Further convention technology notes
Sep. 19th, 2020 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petrea_mitchellI didn't attend Dragon Con Online, but kept an eye on it to see if it came up with anything exciting on the online front. Dragon Con's gaming track eventually showed up on Tabletop.Events. It stood out in a weekend of about a dozen conventions as the only one charging for signups. The fees were explained as a way of defraying the costs of... choosing to use Tabletop.Events.
Dragon Con's dealer room was run through Eventeny, which allowed every dealer to set up their own online storefront, if they chose to take the time to list every single product there. For this it charged a total of 7.9% of each sale in fees, though this was offset by Dragon Con not charging its own table fees. And by the realization that dealers could showcase their products on Eventeny and then encourage people to buy directly from their own sites.
Gen Con's first stab at its planned monthly community gaming weekend was also Labor Day weekend. Very little happened, but it happened with the use of RPG Schedule, a combination of a scheduling site and a Discord bot. The Web site authenticates you through Discord; you set up your proposed event there, and then the event is posted in a Discord channel. People can then use emoji reactions to sign up or drop. Very easy to use, recommended, shame that the name suggests that it's only for RPGs.
Hopping back a bit,kevin_standlee talks about Gather Town as used for NASFiC here. Gather is pitched as the answer to the problem of Zoom et al only allowing a single stream of conversation.
I haven't had a chance to try Gather myself yet. I asked around at work if anyone had used it, thinking about building a case for it to be used for a recently started monthly get-together which is a bit too big for Zoom. No one had, but one guy was so intrigued that he set up an instance one night, invited all his friends, and came back the next day singing its praises. So that sounds like another thing to add to your convention toolbox.
Dragon Con's dealer room was run through Eventeny, which allowed every dealer to set up their own online storefront, if they chose to take the time to list every single product there. For this it charged a total of 7.9% of each sale in fees, though this was offset by Dragon Con not charging its own table fees. And by the realization that dealers could showcase their products on Eventeny and then encourage people to buy directly from their own sites.
Gen Con's first stab at its planned monthly community gaming weekend was also Labor Day weekend. Very little happened, but it happened with the use of RPG Schedule, a combination of a scheduling site and a Discord bot. The Web site authenticates you through Discord; you set up your proposed event there, and then the event is posted in a Discord channel. People can then use emoji reactions to sign up or drop. Very easy to use, recommended, shame that the name suggests that it's only for RPGs.
Hopping back a bit,
kevin_standlee talks about Gather Town as used for NASFiC here. Gather is pitched as the answer to the problem of Zoom et al only allowing a single stream of conversation.I haven't had a chance to try Gather myself yet. I asked around at work if anyone had used it, thinking about building a case for it to be used for a recently started monthly get-together which is a bit too big for Zoom. No one had, but one guy was so intrigued that he set up an instance one night, invited all his friends, and came back the next day singing its praises. So that sounds like another thing to add to your convention toolbox.
