gamers” search tool, or becoming a member of MeetUp.com* (78% of members). Note, MeetUp.com may require monthly fees.
Remember that people may not come from where you expect. I live in between a big city and small town. At first, I focused my efforts on the larger city. Bigger population means more gamers, right? Not necessarily. In my experience, the most active members have come from the smaller town.
Once you’ve found gamers to join your group, you’ll just need to figure out what to do with all these people. We’ll continue there in the next installment. See you then, Dice Towerists! Towerists? Towerotti?!?
Ugh.
Hello there, viewers, I’m Chaz Marler of the Pair Of Dice Paradise podcast. I’m very grateful to be invited onto the Board Game Breakfast show!
As you know, there’s a lot of excellent news and discussion about board games on this show, so I wanted to present a two-series about the other ingredient in gaming: the players. Specifically, finding those players.
See, in my case, I found myself coming home from work to inevitably work on more work. I desperately needed a vacation from my vocation, so about six months ago I started a board gaming group in my town. More games, new friends, fewer spreadsheets.
So, when starting a gaming group, where should one begin? By spreading the word!
Now, because I usually end up spending my disposable income on meeples and tattoo removal (don’t… don’t ask), I needed to start with the most cost-effective method possible of spreading the word: the simple tear-off flyer. Many locations have bulletin boards where you can post your flyers: community cork boards at local
grocery stores, libraries, church and college campuses, comic book shops and, of course, game shops.
This may sound low-tech, but in my game group, 11% of its three-dozen members were obtained as the direct result of flyers that I distributed in this way.
Turning to the interwebz, there’s many places online to publicize your game group. I’m not just talking about social media sites like Facebook, Google+ or Yahoo Groups (another 4% of members), but also more targeted efforts like submitting your group’s info online to your local newspapers’ event calendars (2% of members), or using BoardGameGeek.com’s “Find Gamers” search tool, or becoming a member of MeetUp.com* (78% of members). Note, MeetUp.com may require monthly fees.
Remember that people may not come from where you expect. I live in between a big city and small town. At first, I focused my efforts on the larger city. Bigger population means more gamers, right? Not necessarily. In my experience, the most active members have come from the smaller town.
Once you’ve found gamers to join your group, you’ll just need to figure out what to do with all these people. We’ll continue there in the next installment. See you then, Dice Towerists! Towerists? Towerotti?!?
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