The TsunamiCon Kickstarter is always a bit of a nailbiter, and this year has been no different. The campaign closes tomorrow evening, and I am very concerned.
As Kickstarters go, it can be a weird one to run. With a more traditional product, the promotional ramp-up is kind of self-sustaining. You reveal details about the product, discuss new ideas and the production process, provide rewards that engage your community at different levels. And of course offer stretch goals that add cool additional value to the product once you’ve blasted through your funding goals.
Promoting an event, of course, is a little more direct, and your demographic necessarily includes almost entirely people who can be on site at the appointed time. The discovery process is focused largely on more localized geography, and the event itself is pretty well established. I’m promoting the same things every year, with the opportunity to push those boundaries (i.e. renting additional facilities, staffing events, and booking guests) requiring funding far outside our realistic expectations.
So I spend a lot of time focusing on what we do at the con: gaming and game-related activities, a vibrant marketplace for geeks and gamers, panels and live entertainment, and so on. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s a strange animal, a game con… as organizers we don’t really provide most of the content; that comes from the community of game masters, vendors, volunteers, and so forth. Basically, we rent out a big space, hang up banners, organize a small army of volunteers, put together a game library for attendees to check out, book some entertainment and guests when we can, handle licensing and liability issues for a large event, help GMs and organizers find their audience and places at the con, field a ton of questions from the community, and rake in dozens of dollars.
And we do all that because it’s fun. And it is! It’s enormously satisfying, and I spend a good chunk of every year laying down all the prep work for the event. And the team hits the ground running that Friday morning and no one really sleeps for the three days. Giving yourself to a project like this, which means so much to so many people in our community, is a gift.
But I hate this part. So many amazing people turn out to help fund the convention by buying tickets early and grabbing vendor booths, sponsorships and merch… but the cost of doing business is high. We’re at 77% of goal at this exact moment – which means we still need to raise 23% of our entire minimum capital requirement in the next 35 hours.
Like I said… nailbiter.
As always, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of our current backers, to everyone who’s bought in to the con already, to everyone who has taken pains to spread the message. Pledges continue to trickle in, and that’s on you.
The worrying, the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, the no sleeping through the night and struggling to stay focused during the workday while this drama plays out… that’s on me.
Also, my cat got out of the house last night and hasn’t come back. Of course.