Midwest Gaming Classic 2005 Help Request
Hey Everyone,
I sort of did this before, but some people only replied on message boards and didn't email me. This post is a modified version of the email that was sent to everyone that did email me. Because I don't want to miss anyone that is interested in helping to bring the Midwest Gaming Classic 2005 to life and improve it, here is an important message:
Hello,
I'm writing this message to anyone who is interested in helping to organize the Midwest Gaming Classic 2005.
As of right now, the future of the Midwest Gaming Classic is still completely up in the air. The reason why the event is up in the air is simple -- there were only four main organizers, and with the amount of work that it took to put the Midwest Gaming Classic together, especially the 2004 event, we have recognized that we are not able to continue to put forth the same amount of time every year in the future. Last year's Midwest Gaming Classic took hours upon hours to put together and run, and with only four people organizing it the task was overwhelming. There wasa period of approximately a month where I was working a job for 40 hours a week, working on the Midwest Gaming Classic for 50 hours a week and trying to keep up with the GOAT Store for another 10 hours a week. With that amount of time commitment, I didn't have much time for myself, and I know that I speak for the other organizers when I say that none of us want to end up in that situation.
To fix the time commitment problem, we have come up with a few things -- the most important of which is the involvement of yourself and others. Each of the tasks in themselves are not too big, and if we could have a few people that worked together on them each, we could put together the event so that it is much better than what the smaller team put together, and it would be more manageable.
If you are interested in helping to organize the possible 2005 Midwest Gaming Classic, please email me at loosen@goatstore.com with the subject line of "Re: Midwest Gaming Classic 2005 Help Request" and answer the questions that I have below. Once we have collected these for a week or two, I will write another email to everyone who replies titled "Midwest Gaming Classic 2005 Update." In that email, I will be updating everyone with how the response has been so far. If the response is strong, we will make a judgement call on how to best move forward. This may or may not mean that the event will occur -- there are some more hurdles to overcome such as funding first -- but it would be a major step in the right direction. If you do not reply to either email, I will not contact you again.
Midwest Gaming Classic 2005 Organizer help survey:
Name:
Address:
City:
State/Country:
Zip/Postal Code:
I have attended (check those which apply):
- Jagfest 2K1: Beyond Tempest
- Midwest Classic 2002
- Midwest Classic 2003
- Midwest Gaming Classic 2004
- Pinball Expo (any years)
- PhillyClassic (any years)
- Classic Gaming Expo (any years)
- Austin Gaming Expo
- Other electronic gaming event (please name any others):
I am most interested in (check those which apply):
- Arcade Games
- Computers
- Home Video Games
- Pinball
- Other - please explain:
Would you be interested in being a team leader? Yes / No
(Note: If the project moves forward, people would be organized into teams with one team leader. The team leader would be the person to divide up the tasks for the group and report progress to Gary and I, who would oversee the entire project. Team leaders should be people who want to lend a bigger hand to the organizing. You do not have to live nearby or even attend the event to be a team leader, but it is preferable. Depending on interest, for some teams, there may be co-team leaders.)
Which of the following teams would you be interested in being a part of. If you see a team that you might be interested in doing a little bit of work for but not a lot, please still mark them. (check all that apply, a short description follows. If you wouldn't mind being a team leader for any particular team, please put a T by it.):
- Sponsorship / Fundraising team - this is the most important team. This team would be responsible for helping to sell sponsorships to corporate sponsors, working to presell tickets and tables and so on. If you are willing to help at all with any part of this, we encourage you to sign up for this.
- Advertising / Promotion team - this team would make judgement calls about how to best promote the MGC. This would include writing articles for publications, asking Web sites to link to the event's Web site, creating new banner advertisements for the Web site, creating and distributing fliers, and other aspects related to promoting the event.
- Web site - the Midwest Gaming Classic Web site was a huge task to put together, and it could still use some major updates. This team would update the Web site regularly with news, graphics, links and so on.
- Arcade team - the arcade team would work hand in hand with the pinball team to bring a full compliment of upright machines to the event. This would include contacting developers, contacting distributors, selling tables, asking individual collectors to bring games to the event and so on. This team would also work on any tournament ideas or special areas.
- Pinball team - same idea as the arcade team, but with pinball.
- Computer team - same idea as the arcade team, but with pinball. This team would also work with companies to attempt to bring a LAN back to the Midwest Gaming Classic. There are certain limitations on who may be contacted about this.
- Video game team - same idea as all of the other teams, but with home consoles.
- Classic Gaming and Computing Museum Team - this team would work on creating a unique museum area of the event.
- Speakers and special events team - this team would work hand in hand with all of the other teams to figure out who would speak, when they would speak and so on. They would also contact people who have spoke in the past and who could speak at the event.
- Location team - this team would assist in picking the location of the event, as well as doing any special preparation work that may need to be done. Due to problems with the Brookfield Sheraton for the 2004 event, we are leaning toward not using them again. The members of this team must be located near Milwaukee.
- Set up and tear down team - this team would work on figuring out the logistics for setting up the event and helping to disassemble the event when it was over.
- Operation team - this team would work on assembling a team to help run ticket sales, security, tournaments and so on.
- Miscellanious team - this team would do odd jobs that popped up from time to time. This could include helping out various teams on big tasks.
Thanks in advance for your response, and we hope that you consider joining the team!
Dan Loosen
The GOAT Store, LLC
http://www.goatstore.com/
email: loosen@goatstore.com
