hey, scale-planners! this is my first post. i'm not even sure who all is on this list....i'm a SCaLE volunteer and one of my responsibilities this year was filling up the Hilton Plaza Ballroom with fun. (it was a dreadful task, but you know, *someone's* got to do it. ;-)
in case you missed it, i'm talking about the laser tag/game room downstairs that started after Weakest Geek. i'd like to ask all of you for feedback on how you think this year's event went. all comments are welcome: best and worst aspects, etc. and secondly, please share any suggestions you have for next year.
there are things i'd like sure to see done better. and there are new activities i think we could try. but i had so much say already in what went on this year, i'd like to see everyone else ideas first.
ah, and remember, next year is our 10th anniversary.
...lori
Lori, et al,
My battery was run down before your show. Thank you for doing that show. Thank you for your labor force you recruited.
Ev Batey / Skype: wa6cre-10 / efbatey@gmail.com or lioneverett@gmail.com or efbarc@cotdazr.org or wa6cre@rabbitradio.org (805) 616-2471 / Twitter.: efbatey / CrisisLinks http://bit.ly/cw95Um
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Lori Barfield itdirector@gmail.com wrote:
hey, scale-planners! this is my first post. i'm not even sure who all is on this list....i'm a SCaLE volunteer and one of my responsibilities this year was filling up the Hilton Plaza Ballroom with fun. (it was a dreadful task, but you know, *someone's* got to do it. ;-)
in case you missed it, i'm talking about the laser tag/game room downstairs that started after Weakest Geek. i'd like to ask all of you for feedback on how you think this year's event went. all comments are welcome: best and worst aspects, etc. and secondly, please share any suggestions you have for next year.
there are things i'd like sure to see done better. and there are new activities i think we could try. but i had so much say already in what went on this year, i'd like to see everyone else ideas first.
ah, and remember, next year is our 10th anniversary.
...lori _______________________________________________ Scale-planning mailing list Scale-planning@mail.socallinuxexpo.org http://mail.socallinuxexpo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Ev Batey WA6CRE-Gm wa6cre@cotdazr.org wrote:
Lori, et al,
My battery was run down before your show. Thank you for doing that show. Thank you for your labor force you recruited.
thank you, ev.
i am really grateful for all the volunteers who spent the day downstairs to set things up. i confess the younger part of the labor force was forced labor. :-) the ones i didn't give birth to myself all belonged to mike maki. they were pretty happy with t-shirts and coffee mugs and other swag. :-)
have any suggestions for next year?
...lori
Signs. Obviously we needed tons and tons of signs so people could find the place.
As to the actual event itself, overall I was very happy with it. However, that's not terribly useful feedback, so in the interest of providing feedback, I'm going to be bit picky here. Take it with a grain of salt, because they're really not complaints, I enjoyed it!
My least favorite was the mini-airhockey tables. This may just be because I have a deep love of airhockey, but it was _very_ difficult to play on those tables. And I don't mean "have a serious game" I just mean casually play. The small table was a minor problem, the pucks getting stuck under the mid-court things, and teeny-tiny um, thing you hold to hit the puck.. was really hard to hold. I heard this from the 2 other people I know who tried as well.
Laser tag would have been significantly better without all the mirrors. I'm fairly certain just pointing at random surfaces was enough to kill people. The quality of the laser tag system, was admittedly a bit low, but I think that's not unreasonable for portable laser tag. This was frustrating for several people.
I didn't play the Wii setup, but heard good things.
Overall, I would call it a huge success and I had a lot of fun. I look forward to what happens when you have more than 2 weeks to prepare. :)
Email garden. I couldn't find it this year.
________________________________ From: Phil Dibowitz phil@ipom.com To: SCALE Planning List scale-planning@maggie.socallinuxexpo.org Sent: Mon, March 14, 2011 9:34:38 PM Subject: Re: [Scale-planning] next year's ballroom bash
Signs. Obviously we needed tons and tons of signs so people could find the place.
As to the actual event itself, overall I was very happy with it. However, that's not terribly useful feedback, so in the interest of providing feedback, I'm going to be bit picky here. Take it with a grain of salt, because they're really not complaints, I enjoyed it!
My least favorite was the mini-airhockey tables. This may just be because I have a deep love of airhockey, but it was _very_ difficult to play on those tables. And I don't mean "have a serious game" I just mean casually play. The small table was a minor problem, the pucks getting stuck under the mid-court things, and teeny-tiny um, thing you hold to hit the puck.. was really hard to hold. I heard this from the 2 other people I know who tried as well.
Laser tag would have been significantly better without all the mirrors. I'm fairly certain just pointing at random surfaces was enough to kill people. The quality of the laser tag system, was admittedly a bit low, but I think that's not unreasonable for portable laser tag. This was frustrating for several people.
I didn't play the Wii setup, but heard good things.
Overall, I would call it a huge success and I had a lot of fun. I look forward to what happens when you have more than 2 weeks to prepare. :)
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:54:17AM -0700, Scott Neugroschl wrote:
Email garden. I couldn't find it this year.
Folks, please don't hijack Lori's thread.
We[1] welcome your suggestions for all parts of SCALE. The best way for us to aggregate feedback is through the survey for which you had a URL on your badge and there's also a link on the site. The staff spends a lot of time on the signals we get from these surveys.
If you have something that doesn't fit in that survey or you prefer to use email, this list is certainly a great place to let us know. However, please start a thread. Lori's trying to get feedback specific to the Saturday evening game night in the ballroom on this thread. Let's help her out by letting the stuff on this thread be relevant to her question.
Thanks!
[1] I'm using "we" a bit liberally here, I'm no longer an active staff member.
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Phil Dibowitz phil@ipom.com wrote:
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:54:17AM -0700, Scott Neugroschl wrote:
Email garden. I couldn't find it this year.
Folks, please don't hijack Lori's thread.
i appreciate having focus in this thread, and would like to echo phil's suggestion. feedback is critical, scott, so for the formal features of SCaLE, please fill out the survey form and make your perspective known.
that said, i will point out that stu's team set up wifi for the party and some people did take advantage of it.
there was one suggestion for a SCaLE "kiosk" downstairs, meaning some place where partiers could look up the latest schedule to plan the next day. opinions?
...lori
Thanks, Orv.
________________________________ From: Orv Beach orv@socallinuxexpo.org To: SCALE Planning List scale-planning@maggie.socallinuxexpo.org Sent: Wed, March 16, 2011 12:11:14 PM Subject: Re: [Scale-planning] next year's ballroom bash
We discussed that in the post-SCALE chairs meeting. We'll see what we can do.
Orv
On 03/16/2011 10:54 AM, Scott Neugroschl wrote:
Email garden. I couldn't find it this year.
[SNIP] _______________________________________________ Scale-planning mailing list Scale-planning@mail.socallinuxexpo.org http://mail.socallinuxexpo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:34 PM, Phil Dibowitz phil@ipom.com wrote:
Signs. Obviously we needed tons and tons of signs so people could find the place.
so noted.
As to the actual event itself, overall I was very happy with it. However, that's not terribly useful feedback, so in the interest of providing feedback, I'm going to be bit picky here. Take it with a grain of salt, because they're really not complaints, I enjoyed it!
thanks, i enjoyed it, too. :-) but without a critique, how can we have even more fun next year?
My least favorite was the mini-airhockey tables. This may just be because I have a deep love of airhockey, but it was _very_ difficult to play on those tables. And I don't mean "have a serious game" I just mean casually play. The small table was a minor problem, the pucks getting stuck under the mid-court things, and teeny-tiny um, thing you hold to hit the puck.. was really hard to hold. I heard this from the 2 other people I know who tried as well.
yup. played quite a bit of mini air hockey myself.
i confess, we just set those up as an inexpensive way to add atmosphere and give folks something to do while waiting to play laser tag. the plink-plink of the ping pong ball and the chuck-chuck chuck-chuck of the hockey pucks really did add energy to the room. but if we actually have bona fide air hockey aficionados in the group, let's do it right. next year we'll look at the cost for renting full size air hockey and foozeball. we certainly have the space!
Laser tag would have been significantly better without all the mirrors. I'm fairly certain just pointing at random surfaces was enough to kill people. The quality of the laser tag system, was admittedly a bit low, but I think that's not unreasonable for portable laser tag. This was frustrating for several people.
to be honest, i thought the mirrors would make laser tag more unpredictable and fun, especially for inexperienced geeks who would normally be at a disadvantage. however, we discovered that laser taggers know that the reflection from simply shooting at a wall will cause a kill. :-/ (this explains why arenas always have black walls.) so it isn't a perfectly competitive indoor party game. but i think it was still a hit. after the announcement was made, i like the buzz that it created even among the non-players. and even the hilton staff were excited about it.
I didn't play the Wii setup, but heard good things.
based on how busy the systems were, and the atmosphere it created, i believe we can call it a success. i especially appreciated how hard the guys from Games2U worked. after getting the games up and running, brian set up music in the laser tag room for us for free. then they kept both game systems going strong all night long (though btw, we only paid for one). everyone who needed to learn how to play got special attention, which i think reached out well to some SCaLE spouses. and whenever there was a gap, those two gents kept things going constantly....often by playing that dance game with my 9 yr old daughter, sara. as my son pointed out, it was hilarious seeing that big guy dance against her. he was such a good sport and never stopped smiling all night.
Overall, I would call it a huge success and I had a lot of fun. I look forward to what happens when you have more than 2 weeks to prepare. :)
again, thanks. i had a lot of fun, too. with all this time to get input from the community and the rest of the volunteers, the party will be full of newness next year.
...lori
On Monday 14 March 2011, Lori Barfield wrote:
... have any suggestions for next year?
How about voting for the best swag of the expo?
Most useful: power strip or insulated cup Most interesting: ball that changes color Best giveaway: HP netbook?
...
Then pull a ticket from the winning item and the person can win something (like the item if you can get them from the vendors).
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Ken scalezz@kemasa.com wrote:
How about voting for the best swag of the expo?
Most useful: power strip or insulated cup Most interesting: ball that changes color Best giveaway: HP netbook?
...
Then pull a ticket from the winning item and the person can win something (like the item if you can get them from the vendors).
i like this idea. perhaps if we do any raffles, however, we shouldn't announce that ahead of time. at the wrapup meeting of the Chairs, we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of doing raffles in a room with other activities. one downside is that the room becomes crowded with people who are only there to get prizes, and aren't participating. we found that during Weakest Geek this year, people on the perimeter were doing their own thing and talking loudly over the action on stage, making it hard to hear.
thanks for the suggestion. more to follow, i hope. :-) and thanks for the support this year, kemasa.
...lori
On Thursday 17 March 2011, Lori Barfield wrote:
... i like this idea. perhaps if we do any raffles, however, we shouldn't announce that ahead of time.
It depends. The reason I mentioned it is to get people there. Once you get people there, they will participate in the various games there. Yes, there are some that will come just for the raffle, but if you spread it out, those people will either play or leave. The reason for it is to draw people in, the other things to do in the room will keep them there (at least some).
at the wrapup meeting of the Chairs, we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of doing raffles in a room with other activities. one downside is that the room becomes crowded with people who are only there to get prizes, and aren't participating. we found that during Weakest Geek this year, people on the perimeter were doing their own thing and talking loudly over the action on stage, making it hard to hear.
Yes, in that case a raffle should not be in that room. In a game room, it is different. The raffle and other activity has to be compatible.
thanks for the suggestion. more to follow, i hope. :-) and thanks for the support this year, kemasa.
You are welcome.
scale-planning@lists.linuxfests.org
-
Ev Batey WA6CRE-Gm -
Ken -
Lori Barfield -
Orv Beach -
Phil Dibowitz -
Scott Neugroschl