Gaming conventions used to be held at Colleges and Universities, I remember the early Ghengis Cons in Denver were all hosted at University of Denver on the South Campus, in the student center. By 1983 that had moved to the downtown UD Campus, and after that, moved to the Holiday Inn Southeast 96? in Aurora, and I think finally to the Red Lion Inn, also in Aurora 2002+

The colleges and universities originally had plenty of meeting space to spare for games, but the conventions moved to larger and larger venues as more people showed up. When they shrunk they weren't for the most part able to move back though because educational institution staff and students that sponsored the shows was no longer at the schools... They had all graduated or retired.

Originally, that's why it cost so little to attend, and why badge fees and table event fees went towards tournament awards, prizes, and SWAG.

Yea, Table Fees are one of the things that I really hate. The three Cons that we have here in Memphis don't have Table Fees, and never will...

A guy out here charges a few bucks a head for regular old LFR sessions. It seems unseemly to me.

When I was 17 I spent a summer as a page at my local library system. While I was officially a page and paid under that job description, what I really did was run a series of AD&D games for children in the summer reading program. I ran sessions on Monday - Thursdays afternoons. Each session was a different group of between 8-12 kids. It was a lot of fun at the time, but now...it would probably drive me homicidal.

I've seen one GM do it at the store a bit over a year ago.  He didn't charge much though, like a dollar or two per person and it was mainly to cover his gas for the day since he lived a bit away.  Evidently he was a pretty good GM and never had a lack of people willing to pay that little bit to play.  After a month or so he stopped gaming at the shop along with a few of the players, figiured they started gaming at one of their homes.

That's all I've ever seen.

If you want to make a bit of money off your RPG hobby, then write a game book.

If you want to make a lot of money, then get yourself hired by a computer gaming company.

Otherwise, don't expect to get paid for your hobby.

RPGPundit

We had a GM once back in college who with work and school basically had no time to run games.  He finally said, "We can play on Saturdays, but I need to charge everyone ten bucks to make up for not working those days."  Considering that back then we played until people started passing out, it was a bargain.  I didn't mind ponying up the cash at all.  He wasn't making a living on it, though.

Quote from: greylond;456946Yea, Table Fees are one of the things that I really hate. The three Cons that we have here in Memphis don't have Table Fees, and never will...

This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Table Fees, and it sounds ridiculous to me that if you've already paid to get in the convention, to get charged a second time at the table.

If every table was like that, I'd go back to Registration and demand my money back. :mad:

Quote from: Novastar;457076This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Table Fees, and it sounds ridiculous to me that if you've already paid to get in the convention, to get charged a second time at the table.

If every table was like that, I'd go back to Registration and demand my money back. :mad:

So you've never gamed to Gencon, Dragoncon, and other major gaming conventions in the past 10 years?  Sorry to hear that.

As I posted in a prior message, I don't mind gaming fees if there are no other activities that are not supported by their own fees, but I do mind the gaming area underwriting the rest of the convention, which is the case at Gencon and Dragoncon.  My personal preference would be to have no gaming fees and to have those activities supported by the badge I have to purchase as well.  If I do have to pay gaming fees, they should represent the cost of prizes and specific materials needed for that area.

At dragoncon, each fan track director gets $300 for expenses for her track.  There are no fees to attend track events and programming.  They are underwritten by the badge fees.  Now if in fact gaming cost more per sq foot per captita than other offerings, there might be justification for table fees.  I've never seen any numbers to support such a view.  Especially when those are compared to the honorariums paid to 2nd tier guests who fill many megacons rather than the headliners who are the advertised draw.

There are premium events that have an additional charge that goes straight to the event organizer like the True Dungeon and BattleTEch pods at Gencon.  It is possible for someone to earn a living if your events are popular enough, your fees are high enough, and you leverage the labor of your game masters.

One year at Gencon someone brought in a set of minatures dungeons where all the characters and monsters were represented by individual minatures in a physical labrynth.  The sessions were 1 hour long compared to the 4-6 hour sessions of the other events.  The gm's ran non-stop the entire con, usually with 12 players per session per gm.  I'd say they were making a profit at least for the weekend, even substracting for badges, hotel fees, food, and travel.  But they were treating it like a business, not a hobby.

Quote from: Novastar;457076This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Table Fees, and it sounds ridiculous to me that if you've already paid to get in the convention, to get charged a second time at the table.

If every table was like that, I'd go back to Registration and demand my money back. :mad:

Yeah, I'm kind of mystified myself here.  I haven't participated in any Con games, and have only been for the Shopper's Pass.

I thought that you had to pay to Registration fees for the convention, and then you had to pay a small fee for each individual game that you registered for during the event.

So, on top of those fees, some GMs are privately charging a table fee too?

Am I understanding this correctly?

Quote from: Drohem;457090Yeah, I'm kind of mystified myself here.  I haven't participated in any Con games, and have only been for the Shopper's Pass.

I thought that you had to pay to Registration fees for the convention, and then you had to pay a small fee for each individual game that you registered for during the event.

So, on top of those fees, some GMs are privately charging a table fee too?

Am I understanding this correctly?

No you pay a registration fee then the con sells game slots. Some of the big game companies, like Pinnacle, take a whole room and then you play for free. When I hosted a game though there wasn't an option to do it for free so I had 6 players each of whom had to buy a $6 ticket. I might have applied wrong or something but the money went to the con and I didn't have a chance to avoid it. I think if I had hosted 3 games I could have got a pass discount but I was running a game for some mates one day already and just didn't fancy it.

Quote from: jibbajibba;457127No you pay a registration fee then the con sells game slots. Some of the big game companies, like Pinnacle, take a whole room and then you play for free. When I hosted a game though there wasn't an option to do it for free so I had 6 players each of whom had to buy a $6 ticket. I might have applied wrong or something but the money went to the con and I didn't have a chance to avoid it. I think if I had hosted 3 games I could have got a pass discount but I was running a game for some mates one day already and just didn't fancy it.

Thanks, Mate.  

I knew about the convention registration and individual game fees, but it sounded like a third fee was being charged by the GMs.

Quote from: Novastar;457076This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Table Fees, and it sounds ridiculous to me that if you've already paid to get in the convention, to get charged a second time at the table.

If every table was like that, I'd go back to Registration and demand my money back. :mad:

This is a common practice and for a good reason.  Usually the fee isn't collected at the table - it's collected upon preregistering for a game. Like with Gen Con, you pay your entry fee and then pay a small fee per game ticket.

It's not about the money - it's about getting only people who are serious to prereg. At Gen Con and other large cons tables fill up months in advance, and they need to know what games are full etc.  If preregging for a given game was free, every game table would show full as soon as the first 6 people registered for the con and signed up for every damn thing "just in case."

It's a well known and understood business method - if you offer an event for free, RSVPs aren't worth crap. And with something like a game con (or tech class, or...) you really need to be able to plan on the numbers.  So you charge a nominal fee, and that weeds out (most) of the rubes. You go from RSVPs being 10% accurate to being 80% accurate.

Are you stating this from actual experience in running a Convention? Not attending Cons, not "I've got friends on staff of a Con", I mean actual experience attending meetings all year long and getting into the details of actual Convention Operations/Budgets. Cause if you don't, then I'd state that you don't know what you are talking about.

 Like I've stated before, I'm on the Board for one Con and I GM/Volunteer at two others here in Memphis. Table Fees are NOT needed for Pregreg numbers of people at tables in my experience. Table Fees are about making money. People look at whether they are going to a Con based on the Registration Fee to get into the Door. Some Cons have a Budget designed on a higher income than what Registrations and Sponsorships give them, therefore they have Table Fees.

Conventions have a set amount of expenses that they are willing to pay out, Operations/Security/Infrastructure, Guests, Special Events/Tournies, and other giveaways. Our Con is small but we have actively analysed the benefits of having Table Fees which would, on paper looks like it increases your income flow but you have to take into account your customer base and how many attendees you will lose vs how much money is actually realized. The Big Cons, DragonCon, GenCon and Origins, can get away with Table Fees because they are the Big Ones. They know that they have most of the Gaming Industry Professionals attending to push their latest product, that alone draws in enough people. Plus the Big Cons have the big game clubs attending.

Smaller Cons don't have some of those factors that lead to higher attendance so we have to be more aware of how many customers will or will not attend based on Registration Fees and possible Table Fees.

Quote from: mxyzplk;457184This is a common practice and for a good reason.  Usually the fee isn't collected at the table - it's collected upon preregistering for a game. Like with Gen Con, you pay your entry fee and then pay a small fee per game ticket.

It's not about the money - it's about getting only people who are serious to prereg. At Gen Con and other large cons tables fill up months in advance, and they need to know what games are full etc.  If preregging for a given game was free, every game table would show full as soon as the first 6 people registered for the con and signed up for every damn thing "just in case."

It's a well known and understood business method - if you offer an event for free, RSVPs aren't worth crap. And with something like a game con (or tech class, or...) you really need to be able to plan on the numbers.  So you charge a nominal fee, and that weeds out (most) of the rubes. You go from RSVPs being 10% accurate to being 80% accurate.

If that was actually the case, then they would either refund the money to the attendees after they actually attended, or give it to the gm. $6 a session is not a nominal fee.  I spend more on event fees than badge fees.  Also, when there are no-shows at GENCON, those with generic tickets trying to get a seat at the table still have to pay the full amount.  No, the fees are for making money these days.